SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 1 — Boeing said that the company is holding a ceremony on Tuesday to say goodbye to its 747 jumbo jets at its factory in Everett, Washington state, in northwestern US.
After 53 years since its first delivery, thousands of the company’s current and former employees and guests will attend the ceremony to bid farewell to the 1,574th and last Boeing 747 ever built, said Xinhua.
After the ceremony, the final 747 freighter built for cargo carrier Atlas Air will depart from outside the grand assembly plant purpose-built for the 747 in the late 1960s.
The building housed more jet programmes and grew to be the largest by volume in the world. Boeing Everett at a recent peak in 2012 provided more than 40,000 jobs, according to a report by The Seattle Times.
The late Joe Sutter, the chief engineer on the original programme, was given the task to design a new jet in August 1965. The first test plane rolled out of the newly built factory in September 1968 and had its first flight in February 1969. The first production plane was delivered on Jan 22, 1970.
The final 747-8 passenger version can carry nearly 470 people on trans-Pacific and other longer-haul routes.
Over the past two decades, airlines switched to the more fuel-efficient, two-engined planes, which leads 747 models out of production.
— Bernama
