Boeing 747 retirement: Farewell to the 'Queen of the Skies'

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Marana, Ariz. (CNN) — For the first time in 48 years, you can't buy a ticket on
a US airline to fly on a Boeing 747.

On Wednesday, Delta Air Lines Flight 9771 touched down in Marana, Arizona, an
arid boneyard for stored and cannibalized jetliners. A three-hour-and-33-minute
journey from Atlanta.

The last of the airline's 16 jumbo Boeing 747-400s flew to a desert retirement,
ending operations by passenger airlines in the United States.

Both Delta and United Airlines have been saying goodbye to the jumbo for months.
A final domestic revenue flight, a last international trip, a final charter.
Those last trips became more of a farewell tour than a formal end.

But Wednesday's departure on ship 6314 was the true grand finale.

Pan American Airways debuted the enormous two-deck airliner in January 1970, and
flights by US passenger airlines have been flying uninterrupted ever since. The
747 was a marvel of engineering when it first flew months before the first moon
landing in 1969.

Earning the moniker "queen of the skies," the 747 was postage stamp famous, an
icon of pop culture, and the backdrop of movies, television and a flying emblem
of the US presidency as Air Force One.

"Everybody stands up at the terminal and goes to the glass and they go 'that's a
747'," said Capt. Stephen Hanlon, 62, Delta's chief 747 pilot, who was in
command of the final flight.




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