Rossiya Airlines will decommission wide-body long-haul Boeing 747-400 aircraft by the end of 2024, reportsTASS with reference to the official representative of the carrier Sergey Starikov. The airline is the only one in Russia with these aircraft in its fleet.
“As part of the aircraft fleet modernization program, Rossiya Airlines is preparing for the gradual decommissioning of Boeing 747 aircraft. According to the strategy adopted by the airline, an active decommissioning of this type of aircraft from the fleet is scheduled for 2023. Two aircraft will be withdrawn by the end of 2024," Starikov said.
The end of the era of giant passenger aircraft entered its active phase in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an accelerated withdrawal from the global fleet of B747 and A380 aircraft. The global civil aviation crisis that erupted in late spring 2020 hastened their retirement. The clouds over the Jumbo Jet began to thicken back in 2017, when United Airlines retired its last B747. Later that year, Delta Air Lines said goodbye to its last B747. Covid has accelerated the process of withdrawing this aircraft from the fleet of passenger airlines.
For fifty years, the Boeing Corporation has delivered 1,571 B747s to customers. By mid-2021, 39 passenger versions of the aircraft remained in operation around the world. The largest passenger operator of the Jumbo Jet is Rossiya Airlines, which has nine such aircraft in its fleet. Rossiya has been using the B747 since 2016, when part of the fleet of the bankrupt Transaero was transferred to the Aeroflot group. All aircraft are used to organize transportation to popular tourist destinations. Flights are operated jointly with the Biblio Globus travel operator.
The last order for the passenger version was made in 2017 for the President of the United States. The corporation will fulfill another 15 remaining orders and will remove the liner from production. Then Boeing confirmed such plans, noting that the program will be closed after the deliveries of UPS and Volga-Dnepr.