Qantas initially planned to operate its Boeing 747 fleet until the end of the year. Alike many other airlines, the Australian home carrier decided to expedite its phase out due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fans can now look forward to three recently scheduled farewell flights.
An era is coming to end in July for the ‘Queen of the Skies’ in Australia. Introduced in the early 1980s, the aircraft proudly served Australia for nearly five decades. Most 747s are currently stored. Some have already been scrapped. Only a few remained to offer services to international destinations out of Australia. Five of them are in storage since this year. Qantas operated the last regularly scheduled 747 revenue flight end of March. Flight QF28 arrived in Sydney on March 29, 2020 from Santiago.
Qantas Business Class
The Australian home carrier offered a three-class configuration on board of its Boeing 747s. The ‘Upper deck’ consists of 18 (out of 58) Business Class seats. The ‘Lower deck’ offers the remainder of the Business Class seats, as well as 36 Premium Economy and 270 Economy seats.
Farewell Flights
Qantas offers three final ‘Farewell Flights’ for fans and airline employees. They are consequently planned on 13 (Sydney), 15 (Brisbane) and 17 (Canberra) July 2020. Each flight lasts for about one hour. Flights should go on sale in the coming days on Qantas’ website.
According to Executive Traveller, business-class tickets will sell for AU$747 (US$518), and economy for AU$400 (US$277).
I flew Qantas many years ago on a 747 B I liked the plane and the airline is very good too.I was lucky to have a look at the cockpit during the flight too.you can not do that now.Shame the plane is ending like the A 380,but things move on
This is sad. Qantas and the 747 seem almost inseparable in my mind.
My second ever flight was on a Qantas 747-200 on AKL-SYD in 1978. (The first flight was on an Air New Zealand DC-10 on SYD-WLG a few weeks earlier.
Amazingly, of course, Qantas had a fleet consisting entirely of 747s between retiring the 707 in 1979 and getting its first 767 in 1985. Regulations in Australia meant that it was not permitted at the time to fly domestic routes, so almost all its routes were long haul.