Boeing 747
With the delivery of the last 747-8 cargo plane to US airline Atlas Air, Boeing bids farewell to the 747, an iconic airplane since its inaugural commercial flight in January 1970, flying under the PanAm banner and renamed Queen of the Skies. After 53 years, the Seattle company has in fact stopped the production of the four-engine jumbo jet, to focus on that of the two-engine wide-body airliners, capable of covering the same routes as the first with less fuel.The pandemic contributed to weighing on the company's valuations. Many companies, precisely to save costs and given the scarcer revenues due to the absence of passengers, between 2020 and 2021 had in fact chosen to leave the 747s on the ground. Decision on which they have not returned even in the last few months. Although the production of the Boeing 747 is about to become a memory, however, the time has not yet come for the airplane to retire definitively. In recent years, more than three hundred of the existing aircraft have been converted to cargo and fly in the skies around the world.
To these are added the planes built directly with the function of transporting goods, as well as those of the companies that still use them to travel passengers. The last one, among those built, was delivered in 2017 to Korean Airlines. The prediction is therefore that the existing fleet will continue to fly for decades to come.
History
The Boeing 747 was the first twin-aisle aircraft in history and flew under the insignia of over one hundred airlines from all over the world. The first version was capable of accommodating up to 360 passengers, while the next one, called the 747-8, received the certifications needed to fly 605 passengers at the same time, with a range of over 13,000 km.Today the most used model is the cargo model, much appreciated by airlines specialized in the transport of goods both for the possibility of fully opening the tip during loading and for its capacity: in fact it is able to contain up to to 140 tons of cargo.
Movie star in films such as Airport , Air Force One , Critical Decision and Tenet , films in which director Christopher Nolan blew up a real one , the Boeing 747 owes its popularity even to its best-known example, Air Force One. The president of the United States will continue to fly this aircraft for at least four years, the time needed to build his replacements.