Boeing Continues To Push 747
 

Boeing continues to push 747 sales as others worry about its future | KING5.com Seattle

SEATTLE - A sign of the worry came in the form of a tweet linking to the on-line aviation blog L.A. Airspace: "United removes last 747 flight from Los Angeles."

While just a piece of a broader picture, the story captures the anxiety some feel about the future of the venerable Jumbo jet, as fewer airlines fly it in favor of smaller Boeing 777s or larger Airbus 380s.

In response United Airlines spokeswoman Mary Ryan said, "We have not announced any plans to retire our 747s. The up and down gauging is just a matter of optimizing our fleet by using the right aircraft for the right routes."

While United is moving away from the 747-400 between LAX and Sydney, Australia, it's adding more 747 service at its main hub in Chicago, replacing some 777s there with 747-400s. United operates 23 Jumbo jets.

Leeham & Co. airline analyst Scott Hamilton expects United to eventually replace its 747-400 fleet with other Airbus and Boeing jets.

"If United were to also become a 777X customer, you know that's going to replace the 747-400," Hamilton said.

The new 777X-9 is expected to hold 400 seats, about 10 to 15 percent fewer seats that the new 747-8 Intercontinental with a typical seating configuration of 460.

The business of flying has changed a lot since the 747's introduction in 1970, when Jumbos flew major trunk routes between big cities such as New York to London.

Over four decades the world has seen a shift to more direct routes connecting smaller cities like Seattle and larger markets with increasing frequencies This has lead to strong orders for smaller two-engine airliners with longer ranges including the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the new Airbus 350.

Boeing isn't ready to put the 747 out to pasture because there's nothing else like it, especially as a freighter. The new 747-8 comes as a freighter and a passenger version called the Intercontinental.

But so far only Lufthansa, Korean and Air China have ordered the passenger version of the plane. Two-thirds of the orders are for freighters where the 747-F faces little direct competition. The Airbus 380 doesn't come in a freighter configuration.

Boeing says it's still in direct talks with interested airlines for the new 747-8 in both freighter and passenger configurations, and believes the next 20 years will see sales of more than 700 very large airplanes by all manufacturers.

But so far in 2013, Boeing has seen a net gain of zero new sales with an order for five new jets offset by cancellations of five others.

IMHO, the 747 is much more comfortable than it's competition. Having 4 smaller engines creates a lot less drone and vibration than massive fans out there turning at low RPM. Upper deck in the 747-400 is probably the nicest ride in the industry right now.

Being an admirer of the aircraft, I would love to see a US carrier flying the 747-8i. Great looking airplane. Definitely still the queen of the skies.

Do you mean a U.S. passenger carrier flying the -800 in a pax configuration?

Boeing doesn't call it the "800" just "dash 8". And the "i" is the passenger version so it would be logical that a US operator of a "-8i" would be a passenger carrier.

Oh, snap!!

Yes, Queen of the Skies!

More like Grandmother of the skies

Yes, hence my use of 747-8i.

Oh snap! He henced you!

There is not a better jumbo in the sky than the good old reliable 747. No cracking wing spars, all systems which can be controlled by the crew at their beckoned call.

Next to the 727-100 none better than the 747... an airplane a pilot can fly like a Cessna 182... unlike the other jumbo built for those special needs types.

But I must still raise my glass of VSOP to the trust worthy, old reliable, true blue 727.

That makes it a GILF then.

With the new lie-flats the upper deck is like your own private jumbo jet. Did it JFK - TLV earlier this year and it was amazing. I usually don't wax poetic about biz class but this was probably the nicest in-flight experience I've ever had.

Economy Class Seating on a Pan-Am 747 Retronaut | Retronaut - See the past like you wouldn't believe.

My favorite part may be the NO seat belts.

yes I am biased as I fly an old 747 freighter but man I love flying this plane!!!

I engineered on one for 2 years. Awesomeness!

The 747 fleet has flown more than 5.6 billion people — the equivalent of 80 percent of the world’s population*. :eek:

* as of October 2012

Boeing: 747 Fun Facts

I'll bring the breadsticks. :D ;)

I raise my good glass to you good sir!

I have a hidden agenda....free VSOP. :D

Time for "Pedantic Sunday Sermon." Please note the last sentence.

Beck and call

Meaning

To be at someone's beck and call is to be entirely subservient to them; to be responsive to their slightest request.
Origin

'Call' is used here with its usual meaning. 'Beck' is more interesting. The word, although it has been in use in English since the 14th century, isn't one that is found outside the phrase 'beck and call' these days. It is merely a shortened form of 'beckon', which we do still know well and understand to mean 'to signal silently, by a nod or motion of the hand or finger, indicating a request or command'.
If the term 'beck and call' had originated prior to the 14th century we we would presumably now say 'beckon and call'. It didn't though and the first recorded use of 'beck and call' in print is in Aemilia Lanyer's set of poems Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, 1611: That is straightforward enough. What brings the phrase to the attention of etymologists is the confusion that some people have between it and 'beckon call'. This supposed phrase is a simple mishearing of 'beck and call'. The mistake comes about because no one uses 'beck' any longer, whereas 'beckon' is commonplace.
'Beckon call' could be said not to be a phrase in English at all, but it is gaining some ground nevertheless. At present (January 2007) Google finds 28,000 hits for 'beckon call' and 474,000 for 'beck and call'.
The misspelling began in the USA in the early 20th century; for example, this early citation from The Modesto News-Herald, May 1929:The rogue phrase still appears in print in newspapers. Here's a recent example from the London Daily Mirror, by Phil Differ and Jonathan Watson:Just because 'beckon call' is based on a mishearing doesn't mean that it won't one day become accepted as proper English. Other phrases, like 'beg the question' for instance, are routinely used incorrectly by so many people that the incorrect usage has now become the standard. Let's hope 'beckon call' dies a natural death, not only because it is essentially just a spelling mistake but because its adoption would signal the last gasp of the enjoyable little word 'beck'.

What happened to my thread?? I thought I was the only Grammar Nazi on the Forums! :)

Well, beck (I mean, heck), captjns must be drinking too much vodka on a stomach empty of breadsticks.

Ooops, my Miniature Schnauzer beckoned calleth.

Maybe, but more likely he's a victim of autocorrect, combined with bifocals that may need a prescription update. BTDT :)

I thought it had something to do with Glen Beck... or maybe Jeff Beck. Or I hear there is some guy called just Beck (I prefer the Jeff Beck guy myself as far as music goes... Funny looking word "beck".

Boeing's own airplane, the 777-9X will probably kill the 747. Boeing makes a greater profit from the 777 and Emirates is expected to kick of the program off with a large order at the Dubai Air Show in November.

The 777-9X will be smaller than a 747, but have the same seat mile costs as the 747 and considerably less than the A380. The A380 is really a hubris bet & counting slot constrained chickens which have yet to hatch. China Southern has operated their domestically and has been losing millions. Overall the A380 has only sold about 260 airplanes (and fewer if you count the airlines that have gone bankrupt or are publically talking about renegotiating their orders for smaller jets).

As Crandall showed in the last couple of decades, or Anderson is showing in this one, it is often more profitable to constrain supply for higher prices and spill customers rather than chasing declining yield curves with too much capacity.

Smaller aircraft can be deployed more flexibly. That's why the very large market isn't doing so hot and frankly, the demise of the Regional Jet has probably been overstated a bit.

747 porn:

Whichever they choose, airlines will need Boeings to fly when the A380 starts falling apart, or they finally figure out they can't make any money with it.

I have flown the Classic, and the 400 in freight dog service, they are pure gold, and vie with the 727 and the DC3 for my airman's heart. In truth I love flying them all.

Unfortunately, as the 787 demonstrates, the Douglas management take over of Boeing has destroyed the Company's abilities. Here's an article for further reading:

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financ...alk_surowiecki

The Dreamliner was supposed to become famous for its revolutionary design. Instead, it’s become an object lesson in how not to build an airplane.

To understand why, you need to go back to 1997, when Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas. Technically, Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas. But, as Richard Aboulafia, a noted industry analyst with the Teal Group, told me, “McDonnell Douglas in effect acquired Boeing with Boeing’s money.” McDonnell Douglas executives became key players in the new company, and the McDonnell Douglas culture, averse to risk and obsessed with cost-cutting, weakened Boeing’s historical commitment to making big investments in new products. Aboulafia says, “After the merger, there was a real battle over the future of the company, between the engineers and the finance and sales guys.” The nerds may have been running the show in Silicon Valley, but at Boeing they were increasingly marginalized by the bean counters.

Under these conditions, getting the company to commit to a major project like the Dreamliner took some doing. “Some of the board of directors would rather have spent money on a walk-in humidor for shareholders than on a new plane,” Aboulafia says. So the Dreamliner’s advocates came up with a development strategy that was supposed to be cheaper and quicker than the traditional approach: outsourcing. And Boeing didn’t outsource just the manufacturing of parts; it turned over the design, the engineering, and the manufacture of entire sections of the plane to some fifty “strategic partners.” Boeing itself ended up building less than forty per cent of the plane.

This strategy was trumpeted as a reinvention of manufacturing. But while the finance guys loved it—since it meant that Boeing had to put up less money—it was a huge headache for the engineers. In a fascinating study of the process, two U.C.L.A. researchers, Christopher Tang and Joshua Zimmerman, show how challenging it was for Boeing to work with fifty different partners. The more complex a supply chain, the more chances there are for something to go wrong, and Boeing had far less control than it would have if more of the operation had been in-house. Delays became endemic, and, instead of costing less, the project went billions over budget. In 2011, Jim Albaugh, who took over the program in 2009, said, “We spent a lot more money in trying to recover than we ever would have spent if we’d tried to keep the key technologies closer to home.” And the missed deadlines created other issues. Determined to get the Dreamliners to customers quickly, Boeing built many of them while still waiting for the F.A.A. to certify the plane to fly; then it had to go back and retrofit the planes in line with the F.A.A.’s requirements. “If the saying is check twice and build once, this was more like build twice and check once,” Aboulafia said to me. “With all the time and cost pressures, it was an alchemist’s recipe for trouble.”

Nice article Bar.
Thanks for posting it.

Boeing will kill the 747
 

That is exactly what they did to the 757. Great airplane. Much more capable than its replacement, the much cheaper and less capable 737-800.

All the specialty cargo charters requiring nose-loading would be lost for a 777F-only operator.

"This is going to be one of the great ones."

- Charles Lindbergh, at Pan Am BOD meeting which Boeing introduced the 747.

I agree, too bad the current batch of CEOs know little about airplanes.

So, you mean to tell me that the 737 isn't an intercontinental airliner?

But how many times is that capability used? How much does having it cost? Is the market willing to pay that cost?

Interesting.....

777-200 is more capable than the 757.
Since it's more capable, using that logic, shouldn't it be the successor?

It depends on the customer and the market. Some markets open the nose door almost every time, some never seem to use it. But in any case oversized air freight is very high yield (At least that is what the marketing types have told me).

Notice that the -400F and -8F/-800F are not offered WITHOUT the door, which would save significant weight.

Also note the small-ish market for outsize lift, now exclusively flown by the Ukrainans and the two OEMs.

GF