End of her ‘Majesty’
About 10 years ago, on completion of my annual AirVenture, Oshkosh trip, I was flown to Seattle as a guest of Boeing in order to visit the various airliner assembly lines located in the city and surrounding area. One of the lines I visited was the Boeing 747-8, which at the time was producing about one aircraft per month.
Arguably ever since the dawn of the jet age within aviation, Boeing was ahead of the curve. While the early jetliners had their time in the limelight, the Boeing 707 was the jetliner at the early stages of jet travel and as a youngster I travelled to England in a SAA Boeing 707. Following up a successful product is no easy feat, but Boeing managed to do this some 12 later when in 1969, a true Queen claimed her throne. The Boeing 747 made its debut in 1969, bursting onto the aviation market with unprecedented specifications for an aircraft and an iconic look that no one could mistake her for anything else. The double-deck hump, coupled with the unprecedented luxury onboard the aircraft, made the 747 a poster child of the company throughout its 51-year history.
However, after royally serving airlines throughout the world for more than half the decade, in 2020, the Queen’s reign is coming to an end. The outbreak of COVID-19 forced airlines to take a very close and scrutinising look at their costs and methods to save money. At the queue behind the chopping block, old and inefficient aircraft were at the forefront. Even the Airbus A380, which has no models older than 15 years, is looking at the reduction in its fleet size, as airlines are looking to hasten the retirements of aircraft that are expensive to operate.
The Boeing 747-8 is a curious case. The quad-engined airliner had very high hopes, as Boeing predicted a significant market for the new Queen, but this did not happen. However, because Airbus did not produce the A380F, the Boeing 747F did capture significant orders from the freighter operators. In fact, at last year’s EAA AirVenture in July a brand-new UPS Boeing 747-8F took centre stage on Boeing Plaza for several days.
The stretched 747 advanced was launched as the 747-8 on 14 November 2005, for a Boeing market forecast of 300 aircraft. The first 747-8F freighter performed its maiden flight on 8 February 2010 and the passenger 747-8I Intercontinental followed on 20 March 2011. The cargo version was first delivered in October 2011 and the airliner began commercial service in June 2012. The airliner’s
fuselage was stretched by 18 feet (5.6 m) to 250 feet (76.3 m), the longest airliner until the 777X-9, first flown in 2020. While keeping its basic structure and sweep, the wings are thicker, deeper and wider with raked wingtips, holding more fuel. Powered by the more efficient General Electric GEnx turbofan of the 787 Dreamliner, its maximum take-off weight (MTOW) grew to 975,000 lb (442 t), the heaviest Boeing airliner ever. The Freighter version has a shorter upper deck and it can haul 137 t (302,000 lb) over 4,120 nmi (7,630 km). The airliner version can carry 467 passengers in a typical threeclass configuration over 7,790 nmi (14,430 km).
The end of the Boeing 747
Airlines that are still operating Boeing 747-400s such as British Airways, Lufthansa, KLM, Qantas and others, have already sent their aircraft to retirement to various locations around the world. While a sliver of hope could be seen, as KLM re-activated some of its 747s, the fate of the aircraft is sealed, post COVID-19 the skies are going to see far fewer Queens.
Prior to the outbreak, the only operational production line of the Boeing 747 was in Everett, Washington, United States, where the -8 series, the 747 Intercontinental and the 747-8 Freighter were being built. However, Boeing’s facilities in the Washington area have been suspended since 25 March 2020. While the measures are temporary and some work has since resumed, the employees that came back were deployed to the Boeing 737 MAX, KC-46 tanker, as well as the P-8 Poseidon. Even prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, the 747 final assembly lines were already working under a reduced workload. In 2016, Boeing cut the production rate in half only one aircraft every two months due to reduced demand. As of August 2019, Boeing had 154 confirmed orders: 107 freighters and 47 passenger airliners.