TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Boeing celebrates 747 at final commercial delivery of 'jumbo jet'
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Current and former employees, customers and invited guests participate in a ceremony to mark the delivery of the last Boeing 747 aircraft, at the Boeing Future of Flight Museum in Everett, Washington, on January 31, 2023. (AFP/Jason Redmond)
B
oeing marked its final commercial delivery of the 747, "the Queen of the Skies" on Tuesday at a ceremony commemorating an aircraft that democratized flying and serves US presidents.
Thousands of current and former employees, celebrities and aviation industry brass converged on Boeing's plant in Everett, Washington, in the Northwestern part of the United States, a factory built for the assembly of the original "jumbo jet."
The existing fleet of planes are expected to fly for decades more, but in ceasing 747 production more than 50 years after the aircraft's first flight, Boeing is closing a chapter in the history of civil aviation.
John Diedrich, chief executive of Atlas Air, the cargo airline that purchased the final plane in the line, saluted the 747 as "the biggest, baddest commercial aircraft that's flying out there."
The celebration recounted the jet's origins, setting its decades-long evolution to popular music and video footage.
Others who spoke included top executives with Lufthansa Airlines, engine maker Pratt & Whitney and the actor John Travolta, who is certified as a pilot for the 747.
The jet has a unique legacy with a significance to aviation that is difficult to overstate.
More from The Weekender
Jakarta’s padel moment
From FOMO to full-blown obsession, padel has captured the city. What comes next may depend less on courts and more on the communities that grow around them.
The battle over memory
And why the government’s plan to rewrite its history books should alarm us all.
Are younger workers getting something right about work?
As micro-retirements gain traction, Gen Z and young millennials are challenging traditional ideas of ambition, success and when it’s okay to pause.
