The 747 Just Landed – For Good

This just announced: British Airways is retiring its fleet of Boeing 747s, the largest such fleet remaining in the world.

This is old news for the United States though as both United and Delta retired their respective 747 fleets three years ago.

BA had continued to have flying these aircraft for longer than most, largely due to a combination of British sentimentality and not wanting to spend any money replacing a still serviceable fleet of planes. It could be argued that BA kept the 747s flying when things had moved on considerably from the initial design and flight capability that they had once represented. Technology marches on in the airline business just like everywhere else and the personal preferences of pilots and passengers plays little part in business decisions, no matter how much affection is felt for an aircraft design.

As today’s airline industry hits emergency landing due to Covid-19, it is worth recalling a very different age when flight was the last word in glamor. And it was during that period that the 747 came to symbolize this like no other airplane.

Incredibly the 747 story begins in 1963. The US Air Force needed a military transport and so issued a specification for a ‘Cargo Experimental Heavy Lift System’. Boeing was one of a number of airlines vying to win that contract. In the end, Boeing lost out to a rival.

Now this is where it gets interesting. Boeing was stuck with an ambitious design for CX-HLS: a huge aircraft nose that had been intended to carry tanks and other military equipment. So what to do with the design? Repurpose it? Boeing decided to take the rejected CX-HLS and turn it into a passenger plane of a hitherto unimaginable size and scale. For starters the 747 wingspan was a whole 210 feet longer than the first time man took to the air at the start of the 20th century in the Wright Brothers’ plane, a mere 120 feet in diameter. This 1960s flying monster could carry up to 550 passengers in some versions of its 747.

It wasn’t all about size simply. It was said that on the ground you felt a 747 before you saw it, it made the earth tremble and cast a long shadow. From the start there was something almost mythic about this flying machine.

In business timing, like much else in life, is crucial. So it was with the 747. It was launched at a time when air travel was glamorous, and relatively rare. The expression “jet set” meant just that. Boeing engineer-designer Milton Heinemann said that for the first time, people felt as if they were travelling ‘in a room, not a tube’. But all this was to change as mass travel on board planes began. It was the right time and the right place for Boeing and its 747.

But that initial move was a bold one for Boeing. The company took on $1.2 billion of debt to make the plane. A gamble by any measure, and maybe more so then when air travel for the masses was still in its infancy. But maybe this move worked because of that not in spite of it. This was largely due in the beginning to the fact that Boeing received an advance order from Juan Trippe, the then charismatic boss of Pan Am, initiated the success of the 747s. At the time, Pan AM were definitely the favored airline for the jet set. But as well Trippe wanted to get the masses on board his flights and 747s were the means to achieve that – both in numbers and also in economy of scale.

The rest is history. One of the most iconic aircraft the world has ever seen flew off in all directions and landed everywhere. There are few people in the world who have not travelled on a 747. It is a shared experience for many, if one they thought little about. But it is now one that is no more.

For many years, the demise of the 747 was predicted.  It was only 16 years ago that journalists speculated if the 747, which had long symbolized America’s global reach, was about to be surpassed by the then new European Airbus A380. Well, last year the A380 was grounded for good.  In the end, only 234 A380s were ever sold. At the same time, it was reported that the 747 racked up over 1,500 in sales and even then was still in production.

I travel a lot on the 747, or have done. Back and forth between Europe and the United States. It is for many Europeans and me the start of an adventure. Getting on board a 747, that symbol of American entrepreneurial flair and engineering know how, was as consoling as it was thrilling. You stepped into America the minute you stepped on board a 747.

Now I realize it was even more than that. The 747 was a gamble on the future, a chance on a future market, a business idea predicted on the behavior of the masses. It paid off: yes, right time, right epoch, but, also, let’s not forget: an entrepreneurial idea with a first class product.

Mount Bonnell Advisors salutes this American triumph of design and manufacture, one that helped revolutionize the 20th-century world, and by so doing changed the lives of countless Europeans as they set out for a new life Stateside.

Now, after 50 years’ of reliable service, all that comes to an end as British Airways – and also Lufthansa – retire their fleets.  And the Californian subcontractor that makes the fuselages is dismantling its plant. It really is the last call for the 747 for that great hangar in the sky where stands the Wright Brothers plane and all the rest since.