Passengers and crew donned 70s Era clothing as they boarded their flight from San Francisco to Honolulu in honor of the last United passenger flight of a Boeing 747. Delta is now the last remaining American airline still offering passenger service on the old workhorse. All major carriers are phasing out their fleets of 747 for more economical Boeing 777, 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350 and A330.
Freight carriers like UPS and Atlas will continue to fly the iconic jumbo.
More pictures and video from the farewell flight, Here
This looks like a clown convention.
The old 747 isn’t dead yet.
Boeing 747-8 firm orders and deliveries (to end of September 2017
Customer
747‑8F 747-8I
orders Delivered |Total
Nov 15, 2005 Cargolux 14 14
Nov 15, 2005 Nippon Cargo Airlines 8 8
May 30, 2006 Business Jet / VIP 8 8
Sep 11, 2006 Atlas Air 10 10
Nov 30, 2006 Volga-Dnepr Airlines 5 5
Dec 6, 2006 Lufthansa 19 19
Nov 8, 2007 Cathay Pacific 14 14
Dec 7, 2009 Korean Air 10 7 17
Sep 11, 2012 Air China 7 7
Nov 27, 2012 Unidentified customer(s) (Saudia Cargo[165][N 1]) 2 2
Jul 9, 2013 Silk Way Airlines 5 5
Oct 10, 2014 AirBridgeCargo Airlines 7 7
Oct 27, 2016 UPS Airlines 14 14
Mar 2, 2017 Unidentified customer 3 2 1
Totals 47 88 118 135
Funny it seems that no US passenger carriers ordered any but the far east sure did. Anyway, I had to edit the table to get it to fit hope I didn’t screw it up.
I wonder if they let you smoke? God I loved that, especially the little 5 pack of smokes the stews carried (hey, if we’re celebrating the past I can you a sexist term) id you ran out. In
Canada you used to get Export “A”.
I was bumped into first class on that flight in reverse, HNL to SFO, in the early eighties. What a great time going upstairs, standing up and drinking at the “bar” at 30,000 ft. Good times indeed.
United? I wonder if they gave 1970’s service or treated the passengers like shit as they do today?
Flew on one from Oakland to Seoul Korea in 1983….
Back in the 70s, the inflight passenger announcement just before landing wuz “Please return your stewardess to her normally upright position and fasten your seat belt”
I was on the flightline at Paine Field helping finish the Lufthansa 747-8 first delivery. It was 2012, I believe. It may have originated from an old design, and still had a lot of flaws, but when you walk in the passenger cabin, you could appreciate what a magnificent craft it is. It’s a cash machine. Don’t know if true or fiction, but we were told that a 747-8 freighter, if you simply load the cargo hold with freight – which is 6 feet high inside, this would pay for your flight. The entire main deck was said to be gravy. And the main deck is gigantic.
Scr-north, years ago on a job site we were getting “certified” by a Canadian company to install their products here in the USA, we got into some banter about which country had better stuff (all good-natured) I noticed one of the Canucks had a pack of Export A and I mentioned that when I was a teen I was on a canoe trip in the BWCA which took us into Canada and I bought a pack of Export A at Jock Richardson’s resort back in the mid 70’s and hadn’t seen them since. Canuck said “Yeah we have the best cigarettes too!” I picked up the pack and showed him “Made with fine Virginia tobacco” and my whole crew just cracked up.
Coffee, Tea or Me
It wasn’t a 747 but in 1970 I was a 12 year on my first flight that I remember (Mom tells the story of me as a 9 month old puking on her on a flight back in the 50’s) stuck in between two fat dudes in suits, before we took off the stewardess comes over to me and says those magical words “come with me”
First class baby!
I’ve always had a soft spot for United to this day