Boeing Co yesterday bade farewell to an icon when it delivered its final 747 jumbo jet — the 1,574th 747 plane built in the Puget Sound region of Washington state.
Since its first flight in 1969, the giant yet graceful 747 has served as a cargo plane, a commercial aircraft capable of carrying nearly 500 passengers, a transport for NASA’s space shuttles and the Air Force One presidential aircraft. It revolutionized travel, connecting international cities that had never before had direct routes and helping democratize passenger flight.
However, over about the past 15 years, Boeing and European rival Airbus SE have introduced more profitable and fuel-efficient wide-body planes, with only two engines to maintain instead of the 747’s four.
Photo: AP
A big crowd of current and former Boeing workers was expected for the final send-off. The last 747 jet was being delivered to cargo carrier Atlas Air Inc, which ordered four 747-8 freighters last year, with the final one leaving the factory yesterday.
“If you love this business, you have been dreading this moment,” longtime aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia said. “Nobody wants a four-engine airliner anymore, but that does not erase the tremendous contribution the aircraft made to the development of the industry or its remarkable legacy.”
It took more than 50,000 Boeing workers less than 16 months to churn out the first 747. The plane’s fuselage was 68.5m long and the tail stood as tall as a six-story building. The plane’s design included a second deck extending from the cockpit back over the first third of the plane, giving it a distinctive hump and inspiring a nickname, the Whale. More romantically, the 747 became known as the Queen of the Skies.
“It was the first big carrier, the first wide-body, so it set a new standard for airlines to figure out what to do with it, and how to fill it,” said Guillaume de Syon, a history professor at Pennsylvania’s Albright College who specializes in aviation and mobility.
“It became the essence of mass air travel: You could not fill it with people paying full price, so you need to lower prices to get people onboard. It contributed to what happened in the late 1970s with the deregulation of air travel,” De Syon said.
“Even people like me could go see Asia,” Aboulafia said. “Before, you had to stop for fuel in Alaska or Hawaii and it cost a lot more. This was a straight shot — and reasonably priced.”
Delta was the last US airline to use the 747 for passenger flights, which ended in 2017, although some other international carriers continue to fly it, including the German airline Lufthansa.
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