British Airways Retires 747s

GRG55

GRG55

Final Approach
Gone West
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Aztec Flyer
I've got quite a few passenger hours in BA's 747s flying back and forth between LHR and Bahrain, and LHR and Cairo last decade. They would fly first generation B777s on the routes in the winter and step them up to the 747-400s for the higher traffic summer season.

The upper deck Business Class on the BA planes was the best kept secret. Separate galley, flight attendants, and washroom for a small number of biz class seats behind the cockpit door. My travel agent had those row numbers to hand every time I needed to fly.

G-BNLS, BNLP, BNLY, BNLJ, BNLK, BNLN, BNLW, G-CIVB, CIVS, CIVO, CIVU CIVZ are a few of the registrations I enjoyed flying during those years.

Used my points to fly my British born mother-in-law in BA First Class from the west coast to London for her 80th birthday party.

End of a career for a lot of senior pilots that used to occupy the left front seat on these magnificent machines.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ire-fleet-of-boeings-jumbo-jets-idUSKCN24I04J

BUSINESS NEWS
JULY 16, 2020 / 7:26 PM

British Airways retires entire fleet of Boeing's jumbo jets

(Reuters) - British Airways, the world’s largest operator of Boeing 747, said late Thursday it would retire its entire jumbo jet fleet with immediate effect due to the downturn in travel industry caused by the coronavirus pandemic...

...“It is unlikely our magnificent ‘queen of the skies’ will ever operate commercial services for British Airways again,” the company said in a statement...
 
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Man. Fifty years went by while I kept telling myself I needed to book a flight on a 747. Now it's looking like that opportunity is gone forever.

:(
 
Lufthansa still flies -400s and -800s. I imagine the 400s will be retired earlier than the planned 2025, but there's a good chance the 800s will be around a little while. Those airframes are all less than 10 years old, and before the pandemic they had been flying them to the states on a few routes.

I've been lucky to fly top deck and lower deck on both 747s and 380s so my double decker checklist is satisfied.
 
Seanaldinho said:
Lufthansa still flies -400s and -800s. I imagine the 400s will be retired earlier than the planned 2025, but there's a good chance the 800s will be around a little while. Those airframes are all less than 10 years old, and before the pandemic they had been flying them to the states on a few routes.

I've been lucky to fly top deck and lower deck on both 747s and 380s so my double decker checklist is satisfied.
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Lufthansa already announced it was retiring 5 of its 747-400 airplanes. Two were sent for dismantling at Enschede in the Netherlands last month. It has 19 Boeing 747-800s that as you noted are pretty new (average <7 years).
 
GRG55 said:
Lufthansa already announced it was retiring 5 of its 747-400 airplanes. Two were sent for dismantling at Enschede in the Netherlands last month. It has 19 Boeing 747-800s that as you noted are pretty new (average <7 years).
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That leaves them 3 -400s if Wikipedia is up to date. I remembered reading they were retiring some 380s and 340s.
 
The only 747 that was flying into Austin was British Airways. It was an 8 hour non-stop flight to London. It was amazing to look up and see that monster coming in. They've been using the 777 for that flight for awhile now though.
 
Ravioli's true story time [spoiler alert - it's a repeat]

I once gave my mother a ticket from LA to Virginia to visit my brother. I splurged and got her business class on 747 since it was a long flight.

When I asked how the flight was she said, "everyone was very nice, but with the seat you got me they MADE me go upstairs INSIDE the plane"

My Ex-wife said, "sounds like coach for her from here on out."
 
I've ridden both the main cabin and the upper cabin on BA. Nice back in the day. It's been many years since I last rode BA. I've also ridden the 747 on LH, Pan Am and UA, all in cattle car. I remember an LH flight back in the days when smoking was allowed. The smoking section was ahead of the non-smoking section and I was in the front row of the non-smoking section. There was a solid wall of smoke coming over the seat backs in front of me the entire way from LAX to FRA. I don't miss those days at all.

The last time I remember riding a 747 was several years ago on UA from NRT to/from somewhere (SIN?) in SE Asia. It was getting a bit long in the tooth and needed some heavy maintenance in the passenger cabin. I really don't miss the 747 all that much. I much prefer the 787 nonstops from SFO to SIN these days. A long flight, but one and you're done.
 
Pilawt said:
Until the ‘Rona, BA 747s were a daily sight (and twice on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday) here in Phoenix
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One of the joys of working in Tempe for me a bunch of years ago was walking up Mill and seeing a giant BA 747 barely scraping its way over A Mountain on its way into KPHX :). Very impressive. I never managed to actually be on the top of A Mountain when it went over, unfortunately. I seem to remember Atlas Air 747-100 freighters, too, from the same vantage point.

I have way too many passenger hours on BA 747s, stretching back to the 1980's, but I still prefer the 787.
 
My only time on a 747 was from Inchon to Manila on Asiana Airlines.

Man, what an experience. I heard a lot of noises I wasn't used to hearing while in a plane.
 
I rode on a 747 just 6 weeks ago. Lufthansa though. 747-8 from Frankfurt to Chicago.
 
Ironic that this is announced on the same day TWA 800 went boom....
 
Spent many hours in the 747’s mainly PHX to Heathrow to visit family, or PHX to Bangalore via London for work.

There are old, but still impressive machines
 
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