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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

#181

Post by jacquesm »

ekianjo wrote: post #175
smohnot wrote: post #55

Sad day for me; for a plane geek, frequent traveler, son of immigrants, and someone who has been to the factory (incredible - visit the Everett Boeing facility if you get a chance), this is super nostalgic. The "Queen of the skies" really changed air travel, and I'm a bit sad that they won't be flying much longer. The economics, size and scale of travel were drastically different before the 747. Before the 747, only…

> Before the 747, only the richest folks could really cross the globe at will. The 747 changed everyday notions of distance and ushered in the age of travel that we get to enjoy today. Not just that though. Regulation also changed significantly in the meantime and made it possible for smaller aircrafts to fly intercontinental which brought prices down as well.

Engine quality and reliability improved, which allowed the regulation change.

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

#182

Post by hodgesrm »

echelon wrote: post #170
coin wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Modern two engine aircraft are amazingly reliable, but there are rare cases where they have lost both engines. BA Flight 38 crash landed on approach to Heathrow due to ice in the fuel clogging heat exchangers for both engines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#Accidents_and_incid...

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

#183

Post by jacquesm »

perl4ever wrote: post #102

I got to ride on one at least once, but I always wondered what it was like on the upper level.

Pretty good. I've been 'upgraded' a number of times on KL691/692 to and from Toronto when I ran a small multinational and shifted every week between Toronto and Amsterdam. The flight on a 747 compared to smaller planes is already much better, and on the upper deck the food; chair and room were several notches above anything else I've experienced on board of aircraft.

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

#184

Post by dlgeek »

HanShotFirst wrote: post #176
mjg59 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The layout in the picture seems to be 3-4-3, which pretty typical for 747s - I don't think anyone does 3-5-3.

I recently (a few years ago) flew transatlantic on a 3-5-3 747 (Delta).

I did a quick look through every 747 layout listed at https://www.seatguru.com/charts/longhaul_economy.php

I don't see any 3-5-3s - everyone was a 3-4-3. If anyone was doing it, they've since retired the plane/layout.

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

#185

Post by strogonoff »

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…

“Loss-conserving?” Or you could say it contains the mounting liabilities.

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

#186

Post by thetinguy »

Waterluvian wrote: post #179
perspectivezoom wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just watched a video about this, that basically goes over all your points: "Air Cargo's Coronavirus Problem" by Wendover Productions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2oPk20OHBE A summary of the video: - Passenger flight belly cargo used to be responsible for 25% of air cargo capacity, so capacity is severely reduced. - PPE emergency logistics has caused a huge spike in demand, since PPE allocations are currently to…

Tangent: are there a ton of pilots struggling to remain qualified and well practiced given all the flights not flying?

You can check reddit.com/r/flying to see how pilots are doing.

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

#188

Post by Symbiote »

jahmed wrote: post #120
smohnot wrote: post #55

Sad day for me; for a plane geek, frequent traveler, son of immigrants, and someone who has been to the factory (incredible - visit the Everett Boeing facility if you get a chance), this is super nostalgic. The "Queen of the skies" really changed air travel, and I'm a bit sad that they won't be flying much longer. The economics, size and scale of travel were drastically different before the 747. Before the 747, only…

I'm so happy my last flight was on a 747. It's truly stunning if you haven't flown on one before. I also had the pleasure of visiting the C17 plant in Long Beach. Blew. My. Mind.

The first plane I flew on was a 747, so the whole experience was novel. I was 12, and the captain invited me to the flight deck as we were over Greenland.

I think my first and only time on an A380 might be comparable. It was huge! And so spacious, and so quiet. (Lufthansa.)

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

#189

Post by Symbiote »

CydeWeys wrote: post #155
JAlexoid wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory bananas can be grown anywhere, but I believe biology has other things to say.

Bananas aren't flown though. They can be grown in many places, it's just the current supply chain for them is most cost-effective.

Some bananas certainly are flown, although I don't know the proportion of the total.

They were loaded into a flight I was on from Costa Rica to Paris.

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

#190

Post by rconti »

blackrock wrote: post #74
vl wrote: post #2

This is really sad. I love both 747 and A380. To me it’s still more comfortable to be in the large plane for a long flight. 4 engines are better than 2.

The fallacy of the A380 was the hub and spoke model. Airbus thought people wanted to fly from a small airport to a central airport, to transfer to a A380, then fly to the other side of the world, then transfer to a smaller plane to get to their final airport. Thus, your trip ended up becoming 3 possible transfers! This is insane that I can’t imagine why the designers didn’t think this through. And airports had to upg…

And airport terminals simply didn't have the space for A380-sized passenger lists. I've been in many an A380 line where 3 or 4 lines across the entire walkway of the airport, blocking all foot traffic to other gates.
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