Boeing’s 747 had a good run, but a goodbye has been long overdue. Via WIRED UK
The 1,574th and final 747, which rolled off Boeing’s production line in Everett, Washington, on January 31, is destined for a life shipping goods around the world on behalf of the New York–based cargo company Atlas Air.
It’s an unremarkable end to an era of aviation that began more than half a century ago. The first 747—“the airplane that ‘shrank the world’ and revolutionized travel,” according to Stan Deal, president and chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes—was unveiled in 1968. Since then, the aircraft has clung on as a workhorse for airlines around the world and as an emblem for a lost “golden age” of air travel, despite long being surpassed by newer, better planes.
“The falling out of favor of the 747 has been a gradual process,” says Brendan Sobie, founder of Singapore-based aviation consulting company Sobie Aviation. The 747’s early appeal was partly down to its sheer size. In the 1950s and 1960s, most planes were narrow-body, single-aisle jets that could only fit a comparatively small number of passengers. The 747’s four engines meant that the size of the plane itself could be far larger, and with that, more seats and galley space, too. “Airlines were worried initially about how they were going to manage to sell all these additional seats on the aircraft,” Strickland says.
“It’s just a big aeroplane,” says Robert Mann, an aviation analyst at New York–based RW Mann & Company. “It’s not just voluminous. It’s like a concert hall on wings. It’s a palatial experience.”
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