Farewell queen of the skies, KLM also retires Boeing 747 for good

With each passing day it is harder and harder to see a 747 land; the end of the Jumbos is near. After the moving ceremony organized by British Airways no later than a few weeks ago, on Sunday, October 25, it will be KLM's turn to say goodbye to the last two remaining queens of the skies in the fleet.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the two aircraft have been used for cargo traffic and have been flying back and forth from Holland to China and the United States using not only the cargo holds but all available space on board.

The two remaining aircraft, PH-BFv and PH-BFW, will land on Sunday with their last cargo of medical supplies from China and then be transferred to the desert, as has happened to many other aircraft in these pandemic months.

There will probably be no ceremony, as was the case with the last flight of Qantas and BA's 747s, but it has to be said that the two aircraft were featured in a websieres called just that, "Cargo in the Cabin," in which the company told how it equipped itself to carry as much cargo as possible by taking advantage of every space on board.

That the life of the four-engine aircraft that marked an epoch was written had long been known; flying this giant had become uneconomical and too inflexible to adapt to new technologies. Boeing, in fact, had announced the closing of the 747 assembly line which since 1968 has churned out more than 1,500 models in the various versions 100,200, 400 and the latest 800.

With this retirement, only one airline in Europe remains to offer the 747/800; it is Lufthansa, which did not stop using the aircraft during the Covid crisis and is currently using it to connect Frankfurt with the Far East.

• B747
• Skyteam