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Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

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Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#161

Post by raverbashing »

gsnedders wrote: post #89
nelaboras wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see some numbers on this. As far as I understand they are used for freight because it's better than to let them sit empty (and pilots and ground staff have to be paid too), but it still is not profitable.

A _large_ proportion of worldwide freight is ordinarily carried in the belly of passenger aircraft. When most airlines stopped flying, the price of air freight _quickly_ rose (as the capacity pretty much fell overnight to just the dedicated freighter aircraft). This meant it became profitable (i.e., above the marginal costs of the flights) to fly passenger aircraft purely for the belly-hold freight. They certainly ar…

They are putting cargo on the passenger area as well, either removing seats or tying them up over them.

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#162

Post by coin »

Scramblejams wrote: post #41
Tiltowait-- wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Concorde was done in by fuel prices, and because it was a small aircraft. I visited one in a museum and it was claustrophobic. Also nobody should be sorry that elites have to sit on long overseas flights just like we do. The A380 was a boondoggle from the beginning, an attempt to outdo Boeing by having TEH BIGGEREST aircraft on the market. Having to rebuild airports to accommodate it wasn't a good idea. The 747 i…

When I worked in aerospace I was told by a Boeing old-timer that he was sure Boeing only made the 747-700X proposal last as long as it did in order to force Airbus into making the A380 mistake, and that none of the Boeing insiders thought a plane that big would ever make real sense to spend money developing. Naturally I have no way to verify this, but it's a fun corporate strategy conspiracy theory.

Yup https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUmJ9rSVrKQ

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#163

Post by coin »

jandrese wrote: post #45
manigandham wrote: post #37

> The 747 notched its last order as a passenger jet in 2017 -- for Air Force One. What's the next version going to be then?

Probably a 777. It's smaller, but not by a lot. Plus the current AF1 should be in the air for many years still.

Japan went with the 777 for their replacement AF1s

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#165

Post by noizejoy »

jrockway wrote: post #130
sesuximo wrote: post #23

It’s a little sad that we’ve retired the 747, the Concorde, and (almost) the A380. And we haven’t introduced anything cool :(

I don't think it's that disappointing. The airlines moved from larger flights to more frequent flights between more destinations. These days, you can miss a transcontinental flight and only be an hour late to your destination, because there are 15 flights a day instead of 2. You are also likely to be able to fly non-stop between any two city pairs. (I looked some up at random, and you can do things like Montreal - Ca…

> Those people that want to drill tunnels through the earth to get better-than-great-circle distances might be the future.

Might also get a little warm and you'd fight a lot of pressure, since you'd need to dig down about 1/3rd of the distance you'd want to save (assuming my elementary geometry memories aren't failing me). So to save 600km distance, you'd have to go down to a max depth of almost 200km. For context, the deepest bore hole drilled to date seems to be about 12km deep. [0]

So technology would have to improve a lot before global warming or the next meteor get us all.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#167

Post by lmm »

flingo wrote: post #158
lmm wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This meant it became profitable (i.e., above the marginal costs of the flights) to fly passenger aircraft purely for the belly-hold freight. That's not the usual definition of "profitable". As you say, they're turning a gross profit (if we treat aircraft leasing costs etc. as fixed, which over a short timeframe they are), but it's not enough to cover their fixed costs, so grandparent is correct that they are not (n…

Is there a single word for "it's more profitable to do this thing, rather than the other thing, or nothing"? I think that's what this counts as. I think this is in the same category of decision as retailers selling old stock at a loss, because that's better than not selling it. A large portion of the modern economy is run by spreadsheets, and crunching the numbers on what the "most-profitable" thing to do often leads…

I don't think there's a single word, but there's the concept of "gross profit" like I said.

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#169

Post by sgent »

jandrese wrote: post #45
manigandham wrote: post #37

> The 747 notched its last order as a passenger jet in 2017 -- for Air Force One. What's the next version going to be then?

Probably a 777. It's smaller, but not by a lot. Plus the current AF1 should be in the air for many years still.

Maybe... the Secret Service and Military REALLY want a 4 engine plane for AF1 -- remember other than transporting the President it serves as command and control for US armed forces. Losing an engine due to an attack is part of their planning.

They may look at a military conversion if there isn't a civilian airliner available.

Re: Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets

#170

Post by echelon »

coin wrote: post #164
echelon wrote: post #148

What's the failure rate of two engine aircraft versus four engine aircraft? Are they about the same?

More engines means more to fail

You're correct. I should have been specific. Between the two, are two engine aircraft or four engine aircraft responsible for more deaths? Normalized for number of aircraft/flights over a fixed time period.
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