With this scale came a wow factor which, in a competitive industry where passengers increasingly had a choice between airlines, was an important selling point. “No matter who operated it, whether it was Japan Airlines or Lufthansa, British Airways, Air France or a government entity, it projected power,” Mann says. “It was a plane that was an outsized projection of power. People were there, stunned.
The plane’s engines, which produce 45,000 pounds of thrust, represent a significant advancement over the previous generation of aircraft. But they were soon overtaken by newer technologies. Later engines would produce up to 100,000 or 120,000 pounds of thrust, meaning the planes only needed two engines instead of the 747’s four. “And it required less fuel to accomplish the same mission as ‘with the 747,” says Mann.
Modern airlines must consider rising fuel costs, a competitive environment that demands ever greater efficiency and carbon emissions. A Boeing 747-400, manufactured between 1989 and 2009, costs approximately $26,635 per hour. A Boeing 787-8, still produced today, costs $14,465 per hour, or 45% cheaper.
Mann points out that even Atlas Air, which makes the latest 747s, has already begun shifting the bulk of its cargo operations to the Boeing 777, a twin-engine plane that entered service in the mid-1990s. “It’s not even a draw,” says Mann. “You want to use the Boeing 777… [the 747] has become something relatively obsolete,” explains Sobie.
For passenger flights, the plane is doubly obsolete. The 747, with its capacity to accommodate more than 500 passengers at maximum capacity, does not reflect the current air travel market. Many travelers take shorter trips than the long-haul transatlantic trawlers the 747 was designed for, meaning airlines need smaller, single-aisle planes.
In an industry still struggling to recover from the impact of the Covid pandemic, it’s more important than ever to ensure you have the right size jet for the right route. Cirium data shows Covid wiped $220 billion from the aviation industry’s balance sheet. During the first six months of the pandemic, 43 airlines closed due to declining travel.
According to Cirium, smaller single-aisle aircraft are expected to account for seven out of ten planes delivered to airlines over the next two decades. Already, the single-aisle market is worth more to manufacturers, at $1.6 trillion per year, than the twin-aisle market, which is worth $1.1 trillion. Boeing and Airbus are dedicating more space in their production facilities to smaller single-aisle aircraft than to the larger twin-aisle jets for which they were originally designed.
