Rob Pegoraro<p><strong>A long goodbye to the Queen of the Skies</strong></p><a href="https://robpegoraro.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/lufthansa-747-8-at-dulles-gate-b47.jpg" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a><p>There’s no airplane that I’ll miss more when it vanishes from passenger service than the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Boeing 747</a>. The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/story/boeing-delivers-the-last-747-a-history-of-the-queen-of-the-skies-8951cdf6" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">original jumbo jet</a> hasn’t just helped to knit the world together since its first revenue flight in 1970, that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">iconic four-engine widebody</a> has also been a recurring character in my own traveling life for decades. </p><p>For the first few of those decades, the Queen of the Skies was more of a regular character for how it owned most overseas itineraries and often soaked up capacity on transcontinental domestic routes. My first flight across the Atlantic that I can remember involved a <a href="https://robpegoraro.com/2013/02/15/yet-another-airline-prepares-to-pull-into-the-hangar-in-the-sky/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pan Am</a> 747; I first flew across the Pacific on a Northwest Airlines 747. And at any airport where the 747 flew, there was no mistaking that aircraft, with its upper-deck hump and quadruple main landing gear, for any other.</p><p>(Especially if the 747 in question was one of the two <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/robpegoraro/53915766819" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">operated by NASA</a> and customized to <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/robpegoraro/albums/72157629475369746" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">fly space shuttles across the U.S.</a>) </p><p>But by the time I boarded that NW flight from Detroit to Tokyo in 1998, the 747 was already starting to see its commercial sunset as twin-engine widebodies like Boeing’s 777 began securing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">safety certification to operate increasingly lengthy routes</a> at lower costs than the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-10" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">McDonnell Douglas DC-10</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_L-1011" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Lockheed L-1011</a> trijet widebodies that had once been the 747’s primary long-haul competition. </p><p>The first decade of this century featured far fewer 747 flights for me, although the one my wife and I took from Dulles to Beijing in 2007 stands out for a different reason: a seating overlap led United to move us up to business class. My final flight on a 747 operated by <a href="https://robpegoraro.com/2022/03/18/travel-achievement-unlocked-million-miler-status-on-united-airlines/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the airline I’ve flown more than any other</a> came a decade later, when I was able to clear an upgrade and grab the last seat open on <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/robpegoraro/albums/72157684856977046/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the upper deck of a 747-400 flying from San Francisco to Shanghai</a>.</p><p>United retired the 747 in November of that year–and since I was <a href="https://robpegoraro.com/2017/11/12/weekly-output-video-surveillance-privacy-vs-security-facebook-listening-universal-basic-income-intelligent-assistants-convenience-economy-uberair-privacy-fears/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">at Web Summit in Lisbon that week</a>, I couldn’t spend a ridiculous amount of money on <a href="https://thepointsguy.com/airline/reviews/live-from-final-united-747/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">UA’s farewell 747 flight from SFO to Honolulu</a>.</p><p>But that was not my own farewell to the 747. Air China, Lufthansa and Korean Air still fly the <a href="https://www.boeing.com/commercial/747-8" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">747-8</a>, the final version produced, and <a href="https://robpegoraro.com/2022/06/03/twenty-countries-and-counting-counting-slowly/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a press trip to Helsinki in 2022</a> gave me a chance to apply an upgrade to a Lufthansa flight from Newark to Frankfurt and enjoy one more ride on the 747’s upper deck. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/robpegoraro/52112200857/in/photolist-ppEQxQ-rdJw7e-rwWLmi-rwXiTY-Grj2oG-UjXddh-Uo6Uxk-V2ss3Q-Vy4cPq-Vy5vKU-Vy5Z91-VBDCan-2h9p8JQ-2noYDKF-2q9jBLR-2q9kUdD-2q9mp5x-d6vKSW-d6vL5L-d6vLgA-fQMeNt-fQMeSZ-fQMeXT-fQY4Qy" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The view</a> up there has no equivalent to what you can see from a 777, 787, Airbus A330 or any other single-deck long-range airliner. </p><p>And then this Wednesday morning found me boarding yet another LH-operated 747-8, this time with a boarding pass for a seat in the nose. After years of reading trip reviews <a href="https://liveandletsfly.com/lufthansa-first-class-review/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">rhapsodizing about Lufthansa’s first class</a> and reminding readers about how to <a href="https://onemileatatime.com/guides/redeem-miles-lufthansa-first-class/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">redeem miles from partner airlines’ programs for that experience</a>, news of an <a href="https://liveandletsfly.com/lufthansa-first-class-awards/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">impending devaluation for Lufthansa redemptions</a> made me realize that I had left one 747 flight undone on my checklist.</p><p>So I cashed in a large stash of Avianca LifeMiles, collected by leveraging a bank sign-up bonus earned in 2021, to book myself a one-way first-class 747-8 flight from Frankfurt to Dulles, burned some United miles to get myself from Dulles to Frankfurt, and used a Hyatt free-night certificate for the overnight stay in between. </p><p>(I wrote a longer breakdown for Patreon readers of <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/travel-hack-four-128924333?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the long game involved in this travel hack</a>, including my surprisingly small out-of-pocket costs for this bucket-list trip.) </p><p>I can’t tell you how many times I’ve flown across the Atlantic, but I can report that Wednesday’s flight in seat 2K–below the cockpit and ahead of the front landing gear, so far forward that I could not see the wing–stands apart from those other crossings, and not only for the luxury involved.</p><p>If I never fly the Queen again–or the two other four-engine long-haul jets in commercial service in the West, the Airbus A340 and A380–that’s okay. But if another opportunity somehow presents itself to fly a 747, preferably upstairs or upfront… it might be hard to turn down. </p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/747/" target="_blank">#747</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/747-8/" target="_blank">#7478</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/a340/" target="_blank">#A340</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/a380/" target="_blank">#A380</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/avgeek/" target="_blank">#avgeek</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/aviation/" target="_blank">#aviation</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/boeing/" target="_blank">#Boeing</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/boeing-747/" target="_blank">#Boeing747</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/bucket-list/" target="_blank">#bucketList</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/four-engine-airliner/" target="_blank">#fourEngineAirliner</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/jumbo-jet/" target="_blank">#jumboJet</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/lufthansa/" target="_blank">#Lufthansa</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/northwest/" target="_blank">#Northwest</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/pan-am/" target="_blank">#PanAm</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/queen-of-the-skies/" target="_blank">#QueenOfTheSkies</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/united-airlines/" target="_blank">#UnitedAirlines</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://robpegoraro.com/tag/widebody/" target="_blank">#widebody</a></p>