Delta’s history with 747 waxes and wanes

Fuel-efficient Airbus A350s will replace aging jumbo jets.

It started with a group of workers that people called The Incredibles.

The Boeing Co. took an ambitious bet on the 747 and the technological leap the massive jet represented, and its team of engineers, construction workers and others managed in less than 16 months to build a jet that airlines all over the world would fly.

But Delta’s history with the 747 has been spotty over the years.

Atlanta-based Delta was among the many carriers that began flying the 747 soon after it debuted, with its first flight on Oct. 25, 1970, on a daily route from Atlanta to Dallas to Los Angeles.

The four-engine 747 was nearly three times larger than the next-largest jet flying at the time.

Delta’s early 747s had the

first “flying penthouse apartment” on the upper deck, a set of six seats sold as a unit and staffed by a dedicated flight attendant, next to the first class lounge. Those 747s were also the first Delta planes to have overhead bins that closed, instead of just open racks, and the first to have “Deltasonic” personal audio systems “playing the Beatles, Burt Bacharach and Beethoven.”

But in 1974, Delta decided

the 747 was “too large for its routes” and started trading them back to Boeing. Delta stopped flying the 747 altogether in 1977.

It took until 2008, when Delta acquired Northwest Airlines and its fleet including 747s, for the jumbo jet to return to Delta’s fleet.

But nearly 10 years later, Delta is retiring the 747 for a second time, replacing it with newer, more fuel-efficient Airbus A350s.

HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM Former and current employees of Delta Air Lines write on the exterior of a Delta 747 during a 747 hangar party Tuesday at Delta TechOps.