Delta retires its last 747 today (3 January, 2018)

Delta is retiring the last U.S. passenger 747 today. A great plane and a smooth ride. My plane of choice for a long haul.

today?
2017?

I think it's 2018 now..

Tony

Oops, I'll be doing that for a few weeks yet.

I was surprised I caught it. My mind is shot.

Tony

is it being replaced by something?

I imagine it is being replaced by either 777's or those huge Airbus 380s (? is that the one?).

Or the Dreamliner...it seems that the airlines would rather overbook a smaller plane and bump you, rather than fly a larger plane and have any empty seats. That's my experience.

bumping passengers seem to be a good method of getting free publicity / airtime..




ouch!!

The_Lone_Beagle said:

.it seems that the airlines would rather overbook a smaller plane and bump you, rather than fly a larger plane and have any empty seats. That's my experience.

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I recall years ago when I used to visit clients in Mexico I was warned to be at the airport VERY early. The standard practice for several of the Mexican airlines at the time was to vastly oversell the allotted number of seats to be sure that every seat had a passenger in it. The end result was that planes often departed EARLY. If the plane had 50 seats and they sold 75, when the first 50 passengers had boarded the plane, the plane left... sometimes as much as a half hour or more early. If you had a ticket and arrived on time, you might watch *your* flight taking off or be informed "Oh yeah, they left a while ago."

I've flown on the 'other' wide bodied jet before to Hawaii back in the day. The DC-10. My dad was a flight engineer for AA on these.

With 4 engines the 747 slurps up fuel a lot faster than the long-range versions of the 767, 777 or 787, as well as the long-range twin-engine Airbus jets. That is what killed it as a passenger jet in the U.S.

My Dad worked for over 40 years for American Airlines. As a young kid I remember flying on one of American’s first 747’s. It had a piano bar on the upper deck. That was back in the days before deregulation where the Airlines competed with each other based on customer service. The Stewardesses, you could call them that back then, wheeled a serving cart down the aisle with fresh roast beef on it. They cut the roast beef with an electric carving knife.

The four engines give that plane an enormous safety factor for over ocean trips. A few years ago a British Airways 747 had to shutdown an engine after departing California for London. The Captain was able to complete the trip on three engines. The Boeing Pilots Operating Handbook for the 747 listed three engine operations as an unusual condition, not an emergency.

All the best,
Bob

One of the best flights I've ever had and I've been on DC-9's, 10's, 727's, 737's, 757's, 767's, 777's L-1011's and A320's
was on a United 747 going to San Francisco just after the winter Olympics in Utah. Flying out of O'hare there were, get this, 135 passengers on board. Yup, I was riding tourist of course and the flight attendants said to sit wherever we want. Empty ship. I like to watch the wing and engines work so I took the appropriate window seat a little aft on the wing on the starboard side. First time on a 47 too. I knew this had the potential to be cool as I did the flight training thing when I was 15 and soloed on the 16th birthday. I even recall smiling and making the comment this should be a quick takeoff to a nearby fellow passenger due to our light weight. Turned on to the runway and the captain poured on the coal. Holy cow!! That light 747 threw me back into the seat with the most acceleration I ever experienced before on a commercial flight. What at rush!

I was grinning from ear to ear and was disappointed the captain had to pull back to "noise abatement" speed
(I knew that was going to happen) but it seemed for a moment, just a moment the nose was going at 45 degrees.
Closest thing was a relatively lightweight 737 in days of yore when I was young that came close but this 747 didn't fail to thrill this old man. Cruise was Mach .82 to .85 during the flight. Got to watch the map and the captain didn't mind passengers listening in on the entertainment system to ATC.

On the flight back, now that 47 was crammed to the gills with people and was a full house. That wasn't a thrilling ride except it took awhile to leave the runway at SFO. I was counting the runway stripes and the intervals counted down and then up again. Took awhile for lift to take hold.

Man I was glad I was able to fly on one of those birds. Kurt

Zeus-cat said:

With 4 engines the 747 slurps up fuel a lot faster than the long-range versions of the 767, 777 or 787, as well as the long-range twin-engine Airbus jets. That is what killed it as a passenger jet in the U.S.

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My mom has experience at FedEx 27+ years in ops and hub manager plus executive writing. Flying Tiger a freight company had ol' 747-100 Freighters. They were used some then mothballed. JetFuel guzzlers. Fred bought Flying tiger for their flight routes. The MD-11 hauls to Alaska as a fuel point then Memphis or other smaller hubs. Granted Fred bought most planes from mothballs on lease. See most freight companies don't buy new always especially in early days. Mom was there when FedEX was starting with Falcons (in poor old bad days with pilots even chipping in on fuel bills sometimes with prayers of long term would be better, that's how desperate it all was) and 727 (micro jetfuel guzzler). Though the 727 had the distinction of offering nearly piston engine aircraft landing rolls in STOL ops with basically a greyhound bus volume of boxes. The DC-10 really got the Memphis-Anchorage-China route going.

There are very few 777s compared to A320, 757, 767, ATR and caravans at FedEx. The 727s were used as late as mid 2000's with retirement I think 2015 ish???? But like they still had 727s on the flight line which is odd... Official retired with limited uses/standby status and a few current pilots still rated.
No one griped about the 747 cargo capacity for its day. The ol' thing will fly on as freighter in third and fourth tier ops with companies too dirt poor to buy better. And a Boeing 747 looks a lot better on paper than an unsupported Antonov freighter by fuel economy. If you want a laugh some ol Soviet designs aren't efficient. They do offer full independence of needing ground equipment to load on ground and heavy tires for rugged off airport ops. Spec Ops and spooks use Antonov and Dash products. Army has a austere capability upgrade to VIP Beechcraft transports too.. For crap holes like Africa when cargo must go to where runway is a machete shovel cleared LZ. Lol. Civilians call it bush flying. Military might call it black site or a outpost in nowhere.

Aside from austere cargo ops... Airbus legit dropped ball on a FedEX a380 contract. They failed to reprogram the damn thing to like air freight for whatever reason so Fred went to 777. That's all I know. Many complaints internally at FedEx on MD-11 and the Airbus products in servicing.

Whats needed is more American and Euro outsize cargo capacity with front or rear load doors. Fred was drooling over C-17s. There's a lot more money in air freight for that weird blah person needs factory smoke stack across world by tomorrow etc where they buy the entire cargo value capacity of a flight in shipping charges.
Saw presentations of putting chinook rotors in a 757 as a kid. I freaking laughed, it looked like a nightmare to deal with angling forklifts. Just a nightmare.

2 cents of cargo ops.

Used to live next to a FedEx chief pilot by name of Emery and he along with the rest of the pilots rejected the MD-11 in a safety study yet Fred Smith overruled that decision for more fuel economy. Emery had experience in F-4E and described MD-11 as an aft loaded touchy monstrosity. MD-11 and DC-10 got there own training extensions through FAA oversight. Rough days in early days. Mom got to jump seat on the first MD-11 cargo flights at FedEx and they had McDonnell Douglas engineers on board. Mom described the panel all lit up like a Christmas tree and the pilots yelling at engineers. Mom made a smart remark of you gave us these gold MD-11 pins to find our charred bodies. Yeah my mom has a sick sense of humor... She just didn't care what the CEO thought. She'd say what she really thought. And the Airbus A-320 legit had a whack the tail with a hammer and see if tail falls off before flight. How legit... That and aluminum speed tape kept the world on time. Hah mom calls us younger kids the world whenever.

The 747 was one of the safer freighter and airliners by design. More conservative technologies.

The_Lone_Beagle said:

I imagine it is being replaced by either 777's or those huge Airbus 380s (? is that the one?).

Or the Dreamliner...it seems that the airlines would rather overbook a smaller plane and bump you, rather than fly a larger plane and have any empty seats. That's my experience.

Click to expand...

They can't afford the operating costs of partial capacity flights. Cargo companies in air freight can but there will be a surcharge of the entire plane's cargo capacity at standard shipping calculation fees if you need that plane to haul a single awkward package. Sorry. What the companies are doing is maximizing profit and minimizing losses. The businesses that don't go bankrupt in capitalist economy. You are taking about multi hundred million dollar machines. Of course the company will maximize efficiency or it begins to bleed money and jobs. Freighters flying empty from US to China was bad policy at FedEx and people lost jobs when economy got crap. I imagine the horror of airlines how half full is no good either.

Oddly my dad is a Phenom 300 pilot and after his week of flying corporate clients he is so relieved to take a bumped flight for extra perks. They do a bunch of partial capacity flights in business jet world because the passengers pay out the arse for that luxury and convience of dialing a phone number any runways in the world 5000ft and paved. Any time of day or night weather and conditions approving. Business jet firms make a profit because the customers paid upfront for a 1/16 share of a jet's worth in flight hours granted for use. You can rent your own Cessna cheaper than corporate charter if you want more freedom than any charter or airline service to closer destinations to final destinations as long as you get a pilot's license. You may get more leg room, lol.

Andrew. I laughed at that last post above. Do you realize there used to be an Emery Air Freight outfit in days of yore? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emery_Worldwide

Kurt

dr wogz said:

is it being replaced by something?

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Anything that burns less fuel !

I flew 747 a few times. The upper deck sucked - low ceiling, tight shoulder space.
Wont miss it.

Yeah. I never heard much of Emery as it was FedEX bias as a kid to a FedEX/military family. UPS was seen the same way oh it's brown it's turd. Some of FedEX's most successful directors left UPS to start FedEx. They probably had IP flowing both ways. You know business lol..

Man I really had a good laugh when meeting people at a VW car factory that would whine so much then you ask about FedEx experience and they were all we flipped the bird and never went back. Then they were praising VW so much. One dude ripped a FedEx trucking contract in half and called that story of his life more miserable than an air conditioned factory job. And the truckers whined less than pilots. Mom had a memo of Fred Smith saying with or without you the packages will go out on time to the pilots. They stopped their strike. Funniest sh*t I ever read. Smith was a pilot too at one time.

How many people did the 747 at Delta carry until it's retirement? That would be an impressive figure.

Zeus-cat said:

With 4 engines the 747 slurps up fuel a lot faster than the long-range versions of the 767, 777 or 787, as well as the long-range twin-engine Airbus jets. That is what killed it as a passenger jet in the U.S.

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This is true but there is more to the cost story.

As of about 2004 there was not a single vendor in the US that would perform heavy periodic maintenance on the 747. The US operators were forced to fly the planes to China to have required/mandatory periodic maintenance performed (C-checks etc.). If a CF6 engine needed repair or maintenance, try costing out shipping the motor to/from Ireland to find a vendor with a CF6 engine test cell.

Add those costs to your yearly budget numbers and the ongoing price to operate a 747 goes through the roof.

Sad fact: the US built the planes but could no longer service them. Amazing.

Boeing didn't "want" to service them for any price in the US. Maybe they'll learn losing the business contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars is rather important to listen to what customers want. Sheesh. Greed ruins good people and companies then pisses off customers.

Andrew_ASC said:

Boeing didn't "want" to service them for any price in the US. Maybe they'll learn losing the business contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars is rather important to listen to what customers want. Sheesh. Greed ruins good people and companies then pisses off customers.

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The market has spoken. They want cheap fares, and they are willing to give up anything to get them. The airlines are simply responding to customer demands by decreasing seat pitch, eliminating the onboard frills, charging extra for baggage, leveraging regional partners to service the smaller markets, and sending aircraft abroad for heavy maintenance.

They may piss off a few customers in the process, but oligopolies like the airline industry can get away with that. The customer always comes back.

James

Blackleaf99 said:

Sad fact: the US built the planes but could no longer service them. Amazing.

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Why continue to fund a service capability for an asset that US airlines decided they no longer wished to use? Heck, the move away from the 747 among US airlines started way back in the 1970s, when American sold off their entire fleet of the beasties. It is amazing that they lasted this long in US service.

James

Oddly, there is another unspoken market force acting on the large aircraft inventories.

Younger and younger aircraft are being scrapped now, as they are worth more pieced out to service the spare parts demand. Perfectly good aircraft with current up to date maintenance records, all AD's and AC's incorporated, are now being retired for their parts. There is so much demand for serviceable aircraft parts that airlines are removing and scrapping aircraft for their value to the spare parts market.

Although on the one hand this may create future demand for the aircraft manufacturers to make new aircraft sales. On the other this gives a chance for air carriers to remove from service any suboptimal aircraft from their net inventory.

The downside is that foreign manufactured parts are seldom (actually never) made to the same rigorous quality and material standards as US manufacturers. Hence questionable aircraft replacement parts enter the supply chain all the time.

All this because the OEM aircraft manufacturers at some point are no longer able or willing to manufacture and sell replacement parts to keep their aircraft flying.

So the Presidential Air Force 1 ships have to go to China for maintence? Or does USAF maintain the capability to keep them in service? I suspect the latter. Kurt

The_Lone_Beagle said:

I imagine it is being replaced by either 777's or those huge Airbus 380s (? is that the one?).

Or the Dreamliner...it seems that the airlines would rather overbook a smaller plane and bump you, rather than fly a larger plane and have any empty seats. That's my experience.

Click to expand...

It has been in the process of being replaced by the 777, the 787 and the Airbus 350. At one time there were 1000 747's in service and now there are maybe 150-175. All active planes other than the presidential fleet are overseas. I say fleet as the new planes are also 747's.

The A380 has proven to be less popular than the 747 ever was and its future is currently in doubt as Airbus can not sell more than one or two at a time anymore. The cargo version never became a thing which I think they were counting on.

ksaves2 said:

So the Presidential Air Force 1 ships have to go to China for maintence? Or does USAF maintain the capability to keep them in service? I suspect the latter. Kurt

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USAF and Boeing maintain and will continue to maintain the maintenance on the fleet. The new fleet was originally going to be the last two units down the assembly line, but that plan has been scrapped for two already built planes whose order was canceled or the buyer went belly up, don't recall the exact details.

Blackleaf99 said:

Oddly, there is another unspoken market force acting on the large aircraft inventories.

Younger and younger aircraft are being scrapped now, as they are worth more pieced out to service the spare parts demand. Perfectly good aircraft with current up to date maintenance records, all AD's and AC's incorporated, are now being retired for their parts. There is so much demand for serviceable aircraft parts that airlines are removing and scrapping aircraft for their value to the spare parts market.

Although on the one hand this may create future demand for the aircraft manufacturers to make new aircraft sales. On the other this gives a chance for air carriers to remove from service any suboptimal aircraft from their net inventory.

The downside is that foreign manufactured parts are seldom (actually never) made to the same rigorous quality and material standards as US manufacturers. Hence questionable aircraft replacement parts enter the supply chain all the time.

All this because the OEM aircraft manufacturers at some point are no longer able or willing to manufacture and sell replacement parts to keep their aircraft flying.

Click to expand...

Boeing didn't make the engines for the 747. Aircraft engines for the big jets were made by GE, Pratt and Whiney and Rolls Royce. Those, like many specialty aircraft parts, are outsourced to vendors. Actually, in most cases the engines are chosen by the airlines. They choose what engine manufacturer they want to use, buy them and Boeing installs them.

The company I worked for made aircraft lighting. And we outsourced almost all of the components we used to other vendors. We fabricated very little, if anything, from raw materials. Oddly enough, we actually populated circuit boards for some of our stuff. That is very unusual for U.S. companies. Anyway, supply chains for complicated equipment like airplanes can be very long and complicated.

I actually liked Boeing as one of our customers; I thought they were very reasonable. Especially when compared to some of the other customers we had.

ksaves2 said:

One of the best flights I've ever had and I've been on DC-9's, 10's, 727's, 737's, 757's, 767's, 777's L-1011's and A320's
was on a United 747 going to San Francisco just after the winter Olympics in Utah. Flying out of O'hare there were, get this, 135 passengers on board. Yup, I was riding tourist of course and the flight attendants said to sit wherever we want. Empty ship. I like to watch the wing and engines work so I took the appropriate window seat a little aft on the wing on the starboard side. First time on a 47 too. I knew this had the potential to be cool as I did the flight training thing when I was 15 and soloed on the 16th birthday. I even recall smiling and making the comment this should be a quick takeoff to a nearby fellow passenger due to our light weight. Turned on to the runway and the captain poured on the coal. Holy cow!! That light 747 threw me back into the seat with the most acceleration I ever experienced before on a commercial flight. What at rush!

I was grinning from ear to ear and was disappointed the captain had to pull back to "noise abatement" speed
(I knew that was going to happen) but it seemed for a moment, just a moment the nose was going at 45 degrees.
Closest thing was a relatively lightweight 737 in days of yore when I was young that came close but this 747 didn't fail to thrill this old man. Cruise was Mach .82 to .85 during the flight. Got to watch the map and the captain didn't mind passengers listening in on the entertainment system to ATC.

On the flight back, now that 47 was crammed to the gills with people and was a full house. That wasn't a thrilling ride except it took awhile to leave the runway at SFO. I was counting the runway stripes and the intervals counted down and then up again. Took awhile for lift to take hold.

Man I was glad I was able to fly on one of those birds. Kurt

Click to expand...

I flew a 747 back from the Philippines years ago, the same way you came back. The plane was loaded to the gills, it was a hot day, and it felt like we were never going to get into the air. I don't remember how far it was from liftoff to the end of the runway, but it sure wasn't far.

A few years later, we were flying an EgyptAir 767 and got an invite to visit the cockpit. I sat on the flight engineer's armrest from runway to runway. I think the engineer gave my dad his seat. It was really cool, and will never happen again post 9/11.

1st 47 ride, from JFK to Schipol, Netherlands packed to the rim and I was sitting in the back. I distinctly remember seeing the nose lift and the overhead bins flex before the rest of the aircraft got off the ground! Second 47 flight was from Spangdahlem AB Germany to Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia with 70 passengers and gear. As we taxied out, all the things that aircraft aren't supposed to do for safety reasons was screaming in my crew chief noggin like outboard engines hanging out over the edge of the runway, hovering (or hoovering) above the airfield lights and grass. How was the pilot going to turn this behemoth on the hammerhead big enough for a handful of our F-15s? Well, he did, then straightened her up, and held the brakes. Its one thing to hear the engines being pushed to max but then feeling those GEs chew through the Eifel air, feeling the G load on the my arms and chest shoving us in to the seats, the dragon rumbled down the runway passing the two F-16 squadrons, then the fire dept, then the A-10 squadron. Jeezus was this thing going to endo downhill off the overrun and in to the sunflower field across Hwy B-50 or take off? There's only my squadron and the golf course left! And then, like a raptor off a branch, she leapt into that cool afternoon air, roaring and soaring as if it had no other purpose but to show the fighter jocks below that a big body can max climb too! And climb it did...