British Airways has announced that they will retire all of their Boeing 747-400 aircraft, effective immediately. The British flag-carrier has attributed the retirement to an unsustainable future for the Queen of the Skies, due to COVID-19.
In a letter to staff, British Airways warned of a “bleak outlook” for the aviation industry; resulting in a need to retire aircraft that use excessive fuel and will not be able to turn a profit.
“With much regret, we are proposing, subject to consultation, the immediate retirement of our Queen of the Skies, the 747-400. We know there is speculation on social media and aviation websites, so we wanted to make our position clear…
Long haul travel will take years to recover, with the major industry bodies agreeing that we will not see a return to 2019 levels until 2023 at the soonest.”British Airways internal message (Source: UK Aviation News)
All of BA’s 28 B747-400 aircraft have been grounded amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The airline always intended to retire the B747 entirely, albeit by 2024 originally. For many aviation enthusiasts, this early retirement will come as a surprise.
The B747 has become British Airways‘ unofficial flagship aircraft, defined by luxury and a high standard of travel. Over a period of 49 years, British Airways has operated the B747-100, -200 and -400 on numerous routes around the world.
BA has operated the B747-400 variant since 1989, resulting in 60 total airframes entering service (32 have already been retired). The remaining B747’s will be replaced with Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
Article Sources: UK Aviation News and BA Fleet Data
It happened so sudden. I thought and hoped it will still fly until 2024 but it would not. I’m so sad this happened.
Is there any news of farewell flights?
Not as of yet.
What will BA do with all their now unwanted 747s? Do they sell them to another airline, if anybody still wants them, or do they break them up and sell bits of the plane as spare parts?
The 747 is/was a wonderful airplane. So sad to see it all ending like this.
I prefer the A380 but I assume that will go the same way before too long. However, sentiment has no place here; it’s the bottom line, cast, which counts. What peeves me it that airlines should be offering more for less to get us back on long haul flights but I have been tracking flight costs from UK to Singapore and The Philippines and they are higher than last year, despite lower oil prices, and the service is reduced.
That looks so boring and anti-social
I have a flight with a b747 in December, will it already be gone?
It says “albeit by 2024 initially” 😉 So you will most likely get a 747, if one of the aircrafts that’s not retired is still operating on that route.