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Boeing’s last 747 is rolling out of the factory
- rottencupcakes 4y agoHard not to feel nostalgic, as most of us on this forum probably associate the 747 with international air travel. However time marches on, and it’s also nice to notice how much nicer and quieter the 787 and A350 are, not to mention more efficient.
- justinator 4y agoI think I associate it with the film, Snakes on a Plane.
- malermeister 4y agoI miss A380s, to me they were the golden age of international travel. No other plane is quite as smooth!
- midoridensha 4y agoThey haven't gone anywhere. ANA has a bunch of them.
- malermeister 4y agoA lot of them are gone already and no new ones are being made :-(
- lobochrome 4y agoANA flies them exclusively between Hawaii and Japan with a fleet of 4 A380s. If you want to fly the A380 – Emirates is your friend, with over 80% of the fleet under operation (100+ planes). If you want to fly 747 - Lufthansa is your friend as the sole operator of the passenger version 747-8. Business on the upper deck is a delight in that plane, especially the window seat.
- VBprogrammer 4y agoWe flew to Heathrow to Dubai on our first leg to Thailand last week and I was again struck by just how little like flying the experience is. Even the acceleration down the runway doesn't feel dramatic in the same way (I imagine it's a bit slower than a A320 for a start). You don't even feel the expansion joints in the runway. We flew our second leg in a 777 and it was noticeably louder and more airplane like. The very first one was on one of their newest A380s which even let you pair my Bose Quiet Comforts with the in flight entertainment system over Bluetooth. That really was the dream.
- gsnedders 4y ago> Lufthansa is your friend as the sole operator of the passenger version 747-8 Korean Air and Air China also operate the type, but Lufthansa does fly more than half of the 747-8I production, excluding VIP-configured aircraft.
- lobochrome 4y agoI didn't know that - thank you. I'm exclusive to LH, NH & UA - which shows my bias, maybe.
- romski 4y agoGood thing they will be flying for the next 25 years!
- TillE 4y agoThey're so quiet, and relatively comfortable. For years I've gone out of my way to take the A380 between JFK and CDG, because it's the only way to fly transatlantic in economy without it being a complete misery. I sort of understand the economics of why they don't work for shorter routes, but those long flights are still extremely necessary, and everything else is godawful.
- switch007 4y agoEmirates A380 every sector from UK to Oz and back in 2015 was a huge highlight of travel for me. They hadn’t done any obvious cost cutting and we got proper menus and silverware in economy. It was such a smooth flight and all the space on board to walk and stretch was fantastic.
- silisili 4y agoAs a tall person, I miss the 747s if for nothing else the stairway area where you could stand and even walk around. They sure made sure to get rid of that nicety.
- VeninVidiaVicii 4y agoAs a slightly above average height 6’1”, I’m finding it harder and harder to fit in most planes lately. Are they putting the seats closer together or something?
- tjohns 4y agoIn general... yes, they very much are. "Seat pitch" is the term you're looking for, and the airlines have been steadily reducing the seat pitch over the last ~decade to squeeze in an extra few rows. Some airlines are notably worse than others. Spirit and Frontier, in particular. https://www.businessinsider.com/airline-seats-shrunk-over-time-coach-flight-travel-2017-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/airline-seats-shrunk-over-ti...
- adgjlsfhk1 4y agoit depends a lot on the airline. Also premium economy vs regular economy (in the US at least)
- wahern 4y agoAFAIU, only a handful of major airlines are (partial) exceptions to the unrelenting trend of packing in more seats, decreasing both seat width and especially seat pitch. None of those airlines are in the U.S. I believe at least one is a Japanese carrier. Occasionally you hear about cabin layouts that provide more width and/or pitch, but these never come close to recovering the space that has been lost over the past 20 years. Airlines don't announce space reductions, after all. For them it's always quietly 3 steps ahead (less space), loudly 1 step back ("roomier" seats). Recently I read that Airbus was developing a revision to the A350 that would permit adding an entire additional row. Airbus had to do this because not only does the 777X support 10-abreast layout, but most customers have long moved to 10-abreast layout in the older 777 despite the 777 never being designed for 10-abreast. In fact, IIRC 1 or 2 major A350 operators had already moved to 10-abreast on the existing models, but they may be pushing the regulatory envelope, thus the need for Airbus to cooperate with some redesign work. I've generally preferred Airbus planes. For reasons I never really understood (perhaps by mere coincidence of their design process, coincidences in evolutions in cabin construction material, or maybe deliberate design by Airbus), economy coach layouts typically provided anywhere from 1/2 to 2+ more inches of seat width relative to the comparable Boeing plane and cabin. A Boeing 737 or 737MAX with even the newest cabin construction technology is always going to be a tighter squeeze (at least width-wise) than an Airbus A320, for example. Coach layouts for the A350 are likely going to shift from being some of the best to some of the worst in long-haul travel as the additional row comes half from accommodating thinner walls, and half from seats with less width. Same thing happened with the 777: when it first entered service it was one of the roomiest; now with 10 rows, and especially when invariably combined with reduced seat pitch (which I personally don't care quite as much about as others) it's soul crushing--metaphorically, figuratively, literally, actually, physically, all of the above.
- rayiner 4y agoI find the 787 a downgrade from the 747 or 777. The 787 is noticeably smaller and lighter which makes for a less smooth and solid-feeling ride in turbulence. Whenever I fly International I try to look for a 747 or 777.
- pb7 4y agoThe 787 simulates a much lower altitude and has more humid air I believe which makes recovering from long flights much easier in my experience. I look forward to the 777X which has the features of the 787 with the space of a 777.
- selectodude 4y agoI finally was able to snag a ride on a 787 a few days ago. Was floored at how quiet and comfortable it was. Made the 777 seem positively dated.
- EamonnMR 4y ago747 was synonymous with big jet aircraft when I was a kid.
- dclowd9901 4y agoI think I’ve flown on a 747 maybe once in my life in a cross-US flight from LA to Florida. I remember being completely dazzled by the sheer number of people on the plane. Recently I flew back from Europe on a 787 and that too was a wonderful experience. The plane feels like the future and was so comfortable and nice to be on.
- kilroy123 4y agoYou think so? I would guess not. I'm in my late 30s. I only remember flying in one twice, and I fly way more than the average person. I'm going to assume many people here have never flown on one.
- avidphantasm 4y agoAgree with this. Flew to Australia in 2015 on a 777. The return flight was on a 787. The increased air pressure and higher humidity made a huge difference in comfort and fatigue.
- teewuane 4y agoIt's still a life goal of mine to ride on a 747.
- FireBeyond 4y agoYour best bet is Lufthansa for that.
- CommieBobDole 4y agoBetter hurry, then. Looks like your best bets at this point are Korean Air or Lufthansa.
- midoridensha 4y agoThe A380 is better, and they're still in service as passenger aircraft.
- chazeon 4y agoSame here. 747s are everywhere in the literature I grew up with. They are also in news, games and films. But when I actually grown up, the time of those planes have lapsed. Now due to visa limitations, I am even harder to travel internationally, not to say to choose a specific plane to fly on.
- jandrese 4y agoIt's the hump. That one little detail makes the plane iconic and memorable.
- dehrmann 4y agoMy first ride was in a middle seat towards the back for a 10-hour flight. I don't recommend it as a bucket list item.
- pram 4y agoI rode one on an international flight in 2007 that seemed like pristine stock from the 70s. Still had a weird lounge on the second floor, and those awful headphones that are just like piped-in music. The seats still had the little ash trays in the armrest too. Quite an experience! EDIT: heres what those headphones look like, they're literally just tubes that carry the sound from a tiny speaker in the armrest: https://static.flight-report.com/media/photos/jRkTcB8Xr0/IMG_1623a.jpg https://static.flight-report.com/media/photos/jRkTcB8Xr0/IMG...
- Vecr 4y agoArchive: https://archive.ph/X18JY https://archive.ph/X18JY
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- duxup 4y agoVery interesting how the 747 seemed to fit both passenger and cargo roles for so long.
- Victerius 4y agoThe C-130 Hercules platform says "Hello there!"
- mnholt 4y agoMy passenger experience on a C-130 makes me believe they are optimized for cargo :)
- remarkEon 4y agoI've actually never landed in a C-130. Taken off a bunch of times though :).
- duxup 4y agoI feel like the commercial market is a bit different ;)
- Victerius 4y agoI want to bring my family with me on a two week summer trip to Hawaii onboard a military C-130.
- alexanderchr 4y agoBoeing designed the plane to be easily convertible to a freighter because they expected the market for subsonic passenger travel to vanish during its lifetime. Sadly they didn’t get that one right but helps explain why it has done quite well as a freighter. For example the hump allows it to be loaded from the nose.
- duxup 4y agoI didn't know the reasoning. Very interesting. Kinda the opposite of the Airbus situation where they banked on a mostly single use plane plane that was all about moving a large volume of passengers a long distance and instead smaller planes took over and the plane was of little use beyond passengers.
- rafale 4y agoI flew on the second floor of a 747. It felt posh for some reason. Also the flight was super smooth. I suppose its weight and sheer size helps with that.
- ddhhyy 4y agoOn most airlines the upper deck was originally used as lounge space, and then later for first/business class, which may have helped with the poshness you experienced. In the early-mid 2010s I was fortunate to fly several times on the upper deck of an EVA Air 747 (SEA–TPE). On these planes, the upper deck was regular economy in a 3x3 configuration. It felt like a miniature 737 inside the huge 747, cozy in its own strange way. They also provided slippers and the window seats had a fun shelf/storage space, making it feel all the more special.
- nikau 4y agoQantas apparently had an unofficial 'no kids' policy for the upstairs business seats. Also the storage bins along the walls due to the sharp angle were awesome if you had a window seat.
- eastdakota 4y agoMy favorite seat was actually on the lower level. The furthest forward window seat on either side (usually 1A or 1K) was unique. It’s directly below the cockpit and the fuselage is curved at that point so you get the almost pilot-like view out the window of facing forward. https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Lufthansa/Lufthansa_Boeing_747_8_V3.php https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Lufthansa/Lufthansa_Boeing...
- moffkalast 4y agoFound a video of it and you can actually see the entire runway when landing, amazing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbhyHpQa-_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbhyHpQa-_E
- andrewflnr 4y agoI saw one up close and personal for the first time recently, and was caught off guard by just how genuinely huge it is. I kind of expect things like "famously huge X" to be a disappointment in real life, but no, I was viscerally reminded that it's (at least!) a three-story building on wheels, and that's not even counting the extra story or so of space beneath it as it rolls. My younger airplane-obsessed self would have been pleased. Hopefully an air museum or three picks one up before they all go out of service.
- evo 4y agoI believe the Museum of Flight in Seattle has had the original production 747 for some time. https://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/boeing-747-121 https://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/boeing-747-121
- lph 4y agoIndeed they do, the "City of Everett". You can walk around inside. Boeing used it as a test bed for various experiments. The Museum of Flight is really a gem. Boeing used to offer tours of the 747 factory. It's immense. I wonder if they're spinning up a different manufacturing line in that building?
- briffle 4y agoSouth of Portland is the evergreen air and space museum. They have the spruce goose in there, it's huge. The water park next door has an old 747 mounted on the roof, and I'd the start of 6 water slides. https://www.wingsandwaveswaterpark.com/ https://www.wingsandwaveswaterpark.com/
- dclowd9901 4y agoThat place is cool! Such a weird spot to put such famous flying craft but damned if it isn’t worth the drive.
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- pcurve 4y agocan you believe only 1500+ units have been made?
- FabHK 4y agoAnd there have been 60+ hull losses, so one out of every 25 has been lost.
- stevehawk 4y agoMakes it sound like they're falling out of the sky. Some of those are as simple as "a hurricane damaged it while it was parked."
- eastbound 4y agoExactly 1574 = 787 x 2. Meanwhile during MCAS affair, 400 units of 737 Max 8 were stuck to the ground and 300 more were in production if I remember correctly, which shows we were producing the old 747 at a much slower pace.
- moffkalast 4y agoWith a million more well on the way.
- walrus01 4y agoMeanwhile, the longest scheduled nonstop airline flights of 13,000 to 14,000 km are all operated with large twin engine aircraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_flights#Scheduled_services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_flights#Scheduled_serv...
- walrus01 4y agoIf anyone wants to buy a piece of a Boeing 747-400, this parting-out operator at a boneyard in California has a lot of stuff: https://whaletailsales.com/ https://whaletailsales.com/
- moffkalast 4y agohttps://whaletailsales.com/products/747-400-cowl-single?_pos=4&_sid=db537be6f&_ss=r https://whaletailsales.com/products/747-400-cowl-single?_pos... Haha, an entire engine cowl for 1.5k. I wonder how much shipping costs.
- walrus01 4y agoProbably quite a lot, the size is way too big for a standard pallet as LTL freight, so it would have to come by flatbed truck with a built-in small delivery crane, if you don't have your own huge forklift to get it off.
- pfdietz 4y agoThe ability of the cargo version of the 747 to swing up the nose (that's why the cockpit is in the bulge on the top) will be missed. Cargo versions of currently produced airliners will not be capable of doing this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VZO8Lt78Go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VZO8Lt78Go
- rob74 4y agoActually, if you look at the graph in the article, you will see that the 747 would have probably been cancelled around 2006 already if it weren't for the freighter variants. From 2006 to 2012 they only delivered freighters.
- nnoitra 4y ago
- fijiaarone 4y agoSoon we will scoff at the idea that man should ever have flown.
- cookiengineer 4y agoI think that there's a lot of potential for ground effect vehicles/planes for island nations; as they're more easily scalable and still in the weight range of being feasible to work with electric motors as well. As an example, the Fischer Airfish AF-8 can transport up to 8 passengers (+2 pilots) [1]. They're whitelabelled as Wigetworks Airfish around the Singaporean area [2]. The concept of the plane/boat hybrid is as old as 1997, which is kind of ridiculous [3]. [1] (German) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_Airfish_AF-8 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_Airfish_AF-8 [2] https://www.wigetworks.com/airfish-8 https://www.wigetworks.com/airfish-8 [3] (German) https://www.fischer-flugmechanik.com/site/index.php?menu=realized_airfish8 https://www.fischer-flugmechanik.com/site/index.php?menu=rea...
- jaclaz 4y agoA related (past) thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32148657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32148657 but I believe that weather conditions limit greatly their use in many places.
- FabHK 4y agoI sure hope not. Look, the problem is pollution of the environment due to dirty energy. Energy per se is not a problem, but the solution to many problems.
- marvin 4y agoWe won't. Hopefully we'll soon fly sustainably though, by sequestering CO2 equivalent to the flight emissions.
- harry8 4y agoIMHO the 747 is the tech that changed australia more than any other post the shock of european colonisation, conquest, settlement, whatever you want to call that. The world suddenly got a lot smaller and closer. Visiting foreign lands became a thing accessible to a vastly larger proportion of the population and that was all most needed to get out there and see some of it. Closely followed by satellite comms, then fibre, then the web & consumer internet. (Skype and its ilk). The A380 is great and drew a crowd for its first landing in aus. Somehow its still not a Jumbo Jet for all that it is even bigger. Which areoplane is winning the kilogram kilometers per Litre of jet fuel for long haul nowadays?
- jabl 4y ago> Which areoplane is winning the kilogram kilometers per Litre of jet fuel for long haul nowadays? Pretty sure it would be A350, or B787, or one of the latest gen updated B777's. Basically stick the latest generation biggest super high bypass turbofans on a modern body with lots of composite construction to minimize weight.
- sbradford26 4y agoSoon the 777x will be out which should be the one to beat then. Last I saw they were running into some issues with the GE9x engines which are massive.
- a-dub 4y agothis is a little surreal. one of the first aircraft i ever flew on was a 747. in the 80s and 90s if you were on a long haul 6+ hour flight, it was likely a 747 (if not an L1011 or 767). it was notable for me personally as it was one of the most advanced feats of human ingenuity and engineering that i was able to get close to. notably in the early 90s virgin atlantic was one of the first airlines to offer personal seatback video screens in economy on their 747s. the screens were backlit color lcd (similar to atari lynx), about 3.5" in diameter and had 6 or so channels that were on a four hour loop. edit: here's a link to an image of one for the curious. wild how far we've come. https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1d5qij/virgin_atlantic_inflight_entertainment_system/ https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1d5qij/virgin_atl... it's a bit sad to see the program end, as it sort of marks the end of an era where the engineering feat of putting something that large in the sky was prized. i suppose that focusing on operating efficiency and environmental sustainability are far more important, but it's hard to not be nostalgic for the long running engineering triumphs of the jet age.
- adunk 4y agoAccording to the article, they built a total of 1574 planes. This number happens to be equal to 2 * 787. The significance of this would be that 787 is also the model number of one of Boeings current generation jetliner, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. I, as a small-time-wannabe number nerd and small-time-wannabe airplane nerd, reacted positively when I happened to see this connection. I have no idea if there is any intent behind this specific number of produced planes, but I suspect that there would be people at Boeing who feel the same kind of mild satisfaction as I did when I saw the number of aircraft produced.
- deepGem 4y agoI was fortunate enough to travel in a Lufthansa 747. I have never felt so joyously overwhelmed by any other vehicle. The newer A350s and A380s unfortunately don’t carry the same appeal for me personally. The A380 looks real ugly for me resembling the beluga. 747 looks beautiful, majestic and aesthetically very pleasing. Sad to see this plane approaching the end of its life.
- phreeza 4y agoWhat blows my mind is that the grand ocean liners (Four Funnel Liners, like the Titanic) were all built over a span of 25 years. So the jet age is already at least twice as long as the era of production of those great steam ships was.
- esskay 4y agoI used to fly over to the US a couple of times a year for family holidays (from the UK) and almost always went on a 747, the difference in comfort was massive. We often flew with a small little airline called 'Travel City Direct' who have since been merged into Virgin Atlantic. They leased two 747's from a charter company, one of them was all dolled up in their own livery, the other was just white and a looked super ropey on the outside...but inside it was still night and day a better experience than anything else. We were fortunate enough to be in the 'bubble' on that one so had a great upstairs view - it was still only economy, but felt more like premium. I later found out that the blank white plane we flew on so many times ended its days as the white 747 you used to see at Dunsfold - where Top Gear is filmed. Yep, that 747. The one they modified and used in the 007 film Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace to be the Skyfleet S570.
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- throwaheyy 4y agoI like the A380 because it’s so quiet and smooth, but if I had to deal with the 747 noise I had a soft spot for the Rolls-Royce RB211 engine like Qantas used on their 747-400 non-ERs. The triple stage turbofan spool-up sounded and felt awesome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx-xfwxbpwE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx-xfwxbpwE
- gsnedders 4y agoHave you flown on a 747-8I? I remember that being roughly comparable to a A380 in noise-terms, but definitely _vastly_ quieter than a 747-400.
- throwaheyy 4y agoI have not, probably won’t get a chance to either as I think only two airlines are flying them.
- cm2187 4y agoThe irony being that because air traffic keeps increasing and airport capacity doesn't (in term of runways), those cancelled jumbo jets (B747, A380) will be needed again in a few years.
- rob74 4y agoThat's what Airbus thought too when they gave the A380 the go-ahead. Turns out they were wrong - the airlines moved towards a system with more direct flights and less "hub and spoke" connections, which makes it difficult to fill the largest widebodies. Instead they need more but smaller widebodies for the direct connections.
- cm2187 4y agoUnderstood. But again as traffic increases, those direct flights will themselves become a bottleneck, and there are so many fights you can run through a runway (with most major airports already at full capacity pre-covid). So at one point those planes will need to be bigger.
- rconti 4y agoIn previous posts where the 747 has come up, I've been able to say that I once flew top deck on a 747 and what a privilege it was to do so before it ended service with U.S. carriers, not knowing how close I was to missing that chance forever. And here I am, sitting in Berlin, reading this article about the last 747, happy in the knowledge that I will once again fly on the top deck of a 747 in exactly a week. Lufthansa's still flying them, and I could not pass up the $500 upgrade for the flight home. I'll make sure to savor every moment.
- encoderer 4y agoWow I didn’t know that. That’s the best seat in public aviation.
- selimthegrim 4y agoStrange they’re not counting the two pending Air Force One deliveries
- hestefisk 4y agoPerhaps because they are not considered commercial flights and might be quite bespoke?
- buildsjets 4y agoThose airframes were originally intended for delivery to a defunct Russian cargo airline. They were completed and rolled out of the factory years ago, sat in storage for a long time, and have already delivered from Boeing Commercial Airplanes to their initial customer, Boeing Defense, Space & Security, which is a different corporate entity.
- sva_ 4y agoReminds me of the Airbus A380. Insane if you stand in front of one. Also insane if you land in Dubai and see them by the dozens next to each other.
- darrenf 4y agoThere are 3 retired 747s on an airfield 10 miles from my house (in Surrey, southern England). It isn’t open to the general public most of the time but two weeks ago I ran a charity 10km around the runways and perimeter roads. So beautiful to see these birds up close. You can get a feel for it on the gallery page of the run’s site: https://jigsaw.run/gallery/ https://jigsaw.run/gallery/
- WalterBright 4y agoMy dad took me to the Frankfurt AM Flughafen observation lounge to watch the first 747 land there. Wow!
- WalterBright 4y agoA shout out to J Burton Berlin, who designed the stab trim system on the 747. He mentored me a lot on the 757 system. He showed me his design notebook on the 747 design, quite a treasure. All done in pencil with a slide rule. An engineer's engineer. He had many entertaining stories about the B-47 design.
- leetrout 4y agoWalter it seems like you have had an amazing career! Do you have anything online about your work at Boeing?
- WalterBright 4y agoNot really. I suppose I should write it down, but it was a loooong time ago. It was always a treat to hang around with Burt. The other engineer there who mentored me was Erwin Schweitzer, who'd take me flying with him (he was a pilot) and let me fly it once in a while. Burt and Erv were why I stayed at Boeing as long as I did. Another engineer who took me flying was Ernie Spriggs. He hailed from Lockheed, and always went on about how great Lockheed was. I finally asked him "Ernie, if Lockheed was so great, why are you working at Boeing?" Ernie replied "because one day I told Mr. Lockheed he was a fucking asshole." Good times. P.S. What you suspect is true. A lot of Boeing engineers were also pilots. They loved airplanes and flying and engineering.
- madmadjo 4y agoI'd also like to hear more! Your experiences sound really interesting, so if you decide to write about them - you'll have one more reader. :)
- xNeil 4y agoHi Walter! You have (evidently) a tonne of experience in the aviation industry. Is there anything you noticed the 'engineer's engineers' had in common? What made them such great engineers. I was looking to a career in Aerospace Engineering - but it's an interest. I'm still in college, but I'm not sure if it's what I want to do. Regardless - what do you think makes an engineer an engineer's engineer?
- bambax 4y agoOne of the most beautiful objects ever built. I went to NYC from Paris for the first time in 1990, on a 747, and a few days later stayed at the airport a whole afternoon, just watching 747s land. It was splendid, I think I could have spent a lot more time there.
- ho_schi 4y agoBoeing’s final 747 rolled out of the company’s cavernous factory north of Seattle Tuesday night as airlines’ push for more fuel-efficient planes ends the more than half-century production run of the jumbo jet. The B747-8 is pretty fuel-efficient. As is the A380. The smaller two-engine jets have grown bigger and fly now further. Therefore the B747 and A380 operate mostly between the big hubs far away with many passengers, fitting the design profile. Deutsche Lufthansa and Korean Air operating happily with the B747-8i and the plane works reliable. Reliability: The B777X is delayed, the B787 suffers quality problems and "lost tools", paint goes off (both B787 and A350), the engine problems on the A320neo seem solved some time ago and then the MCAS on the B737-Max is another sad story. Lufthansa solved it delivery issues with the B787 by buying used ones. And the B747 just looks like a Queen, graceful and elegant :) The end of 747 production was “inevitable but it would be a little more palatable if they were making something new,” said Richard Aboulafia, managing director at consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory. Let us hope so. At some point aging existing feels need replacement and transportation between big hubs remains important. My recommendation about the 747, watch the freight loading before boarding. It is incredible how much freight (I don't mean baggage) fits into this plane while traveling across the Atlantic and transporting 450 passengers at the same time.
- Kye 4y agoI haven't kept up, but my understanding was flights keep shrinking. Planes were flying near-empty, or even completely empty to maintain hangar contracts on either end. Making them bigger also increases the minimum fuel needed. Smaller planes can be used to respond to changes in demand and popularity of destinations in a way huge planes can't.
- xenadu02 4y agoThe "hub" model is disappearing; customers travel to the supposed hub via other methods (car, train) or they take direct flights. The super jumbo planes like the 747 rely on hubs for passenger density so it shouldn't be any surprise that most airlines aren't interested. Having more smaller planes lets you do more direct flights and gives you way more flexibility should you need to change destinations, lease an empty plane to someone else, etc. It also costs you less in fuel when you need to fly it with few or no passengers. Of course getting _any_ new plane means a years-long backlog right now so the newest trend is to acquire a regional or small airline and dismantle it purely to get the airplanes. Virgin America (by Alaska) and Spirit (by JetBlue) were victims of that strategy and won't be the last.
- college_physics 4y agoWatching a 747 land or takeoff is always giving me goosebumps. Somehow we have normalized too many things too fast.
- jayess 4y agoI'm sad I never got to fly on one.
- gus_massa 4y agoThis will be the last one produced, but there a plenty of companies still using 747. I can't find a good source, but it look like their lifespan is 20 years or more, so you will be able to fly in one of them if you have enough money and time and do some research. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_747_operators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_747_operators
- cartermatic 4y agoFlying upper deck on a 747 is a dream of mine (even if business class on other planes is nicer nowadays)
- mrclark411 4y agoLong live the Queen!
- jcadam 4y agoI flew on a 747 only once, a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Denver back in 2006 (returning to the US after being stationed in Germany for 3 years). Absolutely huge. I only fly domestically nowadays. Rarely do I end up on anything bigger than a 737.
- encoderer 4y agoThere was no better way to fly than the business-class upstairs cabin in a 747. Quiet, intimate, fast to plane and deplane.
- WeylandYutani 4y agoAside from the engineering this plane came out at exactly the right time. What made 747 special was enabling cheap flights for mass tourism. Four hundred passengers to Acapulco and Benidorm.