If you’re fortunate, you might have a chance to fly in one of the many government, air force, or private Boeing 747s or land a jump seat, even on one of the many freighters. If you aren’t, you’ll need to be crew like the rest of us or buy a ticket, and your options for doing so are quickly running out. Where can you fly this summer on a 747-400?
747-400 passenger flights
Four carriers, Air China, Asiana, Lufthansa, and Saudia, offer regular, scheduled, and bookable 747-400 passenger flights. They only have 15 of these planes at the time of writing.
As will be mentioned below, Saudia, which operates three 747-400s from Air Atlanta Europe, has a relatively restricted number of scheduled trips. Instead, the majority are charter flights carrying South Asian, North African, and Indonesian pilgrims.There are other operators. Among them is MaxAir of Nigeria, whose two aircraft are frequently used to transport pilgrims between West Africa and Medina and Jeddah.
Rossiya’s nine-strong 747-400 fleet is still idle, while Iran’s Mahan Air’s lone 747-400 was last utilized in late April. The Russian airline was well recognized for operating high-density planes on routes for leisure travelers.
Where to fly them is here
This July through September, the following 747-400 routes are operated by Air China, Asiana, Lufthansa, and Saudia. There are only nine routes that cover the northern summer peak, which are shown below.
(Double daily) Air China Beijing Capital Shenzhen
Asiana
Incheon Seoul
Shanghai Pudong (daily), Tokyo Narita (four times a week, only in July and August)
Lufthansa
Frankfurt-Dakar (up to daily), Seoul-Incheon (up to daily), Shanghai-Pudong (up to daily), Toronto-Dakar, and Vancouver-Dakar are also regularly served.
When compared to other routes, Saudia Jeddah Algiers (up to four weekly); this one has a three-digit flight number and may be booked normally, while others have four and appear to be charters.
There are often 56/57 departing flights per week (double for both directions). To put this into perspective, in July 2019, British Airways, the sole former operator, operated 181 departures per week from its Heathrow hub.
The busiest route
There are more scheduled 747-400 services than any other route on Air China’s domestic route from Beijing Capital to the Pearl River Delta city of Shenzhen, a distance of 1,212 miles (1,951 kilometres). following timing for flights:
From Beijing to Shenzhen, take the CA1313 at 11:00 and the CA1397 at 14:00.
Beijing to Shenzhen: CA1314 at 16:15; CA1398 at 19:00
How do things subsequently change?
On October 29th, airlines in the Northern Hemisphere begin operating on a winter schedule. The most recent plan, as of June 16 and subject to change, calls for Air China to continue operating the only 747-400 service in November. Instead of flying twice daily, it will fly three times every day.
Currently, Asiana does not offer any flights using the machinery described in Cirium or OAG. From Frankfurt to Bengaluru, Delhi, New York JFK, and Seoul Incheon, by contrast, Lufthansa plans to employ them.
