Boeing discontinued production of the 747

Boeing handed over to the customer the last specimen of the Boeing 747 double-deck wide-body aircraft, thus ending the production of this model, which lasted over 50 years. Broadcasting the ceremony of airliner handover in a cargo modification was held on the company’s website.

The assembly of the last Boeing-747, which has become the 1,574th in number, was completed in December 2022. It was handed over on January 31 to the customer, the U.S. cargo company Atlas Air, at Boeing’s facility in Everett, Washington. The fuselage of the airliner bears the portrait and autograph of Joe Sutter (1921-2016), who was the lead engineer of the Boeing 747 development team in the 1960s.

The last passenger Boeing model 747 was produced more than five years ago. With the onset of the covid pandemic in 2020, the use of these planes to carry passengers has declined dramatically. As of the end of 2022, 44 aircraft were in use worldwide for this purpose, with 314 Boeing 747 freighter modifications still in use.

The intention of Boeing to curtail production of 747 model aircraft was reported in July 2020 by Bloomberg agency. Among the reasons for this decision were the small number of routes that require twin-deck airliners with four engines, and the unprofitability of production of these aircraft, on each of which the company has lost about $40 million since 2016.

The Boeing-747 was the first long-range twin-deck wide-body airliner, its first test flight was in 1969, and in 1970 it was put into service by American airline Pan Am.

Currently being converted two more Boeing-747, designed to serve the president of the United States. These planes were originally built in a standard configuration for the bankrupt Russian airline Transaero; in 2017, the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump agreed with Boeing to buy them back at a discount of about $1.4 billion.

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