A sad fate for the Queen of the Skies: A 10-year-old Boeing 747 is in an aircraft boneyard in Arizona after flying for just 40 hours. The Boeing 747-8BBJ, ordered by a leasing company and configured as a private jet, was meant to go to Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud but he died months before it was due to be delivered, CNN reports. The aircraft then spent around 10 years at Switzerland's Basel Airport, where it was supposed to be fitted with an interior luxurious enough to suit somebody who could afford a private 747. After no buyer was found, the plane made its final flight to Pinal Airpark in Arizona, where crews began dismantling it for parts in December, reports SimpleFlying.
The BBJ stands for Boeing Business Jet. While Boeing has sold many 737s as BBJs, the 747 version is a lot rarer. "Ten were built in total, and this is the first one retired," Connor Diver, a senior analyst at aviation analytics firm Cirium, tells CNN. "It’s not transparent who exactly is buying them, but it’s a very, very large private aircraft and the only operators or buyers tend to be governments and royal families." He says fitting the aircraft out would have cost up to $50 million, and "the alternate uses for it are rather limited." Diver says the plane went up for sale for $95 million in 2017, down from an original price of $350 million, but it still didn't sell.
The aircraft made a total of 16 flights in its lifetime, including test flights. It will now be stripped for engines, avionics, and other replacement parts for 747-8s still in service. SimpleFlying notes that while many other 747s with limited flying time have ended up in the scrapyard in recent years, this one is "by far the least experienced of the lot." The last 747 ever built, a 747-8 for Atlas Air, was handed over at the end of last month. (More Boeing 747 stories.)
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