
Boeing quietly pulls plug on the 747, closing era of jumbo jets - burnaboy
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-02/boeing-quietly-pulls-plug-on-the-747-closing-era-of-jumbo-jets
======
x43b
>>The Covid-19 pandemic threatens to leave their manufacturers scrounging to
find buyers for the last jumbos built.

This is imply not true. The last 747s built are freighters. Freight demand is
at an all time high due to COVID and constraints on supply chians. Even
passenger vehicles are being called into freight service (which is far less
efficient yet still economical).

~~~
nelaboras
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.

~~~
gsnedders
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 aren't doing this and making a loss: they're hemorrhaging
enough money already that they wouldn't want to add to that, but when the
marginal cost is essentially the landing fees minus the parking fees they'd
otherwise be paying, plus the additional cost of paying the crew above and
beyond any furlough payment, plus the cost of fuel, plus any marginal
maintenance cost from the extra cycles.

~~~
perspectivezoom
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](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 too volatile for anything except for air cargo. Air
cargo prices are high.

\- Government funding for airlines require pilots to remain on salary, so
there's no additional marginal cost of labor.

\- The biggest marginal cost of a flight, the cost of fuel, has understandably
also become very cheap.

The end result is that even though it's still quite inefficient as compared to
dedicated freight planes, the perfect storm of circumstances makes passenger-
planes-as-cargo-planes momentarily profitable.

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

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
From what I understand, most airlines are rotating the few remaining shifts.
This way each pilot gets a couple of flights per month, which is enough to
keep their ratings.

That said, since many airlines have completely stopped flying some plane types
(particulary the A380 superjumbo), those pilots are going to have a problem
soon.

~~~
gsnedders
AFAIK, some airlines were scheduling _extremely_ few flights of larger
aircraft purely to keep currency.

------
smohnot
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 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. This
plane shrank the world and allowed for the middle class to explore the world
in a way that they never could before.

When my parents came to the US, they came on a 747. Before the 747 they
probably would have had to make 5-6 stops, instead of the 2 that they came on.

Crazy enough, the 747 was designed with obsolescence in mind because when it
was developed in the 60's, we thought all passenger jets would be flying
supersonic... so they made the 747 with this hump to easily convert them into
cargo jets (cargo would continue to fly subsonic even though passengers
wouldn't).

~~~
jahmed
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.

~~~
Symbiote
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.)

------
fsckboy
the 747-8F freighter will continue, so the title is misleading. The era is not
over, at a maximum closing the era of jumbo passenger jets.

and as points of interest, the hump on the 747 keeps the cockpit out of the
way allowing freight to be loaded more easily and completely, and freighters
don't mind stopping to refuel (too expensive to carry all that fuel for the
whole trip) and that's what makes the 747 continue to make economic sense for
freight, while the A380 never did.

~~~
manigandham
Don't takeoff/landing cycles on the engines and airframe counteract the fuel
savings?

EDIT: Specifically pressurization cycles and metal fatigue, since that's how
aircraft lifespan is measured.

~~~
Johnjonjoan
I wonder if the limiting fact to cargo capacity is weight or volume. If it's
weight then perhaps the additional freight offsets those costs rather than
saving fuel.

~~~
WJW
IIRC it really depends on the cargo. A very cool example I came across was
iPhones being fairly heavy relative to their volume while roses were very
light relative to their volume. The solution of the air freight company was to
fill their aircraft 50/50 with roses and iPhones so that they were both at
their weight limit and at their volume limit.

~~~
ravoori
Ingenious on the part of freight company, but roses being transported halfway
around the world is an indicator of what's wrong with modern commerce

~~~
yorwba
iPhones being transported halfway around the world isn't? In both cases the
difference in labor cost is large enough to make the flight profitable.

~~~
megablast
Yes, since roses can be grown almost anywhere, and they are 100s of
replacement for a rose.

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

~~~
CydeWeys
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.

~~~
Symbiote
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.

------
nlh
One thing that stands out in TFA is the photo of the cabin mock-up:

[https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/ijEVXdL5LsC...](https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/ijEVXdL5LsCY/v0/-1x-1.jpg)

What's the biggest difference? No overhead bins! It looks positively roomy in
there.

I wonder if the overhead bin model is really the best one -- it feels like a
huge bottleneck. Reduces headspace, slows down load in and load out
dramatically since it essentially requires that every passenger be able to
military press a 20lb+ weight (or have someone else do it).

I'm not sure what a better plan would be though :) Maybe raise the cabin
slightly and have the bins be built into the floors below each seat?

~~~
ldng
Hum, expert in here will correct me if I'm wrong, but, beside the bins, over
the years, version after version, I feel that airframes actually slowly
shrunk.

~~~
steffan
You might feel that way, but that isn't correct.

Over the years, the airlines _have_ reduced seat pitch, and as you can see
from the 747 illustration, added an additional seat in the middle section as
well.

~~~
mjg59
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.

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

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

------
jedberg
Such a shame. The best flight I ever took was on an A380. The thing was just
so big that turbulence didn't seem to affect it.

Flying on the jumbo jets was always a trip. With Boeing pulling the plug on
the 747, it will be long time before anyone makes a double decker again, if
ever.

~~~
jcims
I'll never forget my first flight on a 747. DEN to LAX, and for some reason
the plane was almost completely empty..maybe 20 passengers. I was way back and
was able to absorb the view of almost the entire airframe from the inside. As
we neared the end of the takeoff roll and the pilot started to rotate, the
wingtips started to raise with the stress on the wings. I've seen this before
in other planes of course, but the thing that was odd was that as this
continued i could see the walls of the fuselage directly over the wings start
to bow inward. Not by much of course, but it was incredibly obvious and
interesting.

The next flight was from LAX to MEL and it was completely full. I never
thought we were going to get into the air.

~~~
kortilla
Even mostly full of passengers, you’ll notice short hops like DEN-LAX have
noticeably shorter takeoffs. Weight of the fuel for a 747-400 when fully
fueled for something like the ass-deadening LAX-MEL and LAX-SYD routes is
something like 25% of the plane.

------
Traster
As I understand it, 4 engine planes are less economical and are now
unnecessary due to the reliability of 2 engine planes. I could see the last
747s serving as great monuments purchased by Billionaires to add to their
collections. No 737 Max is going to give you a spiral staircase. I can't help
but see this as a problem though, as we converge on a single type of aircraft
it moves more and more to winner take all for the design.

~~~
supernova87a
Two main things as I understand it:

1) The variability of traffic leads to jumbos being underutilized, wasting
fuel and capital tied up in such oversized planes, when it's better to have a
787 in use full time more consistently

2) Airlines got tired of having to maintain 4 engines when they could just
have 2...

~~~
bobthepanda
Other thing is that 787 and A320 can reliably fill up on "thinner" routes,
which siphons off people who would otherwise change at a hub airport onto a
jumbo, and filling jumbos was already tricky.

There is a reason the largest operators of A380s and 747s are the ones with
absolutely massive hubs; either a legacy European flag carrier, a Middle
Eastern mega-hub airline, or an airline handling large amounts of transfer
volume from an out-of-the-way place like Australia.

------
sjm-lbm
I know it's not the most important thing, but I feel that 747s are easily the
prettiest passenger airplane in the sky right now.

Going to miss the variety they provided at the airport.

~~~
whatgoodisaroad
Strictly in terms of appearances, I think Antonovs look really nice. Granted,
it was rare to see one in a western airport even in the best of times.

~~~
beamatronic
Just move to Mountain View, California and you can see it every week

~~~
iso8859-1
The An-225 goes to California every week? Why?

~~~
patman
I don't think the An-225 is the only Antonov.

~~~
numpad0
By antonov I’m certain they don’t mean the 124...

------
vl
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.

~~~
blackrock
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 upgrade their facilities in order to handle the increased
weight of the jumbo A380. This was a non-starter to begin with.

Boeing correctly realized that people want a direct point-to-point travel,
with no transfers in between. Thus, they won out in the next generation
airplanes.

But, whatever happened to those Dreamliners anyways? I don’t hear much about
them anymore.

~~~
FabHK
When many airports are restricted by the number or airplane movements
(takeoffs and landings), then transporting more passengers requires bigger
planes. It was not a stupid plan.

It works well for Emirates, Etihad, Turkish etc. - they fly from everywhere to
Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Istanbul resp., and depending on the traffic in big or small
planes. So you basically get anywhere with 2 hops.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
A couple of years ago, I made an international flight with my children. I made
sure that one leg of the journey was business class on a 747 on the upper
deck. I wanted my children to have had the memory of flying in the most iconic
location (upper deck) of the most iconic passenger airplane in history.

If you can get a flight on the 747, I urge you if you are able to, pay the
extra and get a seat on the upper deck. It will be one of those things you
talk about for years.

~~~
mjg59
United used to serve Melbourne by having one of the 747s from the LA/SF to
Sydney services continue on to Melbourne. Last time I took it I was the only
passenger upstairs on the Sydney→Melbourne leg. Coupled with the performance
of a lightly loaded 747 that's only fueled for a ~400 mile flight (fastest
I've ever had from takeoff to the 10,000 feet chimes), it was quite an
experience (especially since being the only person there means your drink gets
refilled rather quickly…)

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

~~~
Tiltowait--
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 is a 1960s design, for Pete's sake. How long were we planning on
keeping it around?

~~~
Scramblejams
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.

~~~
gsnedders
I don't think there's any question that it was a response to the A380, and
it's quite plausible they wouldn't have developed it without the A380. That
said, compared with the A380 development the 747-8 will have been cheap to
develop, and had an impact on the market as a whole even if it scarcely made
much money.

------
the-dude
In The Netherlands we have an iconic train which must have been inspired by
the 747.

[https://www.ns.nl/binaries/_ht_1533730717772/content/assets/...](https://www.ns.nl/binaries/_ht_1533730717772/content/assets/ns-
nl/overig/posters/poster-intercity-icmm.pdf)

~~~
WJW
The designers elevated the driver cabin so that it would be possible for
passengers to walk underneath it when they coupled multiple trains together
into a longer one. Sadly, it turned out the doors for the interlocking
mechanism were very error prone so in the end they just welded them shut and
you have to go around outside (at a station) if you want to move between
trains sets.

~~~
iso8859-1
Weird, intuitively seems like a less fragile approach than a giant diaphragm:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC3)

~~~
WJW
There was also a telescoping gantry-like contraption that went across. I can
see how that is quite fragile mechanically in a moving vehicle with vibrations
and everything.

------
perryizgr8
Another sign of mankind's technological regression when it comes to flight.
First we lost the supersonic airliner, now jumbo jets.

~~~
hodgesrm
Uh, the smaller planes are quite pleasant to fly on. Better cabin
pressurization and larger windows. They also allow more long-haul routes.

Besides a 777 is not that much smaller than a 747.

~~~
amelius
Given the damage it causes to the environment, flying should be _less_
comfortable, not _more_.

~~~
hodgesrm
Damage compared to what alternative? If I need to go somewhere as an
individual, it's quite a bit more efficient to fly vs. driving. An Airbus
A319Neo gets 122 mpg per seat. That's almost 5 times the 2017 average gas
mileage for American cars. [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Short...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Short-
haul_flights)

[2] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-epa-emissions-
autos/u-s-a...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-epa-emissions-autos/u-s-
auto-fleet-hit-record-high-fuel-efficiency-in-2017-idUSKCN1QN23N)

------
manigandham
> _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?

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

~~~
sgent
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.

~~~
jabl
Hmm, does 4 engines really add to survivability? Looking at recent-ish cases
like the 777(?) the Russians shot down over Ukraine or the case in Iran a few
years ago, after being hit they go down pretty solidly whether they have 2 or
20 engines.

I guess the one case where 4 engines might be useful is if somebody sneaks up
with an IR-guided manpad near an airport. Such a small missile might just take
out an engine without breaking up the entire plane.

Then again, in a war if you're operating AF1 anywhere close where hostile
missiles are a concern, you're doing something wrong.

------
watersb
A friend of mine drives 747-8F freighters for United Parcel Service (UPS).

She trained for the -8F series upgrade at Anchorage. [Via @ethagknight
comment]([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23718445](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23718445))
I learned that this is Ted Stevens Airport, a refueling stop for everybody
doing air freight from Shenzhen to USA. Apparently they have lots of other
operations there, makes sense.

Anyway, 787-F pilots have had a very busy year.

------
tahoeskibum
The old order changeth to make way for the new: the era of Starships.

------
ho_schi
I really like the 747-8I it is a pretty plane and actually also economic.
Widebodys are more comfortable and the upper deck is just awesome. For those
who wanna fly with the 747: Book a trip with Deutsche Lufthansa or Korean Air.
They both use the newest type and probably will keep them flying for a long
time. Passengers is what keep them in them flying :)

------
gautamcgoel
Wow, the end of an era! The 747 was _the_ workhorse plane for domestic US
carriers for quite some time.

~~~
kzrdude
Certainly a milestone, but if the last 747 is yet to be _produced_ , the last
one to fly will still be decades away.

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/SNd8N](https://archive.is/SNd8N)

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

~~~
coin
More engines means more to fail

~~~
echelon
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.

~~~
hodgesrm
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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777#Accidents_and_incidents)

~~~
jabl
Yes, but would more engines have helped in that case? If that problem stopped
both engines, chances are the same problem would have stopped all 4 engines on
a 4 engine plane as well.

So you'd need to look at cases where independent failures cause both engines
on a twin engine plane to fail. I'd guess those are quite rare.

------
perl4ever
I got to ride on one at least once, but I always wondered what it was like on
the upper level.

~~~
jacquesm
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.

------
soheil
Does this mean more business for SpaceX' intra-Earth Starship?

------
ponker
The 747 is humanity's greatest achievement. Air travel is the confluence of
engineering, policy and governance (the heyday of the FAA/NTSB and how we got
to the point where air travel is this safe), and the systems engineering that
get aircraft, people, and baggage to so many different places. What the Boeing
747, and only the Boeing 747, has is true artistic value, with a profile
evoking Botticelli or Rubens.

~~~
Tiltowait--
Artistic value? With the ugly hump?

That hump isn't just physically ugly, it's socially ugly as well. It is where
the elites congregate. Anything that diminishes their status relative to our
own is a good thing.

~~~
ponker
The hump is where business class usually sits. First class is up in the nose.

~~~
ghaff
Though not originally. Upstairs used to be the first class lounge. Over time
this generally under-utilized space got changed into business class seating.

(The lounge dates to before business class existed. That said, modern
international business class is more comfortable in most ways than first class
was at the time.)

------
anticensor
The last day of 737 will come sometime soon too.

~~~
DataJunkie
The 737 is pretty versatile though. It's limitation is capacity and perhaps
range. Range has been improved over the years allowing a lot of medium-range
thin-capacity flights. The 737, 777 and 787 combined have eliminated the need
for the 747, 757 and 767.

The classics have mostly or entirely been retired, with the most common models
being the -700 and -800. The family has enough flexibility to evolve in range
without needing a completely new family. The 737 still has its place as the
short to medium haul work horse, so I don't see it going anywhere for a long
time.

~~~
innocenat
> The 737, 777 and 787 combined have eliminated the need for the 747, 757 and
> 767.

There are huge demand for A321LR precisely because there is a need for
757-like capacity and range. Granted, when 757 was discontinued the demand
wasn't there yet.

~~~
DataJunkie
I suppose I can still see a need for a 757 aircraft. My thinking was that our
economy now requires so much travel that a 787 could be mostly filled. There
are so many variants of the A320/321 that I can't even keep track.

~~~
bobthepanda
Generally speaking, part of the point to point trend has also been to downsize
planes, not only to serve thin markets but to provide higher frequencies so
that passengers have choice of when to travel during the day. Plus there's
money to be made with premiums on thin markets still, given that the matrix of
East Coast - Europe flights is not anywhere close to being full.

------
MintelIE
I would have thought they'd pull the plug on these new jets they had to fake
safety compliance for and keep the older, working models that people will
actually fly on.

I can't imagine anybody flying on a 737 Max even if the Boeing execs over at
the FAA claim it's safe again.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
This article is about the 747, not the 737. So far as I know, the 747 never
had to fake safety compliance in any way.

------
makerofspoons
Good riddance- with any luck the post COVID-19 world will be one with less
reliance on air travel for the atmosphere's sake. Especially in the numbers
that once made airplane designers believe the 747 and A380 could be
economically viable.

~~~
nsl73
If you need to do air travel, these larger airplanes are better then smaller
airplanes per passenger.

~~~
makerofspoons
The lifecycle impact of a 747 is much worse than a 737 or an Embraer 145:
[https://escholarship.org/content/qt6m5865v5/qt6m5865v5.pdf](https://escholarship.org/content/qt6m5865v5/qt6m5865v5.pdf)

Regardless of the plane size however, there's no getting around planes
depositing pollution in the upper atmosphere is worse than we thought and
cannot be thought of in the same way as emissions from a train or power plant:
[https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207886-it-turns-out-
pl...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207886-it-turns-out-planes-are-
even-worse-for-the-climate-than-we-thought/)

~~~
bregma
Running an electric train on a transatlantic -- or transpacific -- trip causes
an awful lot of environmental degradation, too.

~~~
makerofspoons
I believe the alternative to phasing out air travel isn't finding another mode
of transport to replace it but instead asking whether or not in a world with
teleconferencing and the internet if it's worth the damage to be physically
moving people around.

~~~
JAlexoid
You can't compare teleconferencing with in-person interactions. They aren't
the same.

