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Transportation United Kingdom

British Airways Announces Immediate Retirement of Boeing 747 Fleet (airlinegeeks.com) 154

Posted by BeauHD from the blame-it-on-the-virus dept.
British Airway has announced that it will immediately retire its Boeing 747 fleet following the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. The airline was forced to store all of its 28 747-400s due to reduced demand in the midst of the respiratory disease pandemic. Airline Geeks reports: In a letter sent out to all BA employees, the airline believes that the 747s are unsustainable for the new aviation industry post-pandemic and will look to accelerate the retirement of the twin-deckers. Most of the airline's 747s were scheduled to be phased out progressively by early 2024. The interiors of its 747s had recently been refurbished as part of a billion-pound upgrade program to help extend the lifespan of the fleet. Yet, the ongoing aviation crisis forced the flag carrier to retire its twin-deckers immediately.

"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," the airline told its staff in a letter seen by AirlineGeeks. This will mark a milestone for the airline as the era of jumbo will end when the affectionately-nicknamed 'Queen of the Skies' ceasing operations for British Airways after a 51-year long association. The airline had tremendous success with the Boeing 747 since it entered service, operating its 747s as the flagship aircraft of its long-haul fleet.
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British Airways Announces Immediate Retirement of Boeing 747 Fleet More

British Airways Announces Immediate Retirement of Boeing 747 Fleet

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  • I wonder how indicative this is of long term problems in aviation. Makes sense to retire them early while booking are way down and many of their customers are banned from many of their destinations. How many of these aircraft will be replaced though?

    • From wikipedia BA Fleet info, this looks about 25% reduction in passenger capacity for long haul.

      • From wikipedia BA Fleet info, this looks about 25% reduction in passenger capacity for long haul.

        I think the idea is to replace the capacity with Airbus 350s, and Boeing 787s, fly to more destinations to bring passengers closer to destinations via smaller airports that aren't congested to hell and who don't charge a king's ransom for a landing slot.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Zocalo ( 252965 )
          There's that, but I suspect it's mostly about cost reduction. Covid is going to be bouncing around the world for some time, so that realistically means reduced numbers of flights to wherever the current hot-spots are for a few years, during which time they can get a better sense of the longterm prospects and plan accordingly. BA has plenty of smaller aircraft for short-haul connections to Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, so this is basically just saying that they envisage a reduction in long-haul be

        • Yes, but with no new planes immediately, BA's total passenger capacity on long haul just dropped 25%.

          Hard to imagine they are unique among carriers. So that's a 25% drop in the supply chain for long haul.

          • I bet demand has dropped by more than 25%, so... no biggie.

            • For now yes.

              When my wife and I had 1 baby we put the baby things in storage when he out grew them.

              When we had a 2nd baby we gave them away after they outgrew them.

              There is a difference between a short term lack of requirement and long term one. These planes were already parked up. They spent $1B refurbishing the inside recently. This is not about passenger numbers in the next couple of quarters.

    • I wonder how indicative this is of long term problems in aviation.

      Not in the slightest. This is very much a short term affect. Jumbo jets days were numbered not because of problems in aviation but rather because of changes in aviation. The industry itself was before COVID-19 and will be after this is done still incredibly lucrative. Industry wide net operating profit has been steady for the previous 5 years and at record highs, and the world has seen a almost perfectly continuous 6% rise in passenger numbers every year since 2000 except for 2009 (-2%), 2001 (-3%), and 200

      • I don't think business travel will rebound fully in the foreseeable future. Covid has prompted people to get over the technical and social hurdle of meeting online. Is it as good as a face-to-face meeting? No. But it's so, so much cheaper. And I don't mean the price of the airplane ticket, that's incidental, I mean taking 2 or 3 days to travel to, attend, and return home from a 1 hour meeting. Business trips will still happen, but the threshold of justifying one has been moved out further, for good.

    • It's still a shame. 747s have always been magnificent planes. Reliable, maintainable, and capable of lifting serious numbers of people.

      • It's still a shame. 747s have always been magnificent planes. Reliable, maintainable, and capable of lifting serious numbers of people.

        Also the only planes I could reliably find entire free rows to lie down and sleep on..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrKaos ( 858439 )

      I wonder how indicative this is of long term problems in aviation. Makes sense to retire them early while booking are way down and many of their customers are banned from many of their destinations. How many of these aircraft will be replaced though?

      Some will be kept for long haul routes however it's clear that the hub and spoke model for airline destinations is over and the point to point model using aircraft with smaller capacity is becoming dominant. That's the reason that Airbus stopped making the A380, it only works for Emirates who primarily use that hub/spoke model to drive tourism in their country.

      Airbus was forced into building A380 whilst Boeing paid virtually nothing to develop the 747-8 and thus had a market offering for both business mo

    • Probably none. Most airlines are doing with twin-engine craft what they used to need massive quad-engine craft to do. Besides, with demand pricing, they'll likely end up making more money this way by having additional scarcity.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Large aviation hasn't made economic sense for a long time.

      I can pay £50 and get a flight across Europe, several thousand miles, for me and 50kg worth of luggage. I can't even send a 10kg parcel the same distance over 14 days for that, and that doesn't even need oxygen.

      The planes are stupendously expensive to buy and maintain. The industry is service-staff heavy, along with expensive pilots. Liabilities and insurances are enormous.

      Taxes on top, especially in the age of caring about the planet,

      • Did you calculate that for a full car (say 4 people)? I'm not sure it changes the outcome, but cheapest flight won't be the best times and there is some value to having control of your travel.

        I've switched to train - I can do my location in the UK, via London->Paris Eurostar, and onward to W. Europe for not much more time and a bit less money than flying, and my phone works the whole way and I have WiFi. Seats are more comfortable, food is better, less silly queuing (why do people fight to get on the pla

    • I wonder how indicative this is of long term problems in aviation. Makes sense to retire them early while booking are way down and many of their customers are banned from many of their destinations. How many of these aircraft will be replaced though?

      Most of these 747's will continue to fly... as cargo carriers.

      I worked in the airport sector for decades. While there are structural changes that were happening already in regards to long haul flights, pre-Covid Seven Fours were still going to be in the passenger business for awhile. The A380, as magnificent a plane as it was, suffered from some issues unique to the big Airbus (some of them political). The 747's were winding down, but not quite for the same reasons.

      However, cargo doesn't give a rat's ass ab

  • You have to hand it to that virus ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Friday July 17, 2020 @05:08AM (#60299151)

    ... it sure is serious about curbing climate change.

    • If we stop flying completely, we can expect a 3-5% drop in greenhouse gas emissions. So no, not a big deal.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by higuita ( 129722 )

        So yes, it is still a big deal!! every activity needs to reduce their own emissions, because if we all wait for the next one to fix their problems before we fix our own, no one will ever do anything

        Each little change do help, a dead by thousand cuts is still a dead... one less cut doesn't look much, but each saved cut will take you close to saving your life.

        1% of the workd CO2 emissions is still a huge ammount of CO2

        • No. In principle, every sector needs to reduce its emissions, but given the enormous cost and socio-economic impact of these efforts, we really need to look at the cost to benefit ratio first before taking any drastic measure. Flying has always been a popular target of environmentalists, given that it's already somewhat unpopular due to noise pollution, plus it's very easy to make people feel guilty about something that affords them pleasure (people having fun, how dare they). It's great PR, but does lit

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by nagora ( 177841 )

            in the end, do we want to give up the unbelievable freedom and convenience of fast and affordable travel to other continents for perhaps a 1-2% reduction in total emissions?

            Sure. The freedom to do something pointless quickly isn't worth much to me.

            • The question was âoedo weâ, not âoedo youâ. Do you believe that you are representative of most people? If not, what is your sense for whether we, collectively, would make that trade?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by nagora ( 177841 )

                The question was âoedo weâ, not âoedo youâ. Do you believe that you are representative of most people?

                Yes. I'm sure more than 90% of people worldwide do not need or care about "the unbelievable freedom and convenience of fast and affordable travel to other continents". First-world non-problem.

                Meanwhile, a 2% reduction (let alone the original 3% to 5% suggestion) is significant.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by kenh ( 9056 )

                  Consider the impact on countries, regions that rely on tourism to keep their economy afloat, I guess they just need to learn to code?

          • Then ask yourself is our freedom worth more than future generations. What we're essentially doing is taking out a vast reverse mortgage which our children and grandchildren will have to pay. By not mitigating now, we push the problem into the following decades, when it will be much more expensive and have far greater ramifications for standards of living around the globe.

  • and replace them with 737 death traps?

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      They don't have any 737. Looks like Airbus wins this time.

    • and replace them with 737 death traps?

      Eh?

      No one's replacing a long haul widebody with a short haul narrow body.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I wonder if it's some kind of scheme to get some cheap aircraft. Manufacturers will need sales desperately, Airbus will probably be looking to pull manufacturing from the UK... Could be a good time to pick up some discounts and subsidies.

        • Great time, except that nearly everyone airline is now broke and there is a glut of unused perfectly working passenger aircraft being sent into storage facilities or boneyards.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by kenh ( 9056 )

            Boeing just announced they will cease production of 747 almost immediately, once they fill few remaining orders.

        • Doubtful as airlines generally have planes on order to replace retiring aircraft. And many airlines have places holds on those orders at the moment. So airlines already had contracts. As for the 747, there are no exact replacements. The A380 isn’t an option and the closes thing would be 1-2 smaller planes.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kenh ( 9056 )

          They want cheap aircraft, so step one of their negotiation is to publicly cut their fleet, making their need to buy planes public?

          Interesting strategy, it's like going into a car dealership and announcing "I just sold my car and now I need to buy a new one to get home" - I'm sure the salesmen will offer you their best deal possible.

      • Actually, they are:

        In February 2017, Norwegian Air International announced it would start transatlantic flights to the United States from the United Kingdom and Ireland in summer 2017 on behalf of its parent company using the parent's new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft expected to be delivered from May 2017.[53] Norwegian Air performed its first transatlantic flight with a Boeing 737-800 on 16 June 2017 between Edinburgh Airport and Stewart Airport, New York.[54] The first transatlantic flight with a 737 MAX was p

        • Boeing 737 and Airbus 320 variants can be used for transatlantic flights, but in a _very limited_ capacity or routes. For one, they're flying mostly in first class configuration, the whole aircraft being used for business class passengers in order to reduce the weight. Another issue, it still can't fly transatlantic routes like London to Rio or Buenos Aires.

      • > Eh?

        He's outraged. Your 'facts' are orthogonal.

      • and replace them with 737 death traps?

        No one's replacing a long haul widebody with a short haul narrow body.

        The "death trap" 737s are long haul narrow body.

        • The 737s that are not grounded are not long haul. That was the promise of the 737 MAX. Also the MAX has longer range than current 737s but not more than the 747. The original 747-100 in 1966 had a range of 4600 mi with the latest 747-8 at 7,700 mi. The 737 MAX range is 3,800 mi.

    • These 747s flew the long range flights, so they'll be replaced with the modern long range widebody twinjets.

    • "Old but dependable" is a term used only by people who don't understand reliability figures. And calling any of the 737s currently on sale a "death trap" is done by people who aren't able to separate a problem with a single model which is no longer in product from an entire series which has a long standing high safety record.

      Oh and most of BA's new planes are airbus anyway.

      • The 737max production has oy temporarily stopped and the entire series safety record is not that good.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pollux ( 102520 )

      Nobody's questioning their dependability. Airlines are questioning their operational costs. Obviously, four engines burn a lot more fuel than two. (For more information, check out the "fuel efficiency" explanation comparing these two airplanes here [simpleflying.com].) Saving thousands of dollars in fuel per flight [simpleflying.com], times hundreds of flights per year, times 28 airplanes in your fleet, saves an estimated thirty million dollars.

      The writing was on the wall for the 747 the moment Boeing started selling the latest generation o

      • "Obviously, four engines burn a lot more fuel than two."

        Huh?

        This is far, far from obvious and requires a deep dive into various engineering tradeoffs and scaling laws.

        A jet engine needs to "recycle" an enormous amount of power, both in absolute and fractional terms, from the turbine stages back to the compressor stages. The weak link in its efficiency is the limitation on efficiency of the turbine, especially the first turbine stage subject to the highest temperature. The weak link in any turbine o

      • The website you have linked contradicts your arguments about the costs. What matters is the cost of operating the aircraft per hour per seat. The article you linked mentions 747-8's cost per seat per hour is 28.something dollars, while for the 777x it's 27.something dollars. So the cost difference in operating these planes is about a buck, add or subtract, in favor of 777x, which means that the cost difference between these two is rather inconsequential despite 747 having four engines.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbengt ( 874751 )

        Saving thousands of dollars in fuel per flight [simpleflying.com], times hundreds of flights per year, times 28 airplanes in your fleet, saves an estimated thirty million dollars.

        With that kind of savings, it would take hundreds of years to save enough to pay for the new plane. Actually, for each plane it would be thousands of dollars per flight hour savings, times thousands of hours of flight per year, for a savings of maybe ±$25 million/year per plane. Still, according to your link, a 747 or moder

    • Airbus is also an alternative to the 747, you know.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonwil ( 467024 )

      The 747s that are going away are being replaced not with 737s but with aircraft like the 787 and A350 that are far more fuel efficient and modern than a 747-400.

    • That’s a false dichotomy. The 737 cannot replace the 747 in many ways: capacity, range, pilot certification, etc. The 747 was always going to be retired as all airlines are retiring them.
  • I would have created a theme park and marketed them as "thrill rides".

  • but it was high time some downsizing got done. There are way too many airlines, many of them owing their existence to subsidies of one kind or another - biggest of which being jet fuel - and promoting flying at prices that are much too low considering the damage it does to the environment.

    The virus will force a much-needed pruning of that industry, and realignment of ticket prices to reflect the true cost of air travel.

    Sadly, the reverse will happen to the shipping industry, which also lives on subsidies, a

    • > low considering the damage it does to the environment.

      There's no world need for this comment, considering the incremental, if small, environmental damage it does. The screen, the CPUs, the NIC, the CPE, the switches, the hard drives - all belching emissions on the back end.

      Oh, but it's just one airline ticket.

  • This is great news! (Score:3)

    by imidan ( 559239 ) on Friday July 17, 2020 @05:37AM (#60299203)
    And Boeing stock just keeps going up... is the stock market tethered to reality in any way?

    • Nope. That's why Tesla' "worth" more than Toyota, which is just insane

      • Tesla is worth what it is because they are potentially in a position to become the new Toyota, if not bigger.

        Toyota is currently trying to sell us âoeself-chargingâ hybrids and does not appear to have any electric vehicles in its near future. They could quickly find themselves obsolete.

        Tesla on the other hand have built up expertise in h the r most important parts of electric cars - batteries and software.

    • Possibly. Is this going to create artificial scarcity and drive prices (and profits) up for BA?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tom ( 822 )

      is the stock market tethered to reality in any way?

      It used to be, a long time ago. Currently, if you made a statistical analysis between companies and their stock prices, you would probably conclude that there's no significant correlation and a chain of causality between these two data points is unlikely to exist.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Literal monkeys do a better job than most people who invest in the stock market.

      It doesn't have any correlation to reality, but correlation to *expectation* and *what other people are doing*. Rarity is the same, it's usual for something "rare" to be high-valued even if there is lots of it but it's just controlled by others.

      There are also a ton of people who do nothing but use the market to make quick money... invest low, hope it spikes, cash out quick. And others who literally bet on what they think every

    • IMO the total value of the stock market is tethered to reality, but not particularly to anticipated corporate profits. The reality driving it is there are $X that people need to invest, so the total value of the market hovers right around $X.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Bailouts.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BranMan ( 29917 )

      There is a bit of a disconnect there with public perception and Boeing. Everyone thinks of them as an aircraft manufacturer - which they are - but stop there. When I hear the name Boeing I think defense contractor - they build missiles, tanker aircraft, avionics for F-35s. I think Space - NASA contracts (which they are sucking at right now too, I'll give you that).

      So their stock price should not just be tied to commercial aircraft news. And someone wants to retire aircraft Boeing doesn't even really pro

  • These were to be retired anyway as they are much less efficient than newer planes and so extremely costly

    Since they will not need them for a while, as they are likely to use newer or smaller planes for a time, there is no reason to keep them just to not use them

  • The 747 was a great aircraft in it's time, the time when Boeing stood for quality.

  • In related news.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by dwywit ( 1109409 ) on Friday July 17, 2020 @06:19AM (#60299267)

    Qantas just sent the last of its 747s on a farewell tour of Brisbane, Sydney, and Canberra. Seats on the Brisbane leg sold out in 15 minutes.

    Apparently the aircraft is off to a graveyard in the USA.

  • I'd love to buy one
  • The peak has been reached. It's all downhill from here with useless innovations, like heated cup holders
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Airlines, prior to COVID, created intolerable and dehumanizing air travel experience. Very few people would chose to fly if they didn't have to. Well, now many people have a good reason to avoid flying altogether.

    It won't get better for airlines unless business travel (yes, most people are forced to travel economy due to policies) gets A WHOLE LOT better we will just keep teleconferencing and remoting. We have the technology.

  • My favourite flying has been upstairs business class in a United 747-400. Very quiet.

  • Time to revive the airborne aircraft carrier concept. [wikipedia.org].Come on, it always sounded awesome [youtube.com] and now you can get them on the cheap. Just need to design a capable micro fighter...

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