Yesterday, British Airways retired the first of its remaining 31 Boeing 747 aircraft. The aircraft has been the flagship of the BA fleet for the past five decades, however, now the queen’s reign has finished. But just how many hours have these aircraft clocked up over the years? Simple Flying crunched the numbers so that you don’t have to.
It can seem reasonably surprising how many hours are flown by commercial aircraft when you look at the data. Indeed, earlier this year, Simple Flying worked out that British Airways’ Airbus A380 fleet had flown a combined 32 years of flight.
354 years of flight
As of today, there are 31 Boeing 747’s left registered to British Airways according to data from the Civil Aviation Authority. We had already learned that G-CIVD had flown 115276 hours or approximately 13.2 years. But just how does this scale-up across the fleet.
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Unfortunately, the data won’t be spot on, as some of the data held by the Civil Aviation Authority dates back to last year. However, as of the latest data held by the CAA, the 31 Boeing 747s remaining in the British Airways fleet have flown a combined total of 3,102,481 hours.
On its own, this figure may just seem like an insanely high amount of hours. However, by converting it, we can see that the airline’s fleet has operated over 354 years’ worth of flights combined.
Farewell to the queen
Unfortunately, it is time to say goodbye to the queen as far as British Airways is concerned. However, that doesn’t mean the jumbo jet won’t fly again. As we saw with G-CIVD yesterday, most aircraft will take at least one more flight. Quite merely, Heathrow Airport doesn’t have the capacity to scrap its remaining Boeing 747.
Commenting on the retirements,
Al Bridger, British Airways’ Director of Flight Operations, said,
“All of us at British Airways and so many of our customers will have fond memories and special moments from our travels on the iconic jumbo jet…I know I speak for our customers and the global aviation community when I say, despite rightly moving to more sustainable ways of flying, we will still miss the 747 dearly.”
A new era dawns
As the Boeing 747 is ushered out of the British Airways fleet, a new era dawns for the carrier. Except for the Airbus A380, the British flag carrier will only fly two-engine aircraft.
Before the current situation, change was already afoot at the airline. Indeed, just over a year ago, we saw the airline take delivery of its first Airbus A350 aircraft.
British Airways is keen to replace its older aircraft with more fuel-efficient younger models. Alongside the A350, the airline is also in the process of receiving new 787 Dreamliners. These will be supplemented by new 777X aircraft in the future.
Will you miss the Boeing 747? Let us know what you think and why in the comments!