Boeing 747 Airlines: Launch Customers and Retirements

More than a hundred airlines have flown the Boeing 747 since 1970. This page follows their history and retirements. For current operator counts, use the active Boeing 747 fleet tracker.

Who still flies passengers on a 747

The confirmed passenger operators are Lufthansa, Korean Air, Air China and Rossiya Airlines. These are dated disclosures reviewed on 2026-09-04 (4 September 2026).

Operator	Variant	Aircraft	Evidence date
Lufthansa	Boeing 747 all variants	27	2025-12-31 (31 December 2025)
Korean Air	Boeing 747-8I	4	2026-07 (July 2026)
Air China	Boeing 747 all variants	10	2024-12-31 (31 December 2024)
Rossiya Airlines	Boeing 747-400	8	Checked 2026-09-04 (4 September 2026)

Lufthansa's position is not an accident. It launched the 747-8 Intercontinental in December 2006 and was for a long time its only airline customer - Boeing publicly reassessed the whole programme in early 2009 because of it. Only 48 Intercontinentals were ever built, and Lufthansa took the largest share.

Who still flies freight

This is where the 747 lives on, and the fleets are far larger than the passenger ones.

Operator	Approximate 747 fleet
Atlas Air	~63 - the largest 747 fleet in the world, mostly 747-400F with 15 747-8F
UPS Airlines	~43, including 30 747-8Fs
Cargolux	~26
Kalitta Air	~22
Cathay Cargo	~20
Korean Air Cargo	7 747-8Fs
Nippon Cargo Airlines	8 747-8Fs

Atlas Air is also the airline that closed the production line: the very last 747 built was delivered to Atlas on 31 January 2023.

The reason freight endured is structural. A passenger 747 is retired when its fuel burn per seat stops competing with a newer twin. A freighter is retired when the airframe runs out of cycles - and until the 777F matured, nothing else offered a nose cargo door able to swallow loads longer than any side door.

The largest 747 fleets ever

By aircraft delivered, across all variants:

Airline	Delivered
Japan Airlines	108
British Airways	94
Singapore Airlines	93
Lufthansa	81
Korean Air	79
United Airlines	68
Qantas	57

Japan Airlines at the top is worth a moment. Japanese carriers did not simply buy a lot of 747s - they bought 747s built specially for them. The 747-100SR, 747-300SR and 747-400D were high-density, short-range variants with reinforced structure for enormous numbers of takeoffs and landings, and the -400D went without winglets because on a one-hour sector they never repay their weight.

The stretched upper deck that defines every modern 747 also began as a modification on two Japanese aircraft.

Fleet histories

Individual histories for the airlines that flew the most, and the one that flies the most now.

Airline	Delivered
Japan Airlines	108	Boeing built three variants for them
British Airways	94	Largest 747-400 fleet in the world
Singapore Airlines	93	The Megatop fleet
Lufthansa	81	Launched the 747-8, still flying
Korean Air	79	Took the last passenger 747
United Airlines	68	47 years, ending where it began
Pan Am	65	Ordered the aircraft into existence
Qantas	57	The only passenger 747-400ERs
Atlas Air	~63 today	Largest fleet now; took the final 747

More airline histories

Histories for the other carriers with their own pages, from the launch era to today's freighter operators.

Airline	747s
Saudia	63	One of the largest 747-400 fleets
Northwest Airlines	53	Launched the PW4000-powered 747-400
Air France	53	Opened the CDG 747 era; retired 2016
KLM	52	The first CF6-powered 747 order
ANA	45	World-first 500-seat all-economy 747SR
Polar Air Cargo	44	Atlas Air Worldwide freighter arm
UPS Airlines	~43	The largest 747-8F customer
South African Airways	30	Set the 1976 747SP distance record
Virgin Atlantic	30	First flight was a leased 747-200
El Al	26	Nonstop Tel Aviv - New York pioneer
Thai Airways	26	Six -200s, two -300s, eighteen -400s
Cargolux	26 today	Launch customer for the 747-400F and 747-8F
Air India	~25	Half a century of 747 service
Kalitta Air	22 today	58 flown across all generations
Cathay Pacific	20 today	14 747-8Fs and 6 747-400ERFs
Iberia	~22	All four classics; every one named after a writer
Iran Air	~22	Flew the world's last passenger 747SP
Alitalia	~21	-200s, including Combis and freighters
Delta Air Lines	21	The last US airline to retire the 747
American Airlines	~18	An early -100 operator; one became NASA's Shuttle Carrier
Air New Zealand	15	Opened Auckland - London; retired the type in 2014
Air Canada	15	A dedicated Combi operator for 33 years
TWA	15	Entered 747 service in February 1970
Braniff International	11	The orange 'Great Pumpkin' and three 747SPs
Swissair	7	Launch customer for the 747-300
SAS	6	The 'Vikings' and Atlantic Combi freight
National Airlines	2	Only two -100s, but Miami's first jumbos

The launch customer

Pan American World Airways took delivery of the first 747-100 on 13 December 1969 and flew the first commercial service from New York to London on 22 January 1970.

Pan Am also drove the aircraft's most unusual variant. Together with Iran Air it asked for something that could fly New York to the Middle East and Tehran to New York nonstop - routes nothing then flying could serve. The answer was the 747SP, nearly 48 feet shorter than a 747-100 so it could carry the fuel instead of the passengers.

Pan Am ceased operations in 1991.

The long goodbye

Passenger 747 retirements ran for a decade and then, in 2020, arrived all at once.

Airline	Last passenger 747
Singapore Airlines	2012
Japan Airlines	2011
Air New Zealand	12 September 2014
All Nippon Airways	31 March 2014
Air France	January 2016
Cathay Pacific	2016
United Airlines	7 November 2017
Delta Air Lines	December 2017
Qantas	22 July 2020
KLM	March 2020
Virgin Atlantic	2020
British Airways	8 October 2020

United flew its last 747 service from San Francisco to Honolulu on 7 November 2017 - deliberately re-flying the route its first 747 had operated in July 1970. Tickets sold out in 90 minutes.

Delta operated the last scheduled 747 revenue flight by a US passenger airline, Seoul to Detroit, on 19 December 2017. The aircraft's final movement, a ferry flight to the Marana boneyard in Arizona, came on 3 January 2018.

Qantas made the most theatrical exit. On 22 July 2020, VH-OEJ left Sydney for Los Angeles as QF7474, and the crew drew a 275 km Qantas kangaroo in the sky off the New South Wales coast. On the way out it overflew the HARS museum and dipped its wings to VH-OJA, the 747-400 preserved there.

British Airways retired the type outright in July 2020 and sent its final two Heathrow aircraft away on 8 October 2020 - G-CIVB in the heritage Negus livery and G-CIVY in standard colours. A synchronised departure from parallel runways was planned and rained off.

Why they all went at once

The 747 was already being retired steadily through the 2010s, for a reason that had nothing to do with the aircraft being bad: twin-engined types like the 777-300ER, 787 and A350 could fly the same routes with two engines instead of four, and did not need 400 seats filled to make money.

COVID-19 in 2020 simply removed the last reason to wait. Airlines with grounded fleets and no near-term demand brought forward retirements planned for 2021 and beyond, and several fleets went in weeks rather than years.

The freighters were untouched by that logic and are still working.

Elsewhere on the site

• The 747 family, variant by variant
• Special Boeing 747s - the aircraft that never flew for an airline at all
• Accidents involving the Boeing 747
• Links - museums where preserved 747s can be visited