Big day at LAX for the Boeing 787

United has been flying the Dreamliner from L.A. to Houston for several weeks, and today service begins to Tokyo Narita. Also today, LAN Airlines launches nonstop 787 service from L.A. to Santiago, Chile. Both carriers are banking heavily on the twin-engine plane, which is built with lighter-weight composite materials and consumes 20 percent less fuel than a similarly-sized aircraft. The plane, however, has also been plagued with production delays and even now is undergoing safety checks after the failure of an electrical generator last month. United, which ordered 50 787s, has delayed the launch of flights between Houston and Lagos, providing more time to work out the bugs. Today's flight to Tokyo had been scheduled. It's normal for a new aircraft to experience problems, but this one has faced years of production delays - largely because so much of the plane's design is innovative, and innovations take time to smooth out. Anyway, the 787 is expected to be used a lot out of LAX for international flights in order to save on fuel.