The Australian airline Qantas was initially planning to phase out and retire their fleet of Boeing 747-400 ER aircraft in February 2021, however, due to the ongoing crisis, the airline decided to retire the aircraft now.
The final revenue flight was Qantas QF28 from Santiago, Chile to Sydney, Australia on March 29th, 2020. The flight was operated by tail number VH-OEE.
Prior to this final flight, the airline performed a “fly by” over Sydney Harbor on Thursday, March 26th, 2020 to salute the many years of service by the Boeing 747 fleet.
Qantas had previously retired their standard (Non-ER) Boeing 747-400 fleet in October of 2019.
Qantas has been operating the Boeing 747 in their fleet since July 30th, 1971. The first routing the aircraft flew was from Sydney to Melbourne to Singapore.
During the history of Qantas, the airline has operated a number of variants of the Boeing 747. These include the Boeing 747-200B, 747SP, 747 Combi, 747-300, 747-400, and 747-400 ER.
The reason for the popularity of the Boeing 747 in the Qantas fleet is due to the isolated location of Australia and the need for a long range aircraft to successfully reach foreign destinations without the need for an intermediate stop en-route.
About the Author: Brian Morton
My name is Brian and I am a frequent flyer that loves to travel. I fly over 500k miles each year and love to write about it. Thank you so much for being a loyal reader of TodaysFlyer.com! I look forward to posting more articles that you are sure to love!
Today, March 29th, 2020 marks a sad day in aviation history. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines operated its last Boeing 747 revenue flight after 49 years of service.
The final revenue flight was KL686 from Mexico City, Mexico to Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Boeing 747-400 carried registration number PF-BFT. Here is a live tracking link via FlightAware.
KLM first introduced the Boeing 747 on January 16th, 1971. The first revenue flight was on Valentines Day, February 14th, 1971 with registration number PH-BUA from Amsterdam, Netherlands to New York, USA.
KLM also introduced the Boeing 747-300 Combi on October 16th, 1975. This aircraft was a mixture of both passenger and cargo in lieu of being an all passenger jet. This was a strategic decision as the cargo market was overcapacity at the time and this aircraft provided the airline flexibility to transport both cargo and passengers to improve revenue.
Due to the current ongoing crisis, the airline decided it was in their best interests to retire their 747-400 fleet early in lieu of parking them and returning them to service at a later date.
The remaining Boeing 747-400F freighter aircraft that fly for KLM will operate with Martinair on cargo only flights.
About the Author: Brian Morton
My name is Brian and I am a frequent flyer that loves to travel. I fly over 500k miles each year and love to write about it. Thank you so much for being a loyal reader of TodaysFlyer.com! I look forward to posting more articles that you are sure to love!