In the first few years, it was not foreseeable that the 747 would become a real cash cow for the US aircraft manufacturer Boeing. The high development costs almost drive the company to ruin. It is only 53 years later that the company is now phasing out the icon of the skies.
As “Air Force One”, it is the official aircraft of the US Presidents and carried the Pope and rock bands around the world: The very last newly built Boeing 747 will be delivered today, Tuesday. The two-story “Queen of the Skies” with its distinctive humped silhouette was the first long-haul aircraft that made flying a mass business. After 53 years, Boeing is now phasing out the four-engine aviation icon under the same economic pressures that brought it into the world: More cost-efficient twin-engine jets are ending the jumbo’s reign.
Pan American Airways took delivery of the first Boeing 747, the US airline Atlas Air received the last model in Seattle, equipped as a cargo plane. “It’s stately on the ground, it’s imposing,” recalls Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden, who, as a trained airline pilot, flew a specially painted 747 nicknamed the “Ed Force One” himself steered. In the air, the massive jet is surprisingly agile and capable of turning maneuvers, and its return to the ground is easy and smooth. “It’s like landing an armchair,” Dickinson said.
Designed in the late 1960s to meet the needs of mass tourism, the bow and upper decks of the world’s first twin-aisle widebody jet became the world’s most luxurious club above the clouds. But it was the seemingly endless rows on the lower deck that changed travel. “It was THE plane that introduced flying to the middle class in the United States,” Ben Smith, CEO of Air France-KLM, told Reuters. “Before the 747, the average family couldn’t affordably fly from the US to Europe.”
Many famous passengers have sat on the 747. As a stewardess at Pan Am, Linda Freier served passengers from Michael Jackson to Mother Teresa. “There was an incredible variety of passengers. People who were well dressed and people who had very little and spent everything they had on that ticket.” Since the first 747 took off from New York on January 22, 1970 after a delay due to an engine failure, the largest long-haul jet has seated 350 to 400 passengers, twice as many as before. According to aviation historian Max Kingsley-Jones, the airplane made the mass market possible in the first place.
Pan-Am founder Juan Trippe tried to cut costs with more seating. On a fishing trip, he challenged then-Boeing President William Allen to build something that would eclipse the 707. Allen hired legendary engineer Joe Sutter. It took just 28 months for Sutter’s team, known as “the Incredibles,” to develop the 747 ahead of its maiden flight on February 9, 1969.
Although the 747 eventually became a cash cow, its early years were fraught with problems. The development costs of one billion US dollars almost drove Boeing into bankruptcy. After a slump in orders during the 1970s oil crisis, the aircraft reached its heyday in 1989 when Boeing introduced the 747-400 with new engines and lighter materials. It was also perfectly suited to meet the growing demand for transpacific flights.
But thanks to advances in technology, twin-engine jets have caught up in terms of range and capacity – at a lower cost thanks to lower kerosene consumption. The fact that the 747 can still often be seen in the sky today is also due to the delays in the development of the new Boeing top model 777X. After repeated delays, this will not take off before 2025. “Unfortunately, in terms of impressive technology, large capacity and economics, this one puts the 747 in the dust,” said Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory.
Airline expert Sam Chui writes that the “Queen of the Skies” is still used by six passenger airlines today. Lufthansa operates 27 models of the 747-8 and 747-400 – according to blogger Chui, the largest fleet of any airline. The jumbo will also be on the road as a freighter for many years to come. And it remains the presidential plane, Air Force One, because a used one is being converted for it. “It was one of the wonders of the modern industrial age,” says Aboulafia, “but this isn’t an age of wonders, it’s an age of economics.”
