Boeing 747 aircraft of German Lufthansa are parked at the airport in Frankfurt. AP Photo
Boeing 747 aircraft of German Lufthansa are parked at the airport in Frankfurt. AP Photo
Boeing 747 aircraft of German Lufthansa are parked at the airport in Frankfurt. AP Photo
Boeing 747 aircraft of German Lufthansa are parked at the airport in Frankfurt. AP Photo

Boeing 747: 'Queen of the Skies' reign is coming to an end as Covid-19 hits airlines


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Boeing has yet to tell its employees, but the company is pulling the plug on its hulking 747 jumbo jet, ending a half-century run for the twin-aisle pioneer.

The last 747-8 will roll out of a Seattle-area factory in about two years, a decision that has not been reported but can be teased out from subtle wording changes in financial statements, people familiar with the matter said.

It’s a moment that aviation enthusiasts long have dreaded, signalling the end of the double-decker, four-engine leviathans that shrank the world. Airbus is meanwhile preparing to build the last A380 jumbo, after the final convoy of fuselage segments rumbled to its Toulouse, France, plant last month.

Yet for all their popularity with travellers, the final version of the 747 and Europe’s superjumbo never caught on commercially as airlines turned to twin-engine aircraft for long-range flights.

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50 years of the Boeing 747 - in pictures

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The grand jetliners also face another indignity: the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to leave their manufacturers scrounging to find buyers for the last jumbos built.

“As it turned out, the number of routes for which you need an ultra-large aircraft are incredibly few,” said Sash Tusa, an analyst with Agency Partners.

Boeing’s “Queen of the Skies” debuted in 1970, an audacious bet that transformed travel but almost bankrupted the company. Passenger versions boasted a spiral staircase to a luxurious upstairs lounge. Freighter models featured a hinged nose that flipped open to load everything from cars to oil-drilling gear. The 747 went on to rack up 1,571 orders over the decades - second among wide-body jets only to Boeing’s 777.

The millennial-era A380 could haul as many as 853 travellers and reflected Europe’s lofty aerospace ambition. But by the time it arrived in 2007, airlines were already tilting to smaller planes that burned less fuel.

Boeing correctly anticipated the trend with the twin-engine 777 and the 787 Dreamliner. With prodding from Joe Sutter, a famed engineer who’d led the original 747 programme, the planemaker decided to develop a relatively inexpensive upgrade of the four-engine plane to steal sales from the A380.

Ramon Penas / The National
Ramon Penas / The National

The strategy would have been successful, had the 747-8 not been bedevilled by early mismanagement, blowing its budget and deadlines, said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with Teal Group.

The Chicago-based company has lost about $40 million (Dh147m) for each 747 since 2016, when it slowed production to a trickle, making just six jets a year, Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu estimated. All told, Boeing has recorded $4.2 billion in accounting charges for the 747-8, which has been kept alive as a freighter. The 747 notched its last order as a passenger jet in 2017 - for Air Force One.

Boeing’s jumbo freighters will continue to ply the skies for decades after production stops, said Mr Aboulafia. But he’s dropped the passenger-only A380 from his forecasts.

“It’s going to have the shortest lifespan of any type in history,” Mr Aboulafia predicted. “I’d be shocked if there’s still an A380 in service in 2030.”

Airbus disagreed. “We will see the A380 continue flying for many years,” the planemaker said by email.

But the coronavirus pandemic is hastening the end of the behemoths as people movers. With travel not expected to fully recover until mid-decade, airlines are culling ageing jetliners and four-engine jumbos from fleets to limit spending. About 91 per cent of 747s and 97 per cent of A380s are parked, Credit Suisse estimated last month.

Air France, Lufthansa, and Qatar Airways are among carriers weighing whether to ground their A380s permanently or are preparing to do so. Airbus has just nine of the planes still be delivered. All but one of them are tagged for Emirates Airline, the largest A380 operator.

The A380 has cost Airbus about 20bn euros (Dh82.52bn), breaking even or generating profits for only a three-year stretch starting in 2015, Agency Partners estimated. With just 251 aircraft sold over the programme’s life, the planemaker never achieved the efficiency that comes with manufacturing at large scale, Mr Tusa said.

Boeing, meanwhile, had been preparing for years to wind down the 747 programme, and its sales team has been sounding out customer interest in a potential freighter version of the 777X. If such a model goes forward, it would bolster flagging sales of the largest twin-engine aircraft in the company’s lineup.

The telling omen that Boeing had written the iconic 747’s final chapter came in financial filings earlier this year. Gone was any indication that the company would continue to “evaluate the viability” of the program, standard phrasing it had previously used.

“At a build rate of half an airplane per month, the 747-8 programme has more than two years of production ahead of it in order to fulfil our current customer commitments. We will continue to make the right decisions to keep the production line healthy and meet customer needs,” Boeing said for this story.

The planemaker has just 15 unfilled orders for the 747, all of them freighters. A dozen of them are heading to United Parcel Service, and the fate of the rest is unclear, part of a dispute with Russia’s Volga-Dnepr Group.

Boeing has approached the US courier and other potential customers about taking the three planes, people familiar with the matter said. The planemaker and UPS declined to comment. Volga-Dnepr didn’t respond to requests for comment.

UPS in May agreed to take a 747 that Volga had ordered. “Working with Boeing, we saw an opportunity to bring another 747-8 online this year in time for our peak shipping season,” the courier said.

Ultimately, Boeing’s decision on the 747 boiled down to resource allocation, said George Dimitroff, who leads valuations at aviation consultant Cirium. Could the assembly line floor space be better used on another airplane, such as the 767, which shares a bay in Boeing’s Everett, Washington, factory?

“If you’re building half an airplane a month, it’s probably not your most profitable program,” Mr Dimitroff said.

 

 

Ireland (15-1):

Ireland (15-1): Rob Kearney; Keith Earls, Chris Farrell, Bundee Aki, Jacob Stockdale; Jonathan Sexton, Conor Murray; Jack Conan, Sean O'Brien, Peter O'Mahony; James Ryan, Quinn Roux; Tadhg Furlong, Rory Best (capt), Cian Healy

Replacements: Sean Cronin, Dave Kilcoyne, Andrew Porter, Ultan Dillane, Josh van der Flier, John Cooney, Joey Carbery, Jordan Larmour

Coach: Joe Schmidt (NZL)

THREE
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
  • Priority access to new homes from participating developers
  • Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
  • Flexible payment plans from developers
  • Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
  • DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
War and the virus
What can victims do?

Always use only regulated platforms

Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion

Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)

Report to local authorities

Warn others to prevent further harm

Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence

ESSENTIALS

The flights

Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.

The hotels

Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.

The tours

A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages. 

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ELIO

Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett

Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina

Rating: 4/5

Living in...

This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home. 

Gothia Cup 2025

4,872 matches 

1,942 teams

116 pitches

76 nations

26 UAE teams

15 Lebanese teams

2 Kuwaiti teams

Company Profile

Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million

The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl turbo

Power: 201hp at 5,200rpm

Torque: 320Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm

Transmission: 6-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 8.7L/100km

Price: Dh133,900

On sale: now 

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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi

Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.

Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en

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The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Power: 510hp at 9,000rpm
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Price: From Dh801,800

Founders: Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, Turki Bin Zarah and Abdulmohsen Albabtain.

Based: Riyadh

Offices: UAE, Vietnam and Germany

Founded: September, 2020

Number of employees: 70

Sector: FinTech, online payment solutions

Funding to date: $116m in two funding rounds  

Investors: Checkout.com, Impact46, Vision Ventures, Wealth Well, Seedra, Khwarizmi, Hala Ventures, Nama Ventures and family offices

Score

New Zealand 266 for 9 in 50 overs
Pakistan 219 all out in 47.2 overs 

New Zealand win by 47 runs

New Zealand lead three-match ODI series 1-0

Next match: Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi, Friday

 

 

While you're here
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The specs
  • Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
  • Power: 640hp
  • Torque: 760nm
  • On sale: 2026
  • Price: Not announced yet
Volvo ES90 Specs

Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)

Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp

Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm

On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region

Price: Exact regional pricing TBA

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
AIDA%20RETURNS
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PROFILE OF SWVL

Started: April 2017

Founders: Mostafa Kandil, Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: transport

Size: 450 employees

Investment: approximately $80 million

Investors include: Dubai’s Beco Capital, US’s Endeavor Catalyst, China’s MSA, Egypt’s Sawari Ventures, Sweden’s Vostok New Ventures, Property Finder CEO Michael Lahyani