#queenoftheskies — Public Fediverse posts

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYG in the pattern for San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen January 2026 #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #lufthansa #KSFO #cvvhrn #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYG in the pattern for San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen January 2026 #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #lufthansa #KSFO #cvvhrn #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYG in the pattern for San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen January 2026 #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #lufthansa #KSFO #cvvhrn #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYG in the pattern for San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen January 2026 #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #lufthansa #KSFO #cvvhrn #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYG in the pattern for San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen January 2026 #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #lufthansa #KSFO #cvvhrn #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography

Lufthansa Airlines 747-8i braking after touching down at San Francisco International, January 2024 #Lufthansa #B747-8i #aircraft #avgeek #nikon #photography #KSFO #sanfranciscointernationalairport #germany #queenoftheskies

Lufthansa Airlines 747-8i braking after touching down at San Francisco International, January 2024 #Lufthansa #B747-8i #aircraft #avgeek #nikon #photography #KSFO #sanfranciscointernationalairport #germany #queenoftheskies

Lufthansa Airlines 747-8i braking after touching down at San Francisco International, January 2024 #Lufthansa #B747-8i #aircraft #avgeek #nikon #photography #KSFO #sanfranciscointernationalairport #germany #queenoftheskies

Lufthansa Airlines 747-8i braking after touching down at San Francisco International, January 2024 #Lufthansa #B747-8i #aircraft #avgeek #nikon #photography #KSFO #sanfranciscointernationalairport #germany #queenoftheskies

Lufthansa Airlines 747-8i braking after touching down at San Francisco International, January 2024 #Lufthansa #B747-8i #aircraft #avgeek #nikon #photography #KSFO #sanfranciscointernationalairport #germany #queenoftheskies

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYG in the pattern for San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography #KSFO #lufthansa #cvvhrn

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYG in the pattern for San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography #KSFO #lufthansa #cvvhrn

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYG in the pattern for San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography #KSFO #lufthansa #cvvhrn

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYG in the pattern for San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography #KSFO #lufthansa #cvvhrn

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYG in the pattern for San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography #KSFO #lufthansa #cvvhrn

Atlas Air 747-400BCF N460MC as GTI8830 on final for Travis AFB, April 2025 #atlasair #B7478F #freighter #queenoftheskies #travisafb #AvGeek #spotter #cargo #photography #aircraft #aircraft #nikon #cvvhrn

Atlas Air 747-8F N860GT departs Travis AFB, July 2023 #atlasair #B7478F #freighter #queenoftheskies #c17 #travisafb #AvGeek #spotter #cargo #photography #aircraft #aircraft #nikon #cvvhrn

Kalitta Air 747-400F depart Travis AFB, July 2021 #B747F #freighter #queenoftheskies #travisafb #AvGeek #spotter #cargo #photography #aircraft #nikon

Lufthansa Airlines 747-8i departs San Francisco International, January 2023 #Lufthansa #B747-8i #aircraft #avgeek #nikon #photography #KSFO #sanfranciscointernationalairport #germany #queenoftheskies

Atlas Air 747-8F N860GT departs Travis AFB, with the recently departed USAF C-17A 01-5152 "Spirit of Go For Broke" seen after making her turn just below the wing #atlasair #B7478F #freighter #queenoftheskies #c17 #travisafb #AvGeek #spotter #cargo #photography #aircraft #aircraft #nikon

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYT rocking the classic livery making the turn to line up to San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen March 2023 #B747 #queenoftheskies #B7478i #Lufthansa #KSFO #sanfranciscointernationalairport #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #photography

Lufthansa 747-8i D-AYBO tmaking the turn to line up to San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen March 2023 #B747 #queenoftheskies #B7478i #Lufthansa #KSFO#sanfranciscointernationalairport #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #photography

Lufthansa 747-8i trailing vapor and making the turn to line up to San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen #B747 #queenoftheskies #B7478i #sanfranciscointernationalairport #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #photography #Lufthansa #KSFO

Korean Air Cargo 747-8F HL7609 making an almost straight in approach to San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen April 2024 #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #sanfranciscointernationalairport #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #photography #korea #KoreanAir #cargo #freighter #KSFO

Atlas Air 747-400BCF N460MC as GTI8830 on final for Travis AFB, April 2025 #atlasair #B7478F #freighter #queenoftheskies #travisafb #AvGeek #spotter #cargo #photography #aircraft #aircraft #nikon

A long goodbye to the Queen of the Skies

There’s no airplane that I’ll miss more when it vanishes from passenger service than the Boeing 747. The original jumbo jet hasn’t just helped to knit the world together since its first revenue flight in 1970, that iconic four-engine widebody has also been a recurring character in my own traveling life for decades.

For the first few of those decades, the Queen of the Skies was more of a regular character for how it owned most overseas itineraries and often soaked up capacity on transcontinental domestic routes. My first flight across the Atlantic that I can remember involved a Pan Am 747; I first flew across the Pacific on a Northwest Airlines 747. And at any airport where the 747 flew, there was no mistaking that aircraft, with its upper-deck hump and quadruple main landing gear, for any other.

(Especially if the 747 in question was one of the two operated by NASA and customized to fly space shuttles across the U.S.)

But by the time I boarded that NW flight from Detroit to Tokyo in 1998, the 747 was already starting to see its commercial sunset as twin-engine widebodies like Boeing’s 777 began securing safety certification to operate increasingly lengthy routes at lower costs than the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and Lockheed L-1011 trijet widebodies that had once been the 747’s primary long-haul competition.

The first decade of this century featured far fewer 747 flights for me, although the one my wife and I took from Dulles to Beijing in 2007 stands out for a different reason: a seating overlap led United to move us up to business class. My final flight on a 747 operated by the airline I’ve flown more than any other came a decade later, when I was able to clear an upgrade and grab the last seat open on the upper deck of a 747-400 flying from San Francisco to Shanghai.

United retired the 747 in November of that year–and since I was at Web Summit in Lisbon that week, I couldn’t spend a ridiculous amount of money on UA’s farewell 747 flight from SFO to Honolulu.

But that was not my own farewell to the 747. Air China, Lufthansa and Korean Air still fly the 747-8, the final version produced, and a press trip to Helsinki in 2022 gave me a chance to apply an upgrade to a Lufthansa flight from Newark to Frankfurt and enjoy one more ride on the 747’s upper deck. The view up there has no equivalent to what you can see from a 777, 787, Airbus A330 or any other single-deck long-range airliner.

And then this Wednesday morning found me boarding yet another LH-operated 747-8, this time with a boarding pass for a seat in the nose. After years of reading trip reviews rhapsodizing about Lufthansa’s first class and reminding readers about how to redeem miles from partner airlines’ programs for that experience, news of an impending devaluation for Lufthansa redemptions made me realize that I had left one 747 flight undone on my checklist.

So I cashed in a large stash of Avianca LifeMiles, collected by leveraging a bank sign-up bonus earned in 2021, to book myself a one-way first-class 747-8 flight from Frankfurt to Dulles, burned some United miles to get myself from Dulles to Frankfurt, and used a Hyatt free-night certificate for the overnight stay in between.

(I wrote a longer breakdown for Patreon readers of the long game involved in this travel hack, including my surprisingly small out-of-pocket costs for this bucket-list trip.)

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve flown across the Atlantic, but I can report that Wednesday’s flight in seat 2K–below the cockpit and ahead of the front landing gear, so far forward that I could not see the wing–stands apart from those other crossings, and not only for the luxury involved.

If I never fly the Queen again–or the two other four-engine long-haul jets in commercial service in the West, the Airbus A340 and A380–that’s okay. But if another opportunity somehow presents itself to fly a 747, preferably upstairs or upfront… it might be hard to turn down.

#747 #7478 #A340 #A380 #avgeek #aviation #Boeing #Boeing747 #bucketList #fourEngineAirliner #jumboJet #Lufthansa #Northwest #PanAm #QueenOfTheSkies #UnitedAirlines #widebody

Compass Air Cargo LZ-CJC 747-400F lining up to land at San Francisco International, April 2025. First time I have caught this Airline. Cool tail #B747 #cargo #cargoairlines #freighter #compasaircargo #queenoftheskies #SanFrancisco #KSFO #sanfranciscointernationalairport #photography #aircraft #Nikon #Z9

Atlas Air 747-400F N445MC departs Travis AFB, July 2021 #atlasair #B747F #freighter #queenoftheskies #travisafb #AvGeek #spotter #cargo #photography #aircraft #nikon

Atlas Air 747-8F N860GT departs Travis AFB, with the recently departed USAF C-17A 01-5152 "Spirit of Go For Broke" seen after making her turn just below the wing #atlasair #B7478F #freighter #queenoftheskies #c17 #travisafb #AvGeek #spotter #cargo #photography #aircraft #aircraft #nikon

Lufthansa Airlines &47-81 touches down at San Francisco International, January 2024 #Lufthansa #B747-8i #aircraft #avgeek #nikon #photography #KSFO #sanfranciscointernationalairport #germany #queenoftheskies

National Airlines 747-400F N919CA departing Travis AFB for Tinker AFB, October 2024. Always fun to see the Queen #queenoftheskies #avgeek #aviation #B747 #cargo #freighter #aviation #travisAFB #Boeing

Lufthansa 747-8i D-ABYQ making the turn to line up at San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) #B747 #queenoftheskies #SanFrancisco #KSFO #sanfranciscointernationalairport #photography #aircraft #Nikon #Z9

If the 747 is the "Queen of the skies" what is the nick if the A380? I read that some people call it the "Airboss", but I think I remember something similar to the queen name... :nkoThink:

#Aviation #A380 #Airbus #QueenOfTheSkies #Airboss

@askfedi

Boeing 747-400

#Boeing #Boeing747 #QueenOfTheSkies #Aviation

Korean Air Cargo 747-8F making an almost straight in approach to San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography #korea #KoreanAir #cargo #freighter

Lufthansa 747-8i in the pattern for San Francisco International Airport (KSFO) All hail the queen #B747 #queenoftheskies #B747 #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography #KSFO #lufthansa

Low level clouds and sun angle combine to throw a 747-400F shadow ahead of the China Air Cargo 747 lining up to land at San Francisco International #ChinaAir #B747 #queenoftheskies #shadow #sanfranciscointernationalairport #KSFO #aviationphotography #AvGeek #spotter #aviationdaily #photography

A selfie with the #queenoftheskies #boeing #747 #boeing747 #ra001 #aviation #avgeek #seattle #washington #museum #museumofflight #photography (Instagram 28.10.2018)

CargoLux Italy taxing to the ramp at Milano Malpensa.

#Malpensa #CargoLux #CargoLuxItaly #spotting #QueenOfTheSkies #QotS #Boeing747 #Jumbo #avgeek #planeporn #rampview #aviation #aviationphotography #Cargo #Freighter #B747400F #Boeing747400

A selfie with the #queenoftheskies #boeing #747 #boeing747 #ra001 #aviation #avgeek #seattle #washington #museum #museumofflight #photography (Instagram 28.10.2018)

Went out this morning to take a few photos in the morning sunshine. #N614UP arriving in Louisville at flight #UPS61 from ANC.

#avgeek #aviation #planespotting #aviationdaily #instaaviation #igerslouisville #louisvillecreators #aviationphotography #nikon #flylouisville #nikonZ8 #louisvilleapproved #louisville #502 #SpotSDF #flylouisville #b747lovers #b748 #queenoftheskies