On Tuesday, US aircraft maker Boeing delivered the very last sample of its Jumbo 747 jets, identified by the ‘hump’ at the front. With the delivery of the 1 574th example of the 747, the curtain falls on an iconic aircraft, also known as the ‘Queen of the Skies’, that played an important role in aviation history.

“The aircraft opened up the world,” said Michel Merluzeau, an aviation expert at specialist e-agency AIR, “and brought air travel to the masses.”

The 747-8 cargo plane was handed over to US carrier Atlas Air at the factory in Everett, in northwestern Washington state. At the huge warehouse built to assemble the giant aircraft, customers and suppliers of the aircraft manufacturer attended the handover of the latest 747.

Jumbo jet

The history of the 747 goes back more than half a century. The idea for the Jumbo jet matured in the late 1960s. Airline tickets were getting cheaper, and the number of passengers was increasing. Boeing, which had just missed out on a contract for a giant military transport plane, used the knowledge from that file to create the then-largest airline ever: the 747.

The new aircraft, developed and built in about two-and-a-half years at the request of Pan American World Airways, became a four-engine mastodon. The fuselage was 68,5 meters long, and the tail reached as high as a six-stories building. It was also the first two-aisle passenger plane.

Four-engine mastodon

Thanks to its size, range, and efficiency, the 747 allowed the middle class to go on adventures outside Europe or the United States, with ticket prices that became more affordable, even during the oil crisis of the 1970s.

On the other hand, the plane is very polluting. A Boeing 747 takes more than 190 tons of paraffin for a long-haul flight. With 410 passengers on board, that’s four bathtubs full per passenger or 530 tons of CO2 emissions.

However, it can cover the equivalent of a marathon in 2,5 minutes (it has a cruise speed of Mach 0.85 or 900 kph) and has a flight range of 14 430 kilometers in the passenger version and 8 010 kilometers in the cargo version.

Also cargo plane

From the beginning, the Boeing 747 was developed with a second role in mind; that of a cargo plane. After all, the belief was that, for the foreseeable future, passenger transport would be done mainly by supersonic jets, such as Concorde.

To be able to load cargo through a nose that swung open, the designers pushed the cockpit backward and thus upward, giving the jumbo jet its distinctive hump at the front.

To build the giant, which is composed of about six million parts and can carry up to 132 tons, a new factory had to be built in Everett, near Seattle. That factory grew to become the largest building in the world (by volume). Some of Boeing’s long-haul aircraft are still assembled there today.

Success story

The development of the new aircraft brought Boeing to the brink of bankruptcy, but on 30 September 1968, the first 747 rolled out of the factory. And more than four months later, on 9 February 1969, the first test flight took place. Almost a year later, the first passenger flight could also take place for US carrier Pan Am, although the flight from New York to London had to be postponed due to engine problems.

It was the beginning of a success story. Because the airplane could carry more passengers in a single trip, airlines could sell tickets more cheaply, making air travel affordable to the masses.

Several models of the 747 were built over the years (the latest being the 747-8), and in June 2014, the 1 500th example rolled off the line, an aircraft for German airline Lufthansa. The jumbo jet was immediately the first long-haul aircraft to reach that mark.

No longer the largest passenger aircraft

As the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the Boeing 747 has been supplanted by the Airbus A380 since 2005. But the latter could by no means match the success of its predecessor: the 251st and last example of the Airbus ‘superjumbo’ was delivered in 2021.

But certainly, as a passenger aircraft, the 747 has been declining for some time. Twin-engine aircraft, such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350, are now preferred. US carriers have not been deploying 747s since late 2017.

However, 747s will continue to fly for years to come, especially as cargo planes and some airlines, including Lufthansa, Korean Air, and Air China, still use the plane for passenger flights. Boeing, by the way, is retrofitting two more 747s to replace the current Air Force One aircraft (older 747s) that the US president flies.