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Businesses Transportation

Boeing Quietly Pulls Plug on the 747, Closing Era of Jumbo Jets (bloomberg.com) 118

Posted by msmash from the end-of-an-era dept.
Boeing hasn't told employees, but the company is pulling the plug on its hulking 747 jumbo jet, ending a half-century run for the twin-aisle pioneer. From a report: The last 747-8 will roll out of a Seattle-area factory in about two years, a decision that hasn't been reported but can be teased out from subtle wording changes in financial statements, people familiar with the matter said. It's a moment that aviation enthusiasts long have dreaded, signaling the end of the double-decker, four-engine leviathans that shrank the world. Airbus SE is already preparing to build the last A380 jumbo, after the final convoy of fuselage segments rumbled to its Toulouse, France, plant last month. Yet for all their popularity with travelers, the final version of the 747 and Europe's superjumbo never caught on commercially as airlines turned to twin-engine aircraft for long-range flights. While Boeing's hump-nosed freighters will live on, the fast-disappearing A380 risks going down as an epic dud.
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Boeing Quietly Pulls Plug on the 747, Closing Era of Jumbo Jets More

Boeing Quietly Pulls Plug on the 747, Closing Era of Jumbo Jets

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  • I liked flying in the 747-400 upper deck. Comfortable and quiet up there.

    • Yes, sitting there, you're literally a step above the hoi polloi. I once flew business class with an airline (might have been Virgin Atlantic) that had an actual bar up there.

      I've also flown economy in an A380 and it was surprisingly comfy.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I used to fly first class on 747s all of the time and it was super cushy.

        The only better experience I had on an airline was on the Concorde, back when that was still flying. Nothing quite like getting across the Atlantic in 3 hours.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Strider- ( 39683 )

        The one time I've been on an A380 in economy, I hated it... I was flying FRA->PEK, so a rather long haul. I'm a window seat person, and my usual method for getting through long flights is to sit down, have a scotch, pass out against the side of the aircraft and wake up at the other end. Unfortunately you can't do that on the lower deck of the A380, as the sidewall is still curving outwards, so at shoulder height it's a good 6" away from the side of the seat. No way to fill that gap and sleep comfortably.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Nehmo ( 757404 )

          The one time I've been on an A380 in economy, I hated it... I was flying FRA->PEK, so a rather long haul. I'm a window seat person, and my usual method for getting through long flights is to sit down, have a scotch, pass out against the side of the aircraft and wake up at the other end. Unfortunately you can't do that on the lower deck of the A380, as the sidewall is still curving outwards, so at shoulder height it's a good 6" away from the side of the seat. No way to fill that gap and sleep comfortably.

          I envy you rich dudes and, at the same time, I'm thankful I never made it (66 now). To me, any flying is luxury. I seldom do fly, but I love it. Just the view is enough to get me excited.
          But, then again, I see some of you suffer when you've had too much. Jet lag from the Orient must be terrible.

      • Yes, sitting there, you're literally a step above the hoi polloi. I once flew business class with an airline (might have been Virgin Atlantic) that had an actual bar up there.

        I've also flown economy in an A380 and it was surprisingly comfy.

        Virgin business class was awesome. Comfy seats that turn into comfy beds, free pajamas, free spa with showers in the arrival airport. Loved it

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        That's why they have to go. The airline execs are extending their lives by capturing the distilled essence of the agonized groans of millions of passengers attempting to stand up after flying economy.

  • Pull the plug on the 737 Max (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Thursday July 02, 2020 @02:32PM (#60255094)

    Not this one everybody trusts.

    • Re:Pull the plug on the 737 Max (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02, 2020 @02:48PM (#60255144)
      The 737 Max has been cancelled. The 737-8200 is "a completely different plane" said the Boeing marketing guy as he set out 10 lines of coke in a row. "Have you met Maxine? Or maybe Andrew is more to your taste?" , he continued.

    • Not this one everybody trusts.

      LOL.. And yet, test flights for the re-certification process have started as of Monday.

      You do understand that this is not the first 737 design fault that killed a few plane loads before it got figured out and fixed. We are still flying those aircraft decades later. This issue is a whole lot less complex to understand and thus is a much easier fix.

      History says, in about 5 years, nobody will care except the civil courts where the wrongful death suits will be settled if Boeing chooses to not settle out of c

      • The 727 had 3 hull losses within 6 months of it's introduction. Both Boeing and the public have become complacent in the safety of hurling through the air at 500 mph.

  • "Epic dud" - I smell some bias ;-) (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wimg ( 300673 ) on Thursday July 02, 2020 @02:43PM (#60255122) Homepage
    Sounds like somebody didn't like Airbus creating something that was bigger and better than Boeing :-) I've flown on both and the A380 was far superiour in every way, which makes sense since it came decades after the 747. It's sad to see both of them go though, given how majestic they are. The luxury of the A380 was beyond anything... best sleep I ever had was on-board a Quantas A380 in first : 7,5h of continuous sleep :-) But in the post-corona era, airlines will be lucky if they can fill seats at all. Although knowing most people, they'll quickly get on-board, regardless of what they'll spread and how much CO2 they produce. Nature gave us a clear warning, humans will ignore it blindly...

    • Re:"Epic dud" - I smell some bias ;-) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nitehawk214 ( 222219 ) on Thursday July 02, 2020 @02:52PM (#60255154)

      The A380 is superior in every way. But airlines were getting out of jumbo jets long before the pandemic hit. The A380 will stop production before the 747, and because 747s are easier to convert to cargo craft; they will fly on long after the last A380 has landed.

      "epic dud" is probably unfair; but hub-and-spoke airline design declined decades ago. The A380 didn't fail due to any weakness, but the world had already moved on from it by the time it first flew.

      • Since the 747 was a redesign of a cargo aircraft Boeing submitted to for US Air Force requirement (beaten out by the Lockheed C-5), they were smart to retain many of the design features to support conversion back to a cargo aircraft.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          There are actually two 747s. There's the passenger version, and the cargo version. The converted ones and combi are passenger 747 modified to hold cargo.

          The BIG difference between the two, and why the 747 will fly for a long time, is the cargo 747 has a nose door. Yes, the nose door that lets the nose swing up and opens in a cavernous emptiness that is the 747. You've probably seen it, and it's what makes the super guppy all that much more useful.

          You see, the passenber combi and converted ones only have sid

        • My understanding is that when Boeing was designing the 747, that they thought that supersonic was going to be the future of passenger travel. The 747 was primarily a cargo plane, and the market for the passenger variants were really expect to be just a short-term thing.

          Funny thing there were kind of right in the end with the 747 being used more and more to move cargo, but were wrong about why the 747 has fallen out of favor for passenger use, with most passenger flights now on smaller, slower twin-engined

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by thsths ( 31372 )

        Yes, hub and spoke flights are not nice, and it is mostly because the airports have become so terrible. There used to be simple, quick and well planned connections, and now even 45 minutes may not be enough to make it through another security check and run through half the airport.

        • I think that Hub/Spoke will come back. Airlines have been moving from good seating like we had in the 70s and 80s, to a nightmare. Even the 'coach +' is a joke. If airlines want to survive, they will have to move to using small aircrafts for FC/Business, while using wide jets with nothing but coach, with a column and and several rows missing so that ppl can be comfortable. As such, small airports will feed into large ones and then the wides will take over.

      • The A380 is superior in every way.

        Not even. It's a lousy cargo ship, especially compared to the 747, which is convertable. It's a maintenance nightmare. It was created strictly for European politics (dick waving)

        Oh, and it's butt ugly! "dud" would be a compliment.

        • Depends. Line maintenance is much simpler compared to the 747 because it is a modern aircraft that can recognise a fault and print out instructions on how to fix it.

        • Oh be fair.. Everything you say is true... Except that it's ugly.. I think it's quite a nice looking aircraft, which looks like nearly every other aircraft of it's vintage that rolled out of Airbus's hangers. Personally, I find it better looking than the A330...

          The A380 was both a political and a bad technical decision. It cost way too much to design and build and Airbus will have to write off a pile of R&D costs that it won't ever make back. You are correct in that the market for such an aircraft wa

          • I think it's quite a nice looking aircraft

            It's all stumpy looking, so it will fit into the gate. Proportions are way off.

      • I hate flying on the A380. The environmental systems are subpar at best, and it's pretty darn noisy. The upper deck of the 747 is vastly superior. Once I got seats 1A/1B on a flight from Tokyo to LAX, and it was freaking amazing, nothing between you and the forward bulkhead but 8 feet of open space. Like being in your own little private cabin. But even that falls short of the 787 - that is truly a dreamliner, with the best air pressure/environment in a commercial airliner.

        • Re:"Epic dud" - I smell some bias ;-) (Score:4, Informative)

          by dunkelfalke ( 91624 ) on Thursday July 02, 2020 @03:51PM (#60255296)

          Lying again, lynnwood? The A380 is the quietest widebody out there. 777 is the noisiest, by the way.

        • Actually judging from what you have written you never have been on a A380. And most likely neither on a 787. Because their cabin altitude is almost the same but you seem to quote a Boeing ad. You see, all plastic aircraft have better environment than the old aluminium aircraft because CFRP fuselage can withstand higher pressure differentials.

        • Have flown on both regularly, would take the A380 every day of the week. Sad though that they are both dying.
        • Hmmm. [slashdot.org]

    • The market couldn't support two planes it just wasn't that big. Airbus canceled their super jumbo last year. Boeing warned Airbus before they produced their super jumbo that the market couldn't support two planes. The end result, both are gone because of airbus.

      • Airbus 380 had nothing to do with 747 cancellation.
        It was 4 engines vs 2 engines.

        • Airbus had absolutely everything to do with the cancellation of the 747. The plane was very low volume (it was only used in long distance flights where higher passenger counts offset the additional fuel costs) When a second competitor entered thee market it wiped out profitability.

          Boeing not only publicly warned AirBus of this through numerous press conferences, WTO hearings and every other channel, but also held 1 on 1 meetings with AirBus executives and showed them the financials and yearly volumes. Airbu

          • A380 did not kill the 747.

            The 21st century 747 production was mostly cargo versions. The very latest variant of 747 is 747-8 which received only 150 orders, out of which only one third was passenger version. It was basically on the way out anyways because one can get only so much out of a frame designed in 1960s. The 747 would be out of production like 15 years ago without a cargo version.

            The A380 is out of production because only a few airlines decided that they need an aircraft seating +500 passengers (o

    • It was a great plane, but it was a complete economic failure for Airbus. It gave Emirates a great decade and a bit, but in economic terms it is a failure across their fleet (made worse by COVID).

      It was a nicer plane to fly than the 747-8i, but the upper deck on the 747 was always a great experience.

      In economic terms, not sure which plane did worse. Boeing stretched production some with the -8f, but I think both Boeing and Airbus wish they hadn’t gone down the path.

      • Boeing did the 747-8 specifically so Airbus wouldn't earn money with the A380. Airbus got their revenge with the A350-1000 that will make sure Boeing loses money on the 777x.

        • Boeing did the 747-8 specifically so Airbus wouldn't earn money with the A380.

          If this was the goal, then Boeing didn't succeed because the passenger version of 747-8 was one third of overall 747-8 orders, so about 50 airplanes in a whole decade. Can't compare to A380 production which did hit something like 250 aircraft in less than 15 years of production.

          The 747-8 was introduced simply, why not make more money? Most of the fixed costs in designed and manufacturing were already sunk. They just took the engi

    • best sleep I ever had was on-board a Quantas A380 in first

      It's an acronym. There's no u. Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services or QANTAS.

      I have to concur though. The A380 is a beautifully comfortable and quiet plane.

    • The plane may have been comfortable, but it was designed for a hub-and-spoke model that was already going out of date when the airplane was designed.

      Airbus themselves have said that they couldn't recoup the development cost, which was approximately $25 billion.

      They have had to restructure their starter deals with European governments which had totaled $9 billion. If you are a taxpayer in Germany, France, or the UK, the project has already cost you.

      The WTO ruled against Airbus for receiving illegal subsidies

    • It was superior in every way except the one which matters - economically. Two engines are just more efficient than four (or three - why the DC-10 and L1011 gave way to the 767 and A330). The A340 died for the same reason - a 4-engine airliner with about the same capacity as the 777. The 777 beat it to a bloody pulp in the market (377 orders vs 2009 and counting). It was so mismatched that when Airbus first announced the A350 as a 787 competitor, the airlines demanded Airbus redesign it to be a 787/777 com

      • The proposed four engined A380 stretch with 800 passenger cabin (that's twice as the largest 777) could match and beat the per-seat costs of flying even the largest B777. The reason the A380 failed is not the costs of maintenance (which clearly is low per passenger seat) but the discovery that there isn't a whole lot of demand for aircraft that flies 500-800 passengers at once.

    • Whether someone cares about Boeing or not is a non-sequitor.

      * The thing takes forever to board
      * It doesn't fit at many airports or requires significant construction
      * Only dicks brag about having money to burn

  • The A380 has always been a dud. Just getting the thing off the ground required government subsidies so large that they resulted in WTO reports being launched. It received massive government subsidies so large that the WTO ruled against them in court. In fact the WTO rules against Airbus for breaking subsidies rules six times in a row. To give an idea of the epic scale of the subsidies, the award over the matter was more than $18 billion. This was more twice the size of the next largest award in WTO history.

  • 747 was so nice and graceful and beautiful. Its fuel economy that is killing this plane.

    May be if demand for gasoline and diesel drop off significantly from the surface transport sector may be jet fuel prices will fall. Even if it does, the two engine 777 and its clones will still have lower fuel consumption, so it might not help 747.

    The first plane ride mom ever had was on a 747 back in 1994. She was stunned! A staircase ... inside the plane! Homes with staircases were rare in rural South India and she

  • Sounds like a great company to work for (Score:3)

    by srichard25 ( 221590 ) on Thursday July 02, 2020 @04:17PM (#60255380)

    Boeing hasn't told employees, but the company is pulling the plug on its hulking 747 jumbo jet,

    Sounds like a great company to work for.

    • Considering that the 747 suppliers have stopped manufacturing parts last year, I don't think this was news for anyone working at Boeing.

    • Boeing hasn't told employees, but the company is pulling the plug on its hulking 747 jumbo jet,

      Hopefully they don't read Slashdot.

  • Why are the Jumbo-jets disappearing? (Score:3)

    by DeadlyBattleRobot ( 130509 ) on Thursday July 02, 2020 @04:37PM (#60255472)

    There is a great Mentour Pilot presentation on the overall state of the industry:

    His main points:

    1. 4-engine design is expensive to operate
    2. spoke-hub system is going bye-bye

    Why are the Jumbo-jets disappearing?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • plain ol fuel economy alone kills it, 24% less than the twin engine jets to push the same amount of people.

    • > His main points:
      >
      > 1. 4-engine design is expensive to operate
      > 2. spoke-hub system is going bye-bye

      He doesn't go into detail about *WHY* the "spoke-hub system is going bye-bye". See https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] Small Planes Over Big Oceans (ETOPS Explained)

      * Based on previous experience with piston-engined planes before 1950, it was considered very risky for a *TWIN*-ENGINE* plane to fly more than 60 minutes from a "diversion airport", i.e. emergency landing site. 3 or 4 engine planes ne

    • False. 4-engine jet with 500-800 seat capacity can easily match and beat the per-seat costs of modern 2-engined design like B777 or B787. The real problem is that the airlines didn't buy into the idea of flying 500-800 passengers at once. Clearly, there aren't a whole lot of destinations to support this.

  • The 747-8F which is the cargo version still gets about 6-7 orders a year. It is the largest cargo craft that exists as Airbus never made a cargo version of the A380. Cargo has a different model which makes the 747-8F still cost effective to use.

  • the fast-disappearing A380 risks going down as an epic dud.

    That's what Boing said at the time -- smaller jets to more places was the growth area, and they were mystified at its existence as it had no business case.

    Of course, it had a political case: the biggest jet in the world! "And look'" puffed the local politician, "I brought a piece of its manufacturing to you!" What a triumph for this government-consortium partnership.

  • Around year 2000 when Airbus announced A380 double decker jumbo jet, it was clear that B747 production was ending. What's surprising is that thanks to belated orders, the Boeing 747 would still be in production in 2020, and perhaps beyond.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drhamad ( 868567 )
      I have no idea why you think this. The 747 continued to be updated and new versions launched well past the A380 being announced. Did you think Boeing was just going to cede the super-jumbo market? It's the super-jumbo market itself that's dead, now.

      • It's the super-jumbo market itself that's dead, now.

        That is false. The airlines will HAPPILY buy super junbos. In fact, they would buy an aircraft 2x the 380. BUT, they need low maintenance costs. The 380 and 747 have 4 engines and are expensive to own.

        • There is nothing wrong with having four engines, if the aircraft is large enough. What matters is not the overall cost of maintenance but the cost of flying the aircraft per seat per hour. The A380 and B747 are significantly larger than two engine aircraft. While, it was clear for a long time, that the B747 designed in the mid-1960s was on its last legs in the 21st century, the A380 was efficient and large enough to offer very competitive costs of operation per passenger seat. When the A380 was introduced,

      • " The 747 continued to be updated and new versions launched well past the A380 being announced. Did you think Boeing was just going to cede the super-jumbo market? It's the super-jumbo market itself that's dead, now."

        Actually, around years 2000-2001 it wasn't clear at all that B747 production in any form could make it even to year 2010. If you recall, that was the year when Airbus pitched the idea of A380, which at time gathered a lot of interest from potential launch customers. In response, Boeing proposed

  • 50 years is a LONG time for an airliner model to be around. I remember the first time I saw one when I was about 10 years old. compared to the 707, it looked like a monster.

    • Now, sadly the 737 is also heading into the same direction. 50 year long life span is just to long for aircraft designed in the late 70s.

  • Boeing should have created the X-48 BWB LONG AGO. The reason is that it can be used EASILY for bombers, cargo (military AND civilian), tankers. With some work, it can be used for passengers. In addition, the craft is actually cheaper to make than tube/wings that have.
  • Dang. Australia is screwed. The only way to fly in and out of the country from the US or EU is pretty much via jumbos.

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