Goodbye to the jumbo jet that taught the middle class to fly

The very last Boeing 747 will be delivered tomorrow. The American cargo company Atlas Air will then take delivery of the last 747 that the aircraft manufacturer will ever build. With that, the 747, considered the original ‘jumbo jet’, comes to an end 53 years after its creation.

The 747 came on the market in the 1960s. The aviation sector was then at the beginning of a major revolution: aviation was becoming more and more democratised, more and more people started flying. Mass tourism to distant destinations arose. So an airplane was also needed that could transport large crowds of people. That became the 747, which, with about four hundred seats, could handle twice as many passengers as what was the largest aircraft at the time. “This was the aircraft that made it possible for the middle class to fly,” said Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith to the news agency. Reuters. “Before the arrival of the 747, the average family could not travel affordably from the US to Europe.”

The plane became a hit. A total of 1,574 copies were built. The 90s were especially heyday, when the model 747-400 was unloaded. That device was a gigantic, but also elegant at the same time. The ‘bump’ on top of the snout – where the first floor was, especially for travelers in business class – made the aircraft very recognizable. The’Queen of the skies’ became an icon. The two Air Force One aircraft that transport the American president – ​​just about the most famous aircraft in the world – are also 747s. The new Air Force Ones that will enter service in 2026 at the earliest are also converted 747s.

Other times

But more than five decades after its launch, the curtain falls on the 747. Today, there are newer twin-engine aircraft that fly more economically than the four-engine 747. Think of the Boeing 777 and 787 Dreamliner, or the Airbus A330 and A350. However, the 777X, the direct successor to the 747, is not expected until 2025.

For a long time, the airline industry believed that the future lay in “superhubs,” large airports where jumbo jets departed for long hauls and where passengers first flew on smaller planes. But that idea did not materialize. That also explains why Airbus stopped building its A380, the largest passenger plane in the world, after just a few years.

Even a somewhat outdated jumbo jet like the 747 no longer fits the bill. For example, Air France-KLM announced that it is ordering additional Airbus A350s because it is retiring its Boeing 747s. Companies such as Qantas and British Airways also announced this. The last British Airways 747 took off in 2020.

Keep flying

Not that the 747 will soon be nowhere to be seen. Some airlines still have 747s and will continue to use them. Many cargo carriers will continue to use cargo versions of the aircraft for years to come – such as Atlas, which is now receiving the last 747 with the smell of ‘new plane’ still in it.

“It was one of the marvels of the modern industrial age,” said Richard Aboulafia, aviation expert at Aerodynamic Advisory, of the jumbo jet. Reuters. “But these are not times of miracles, but of economics.”