How long will BA's non refurbished 744's keep flying?
 

Or at least when will BA remove them from long haul flights? 7 hrs to BOS on G-CIVM's WT was bad enough. (Partially b/c I had just stepped off a fresh 77W)

I even can't imagine sitting on these for longer flights to places like PHX, JNB, YVR etc.

Will we have to wait till the 777-9X comes? (Since that seems to be a direct replacement for the 747)

For BA CW, I'll take upstairs on an old 744 over a 777 any day.

On AA ... anything with 1-2-1 in Business ;)

2023 off the top of my head, at the last estimate.

Wow I wish I had the $$ to do upstairs:D:D

By that do you mean retired from all services or just longhaul?

Does the next batch of 747 retirements not start when the A350's start to get delivered?

same here. i'd much rather BA retired their 777s and gave them to AA for a refit!! :)

Apologies, DYKWIA moment :)

Retired. They will almost certainly keep flying the routes they are flying now until the end. BA didn't refurbish them and reconfigure them now because they are suited to the routes they are flying.

I would think its safe to say that the 747 route network is pretty much set in stone now until retirement.


I would think at the earliest opportunity BA will look to get the 747's off routes to SA and West Coast USA once they have something that can replace them seat wise... obviously no more 380's and 777-300s in pipe work at the moment.


I would however suspect though if BA fill those planes to those destinations as they do atm hence the extra CPT service then maybe they don't see it as so much of an issue ?


Be very interesting to see what the 350 gets introduced on to and the continued development of the 787-9 network.

There's almost no chance that 747s would ever be routinely used by BA on anything other than longhaul.

Personally, I would expect the non-refreshed 747s (ie the mid-J / 52J aircraft) to be retired sooner than 2023, which I think is the currently expected timescale for the retirement of the entire 747 fleet. The non-refreshed aircraft are generally the older examples. See the tracker to which my signature links for some numbers and a general picture, although it's worth remembering that neither chronological age nor flown hours is a reliable guide to the remaining service life of any particular aircraft.

Yes, although sadly the extra LGW-CPT is an equally ancient [?] 777 :(

Are they selling Old First as First on these routes?

Sorry - am well out of the loop so this has probably been covered elsewhere.

No Old First 744s remain. All routes covered with latest first product.

Hi,


There is no old first any more as the last Old first aircraft in 2015 IIRC.

All the 747s have new first ( but not as new as the a380s & b787-9)

Regards

TBS

PS BHDATC beat me to it:)