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Seriously! United flies Boeing 747 SFO-LAX

United 747

United called in The Queen of the Skies to mop up a mess at SFO (Photo: United)

Who ya gonna call to mop up a big rainy mess at the airport? The Queen of the Skies, of course!

And that’s exactly what United Airlines did last Friday when a record-setting deluge hit the West Coast and gummed up the works along the busy California Corridor.

The airline sent in a Boeing 747 to shuttle hundreds of displaced passengers for a one-hour flight from San Francisco International to Los Angeles International.

Here’s what happened…

Last Friday, a big storm blew in off the Pacific causing delays and cancellations up and down the West Coast.

That afternoon we received an email from TravelSkills reader (and contributor) Dan Erwin, who saw something peculiar when he was flying SFO-LAX that day — a giant 747 positioned to fly as United flight #937 departing SFO at 12:15 p.m. He tried to switch flights to get on board (and what travel geek wouldn’t!), but there was no space available.

We both assumed that it was some sort of anomaly…maybe a random repositioning for a charter or something along those lines. The 747 had just flown in from Tokyo Narita, according to FlightAware.

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United flight 937 SFO>LAX was hit by storms on both ends on Friday Feb 17 (Image: FlightAware)

But I reached out to my United contacts to find out, and discovered this was indeed a revenue flight…and it flew full!

A spokesperson said that United called in The Queen to accommodate all the passengers who had been on delayed or canceled flights that morning– and you can bet that on a busy Friday morning, there were a lot.

Imagine their surprise when passengers who thought they’d be boarding the standard Airbus A320 for the flight to LAX saw a Boeing 747 pull up to the gate instead. I’m sure there were a lot of frustrated, late passengers cursing the airline and the weather that morning, but I’ll bet many of them smiled at the sight of a bubble-top out the window!

What a rare opportunity to fly one of United’s 747s before they retire later this year! (Details on United’s final 747 flights here.)

It turned out that this replacement flight — filled to the gills with 374 passengers — was also delayed by rain, but still… I’d have taken the delay for the rare experience!

UPDATE! Scroll down into comments to see read about one lucky reader who was actually on this rare 747 flight!

What about you? Have you ever ended up on another plane when the airline had to “upgauge” or “downgauge?” How that go for you? Please leave your comments below!

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Comments

  1. Took Alitalia 747 from Milan to Palermo after flying Heathrow to Milan on a DC-9. This was 1998. Best part was open seating in Milan, so my family of three chugged down the gangway to grab three seats in First Class. Wonder if they meant to switch the planes for the flight from U.K. Flew back from Catania via Rome!

  2. My shortest flight on a 747 was a SAS flight (1985) from Gothenburg (Sweden) to Oslo (Norway), a distance of 160 miles. The plane continued after 45 minutes or so with most of the passengers to JFK … with also new passengers boarding on in Oslo.

    Those were times that obviously never come back. I also flew a couple of times to JFK with the Gothenburg – Oslo – JFK plane. Once got an upgrade to First Class. I got presents like small chrystal decorative pieces. The guy sitting beside me was the father of one of the air stewardes so she arranged a short cut at JFK through the immigrant authorities. We just went through in a couple of minutes, the others had to stand there an hour or so. I had a lot of stamps from Middle east in my passport (even Iran) but that was no problem. Those were good times.

    Nowadays I never go to USA. Too unfriendly a behaviour from the authorities nowadays.
    I am now retired but even my old colleagues tell me that they try to avoid travelling to the USA. It is just too complicated.

    No vacations, no business in the USA.

  3. The Tokyo-Osaka bullet train has three grades of service- local, express, and super express. The super express makes the fewest number of stops. Depending on where you get on, you take the most logical level of service and connect to the fastest level of service that takes you to your destination and vice versa.

  5. United used to fly a DC 10 (Vancouver) YVR – SEA many years ago, then on to Chicago.

  6. “… I understand why HSR will be a big while elephant and a big financial disaster if built.”

    I don’t think so. I don’t think you’re considering that SFO to LA and points in-between will be a CROWDED and in-demand route. It would allow people to commute to further off points for work if necessary. It would also allow people to work on board, since they don’t have to pay attention to the driving. Hopefully baklazhan is correct and they will also run an express train in addition to the local stops train.

  7. I may have everyone beat on the shortest wide body flight. In the late eighties, TWA flew an L-1011 from JFK to EWR that continued on to it’s hub in St. Louis. I was in my late teens and an aviation geek and did it twice. The first time it cost me $16 in economy, and the second time it cost me $25 for first class. Scheduled time gate to gate was 35 minutes with 20 of it just taxiing on the ground at Kennedy.

  8. I mean, obviously they’ll run local trains too. People traveling to Bakersfield will take a local, people heading straight to LA from SF will take an express. Maybe there will be a semi-express, which stops in SF, LA, Bakersfield, Fresno and San Jose. How many of each will depend on demand.

  9. You can triple or quadruple the passenger capacity by flying 747’s or 777’s instead of regional jets. That would really alleviate the loss of runway slots in incremental weather.

    Which is Deplorable Hapla’s original point.

    I live right next to SFO and believe me I understand why HSR will be a big while elephant and a big financial disaster if built.

  10. Goes to show you. We and those in California need a different type of weather proof transportation system.

  11. Express trains mean they can’t stop off in Burbank, Palmdale, Bakersfield, Merced, Davis, Gilroy, etc before landing at SFO. So you’re back to square 1.

  12. Shortest flight I was on a 747, Buffalo to Rochester, NY. Don’t remember the airline, but it was definitely a 747.

  13. The importance of the Bakersfield-Gilroy passenger can not be overstated. How about HSR from Gilroy to SFO and HSR from Palmdale to LAX and then they can take a plane.

  15. My flight to SFO from LAX was way overbooked and there were a bunch of standbys. After the gate closed we were directed to a nearby gate and boarded a Boeing 707! Did I mention it was 1964 and the Western Airlines LAX-SFO was normally on a Douglas DC-6B. We beat the DC-6 to SFO by 20 minutes. My standby ticket was $12.

  17. The reason for high speed rail is because SFO goes to half capacity (due to runway proximity being so narrow) whenever we get a cloud in the sky. The flights that are delayed? Those from Southern California, which makes up over 25% of all traffic in and out of SFO. They can be held. Big birds coming in from the east coast or Asia cannot – as they are out of gas. Try commuting between SFO and anywhere nearby during a rainy winter and you’ll understand why we need HSR.

  18. Exactly. High speed rail between SF and LA will only be competitive if travel time is less than 3 hours. With all the stops in-between, travel time will be a lot more than 3 hours. Remember, it takes time and distance to accelerate from zero to 200 mph, and it also takes time and distance to decelerate from 200 mph back to zero.

  19. A corridor isn’t too busy if 747’s, or even any widebodies like 767/777/787/A330 for that matter, aren’t used for regular revenue service.

    Tokyo-Osaka? That’s a busy corridor. And remember, there are hourly flights from both airlines (JAL and ANA) using widebodies, on top of the Tokkaido Shinkansen high-speed rail service running every 10 minutes.

  20. Still not the record for biggest plane to shortest flight. I think that was held in the 90s by Delta, who had a SJC to OAK flight you could book on a DC-10. The plane continued on to Narita, but before they fixed up the runway at SJC in the early 2000s, the DC-10 couldn’t take off with full fuel, and flew to OAK to top off for the flight to Japan.

    There was a short-haul 747: “The 747-400D (Domestic) is a high density seating model developed for short-haul, high-volume domestic Japanese flights. This model is capable of seating a maximum of 568 passengers in a two-class configuration or 660 passengers in a single-class configuration. … This variant was retired with ANA retiring its last 747 on March 31, 2014.” [Wikipedia]

  21. United used to have a flight from Chicago to Detroit on a DC-10. 45 minutes.

  22. You could replace Jerry Brown’s choo-choo with one or two of these a day.

  23. My very first flight was on a Quantas 747 from SFO-LHR, then on to TLV. Staff was extremely courteous, service was impeccable and as Sparky G said, “those were the days”.

  24. hehe is right, but then,,,that is the ultimate purpose of HSR, get from big point A to big Point B,,the small stops slow down the run,

  26. cuz they can’t stop off in Burbank, Palmdale, Bakersfield, Merced, Davis, Gilroy, etc before landing at SFO. heh heh heh

  27. That is mind-boggling to imagine so many people crammed into a B747 on such a long flight. The longest Japanese domestic flight is around 90 minutes, I believe. My relatives find it hard to picture a lower-48 flight taking 5-6 hours.

  28. Though Japanese people have grown bigger over the years, it has not been at the rate of Americans. I went back to visit family in ’72 (as a kid), ’82 (post-college), throughout the 90s, and 2016. At 5’10” I always feel larger than the average Japanese person, though in each successive visit I’ve noticed Japanese people getting a little taller and wider.

  29. Interesting,,,why build high speed rail,,,,when there is a pool of 747s available to fly shuttle service between LAX-SFO??

  30. Another reason why I have such great respect; During the international “coup” of Iran around Nov. of 1979, that taking of our “American Hostages” epitomized the usefulness of those 747’s when Pan American Airlines flew in about a dozen of these giant birds to remedy the rescuing of our “American’s” from the atrocities of the middle-east as my family members were caught up in the middle through no fault of their own, amongst those escaping the elitist controversy then in the middle-east all while being employed by Boeing, and much Kudos to them for taking the initiative in doing so. Because, to this day, I have the enjoyment of my family members to cherish a great heritage and be fortunate to celebrate my Uncle and his family who helped many of his colleagues escape Iran in that heated moment of time past. As of a year ago, for time served, may he R.I.P. in Tehoma National Cemetery in Washington State. And To The 747 Pan American Airline That rescued Them!

  31. One of Northwest’s 747 flights from Minneapolis even made stops in Milwaukee along the way back then. What is that, something like 45 minutes?

  32. There is nothing like a 747 that has long-ass haul to reach the nether ends of the earth. I have great respect for these aging flying dinosaurs that are still in use today, and it is so sad that United Airlines, once the respected Airline next to Pan American, it’s main competitor is retiring this Jumbo Wide bodied Jets, just so they can appease their dog-gone $50 million dollar a year salary. Very selfish on their part! And yet, a United 747 was my first initial flight into the modern travel age, as I have traveled various 747’s throughout the concorde of many a different Airlines moniker. Here’s one to boot; K.L.M. Royal Dutch Airlines, The perfect example of a 747 fourteen hour flight from LAX to AMS, and back, that’s the “darling” of the skies in a perfect flight. Much Kudos! And, Too, Hail the 747’s!

  33. flew on this flight to lax, after delta cancelled all flights from SFO-LAX.
    we boarded at 830pm, didn’t take off until 11:45pm. captain came on said the fuel tanks were not fueled properly. Ended up missing my connection in LAX (Delta not United) because TSA closed at 1:30am. Everyone one plane was frustrated, tired. Worst experience ever, at least we had business class seats on the 747.

  34. In 1949 one of my good friends in Reno flew 11 flights from Aden to Tel Aviv with 100 Jewish refugees in a DC4 that normally held 50 passengers. All the seats were removed, the people were very small and had little luggage. Complete radio silence. No overflying Arab territory so perfect navigation was required and he was the navigator. Alaska Airlines lost their license for a while, as a result of these flights. He recently wrote a book about these flights, called The Majic Carpet.

  36. In 1976 during the civil war in Lebanon, I flew on a Middle East Airlines 747 from London to Beirut with 17 passengers. More crew than passengers. Not surprisingly, not many takers at that time. Luckily there were a few quiet days with no fighting and I flew on to Riyadh a couple of days later. Very sad to the result of civil war.

  37. Thanks Sano-san. I was on one of those Tokyo-Osaka runs in ’82. As I recall it my girlfriend and I were nearly the only non Japanese businessmen in blue suits smoking cigarettes on that flight..

  38. Similar experience back in the late 90s flying through thunder-storm surrounded Dallas-Fort Worth. After diverting into Amarillo for a ground hold, we arrived in DFW. Our connection to Miami was missed, but had be cancelled in any case. We were then issued boarding passes for seats on a brand-spanking new 777 for the flight to Florida. Nice :).

  39. Maybe 1962, not sure. I had the pleasure of flying on the first 707 flight from Tucson to Phoenix.
    I had a coach ticket but was upgraded to first class. There were fewer passengers (maybe 5) than crew. Flight distance about 100 miles. Cruise altitude about 10,000ft.
    George

  40. In the 1970’s I regularly flew the 1 hour flight from O’Hare to Minneapolis in a Norhwest Airlines 747. The flight continued on to Seattle and Tokyo When Northwest would have a strike (which was about every 2 years) they would fly 4 747’s from Chicago to Minnepolis daily.

  41. In 1974, I flew on a DC-10 with 18 other people from SFO to HNL. We all sat in First Class.

  42. Nobody probably realizes this, but we ran ran TWO separate 747’s from SFO to LAX and back that day. No other airline can pull that much lift out their hat on short notice. Originally it was supposed to be one plane doing two LAX turns back to back, but they got so delayed with weather and ATC flow times that United started pulling out another 747 in SFO and getting a reserve crew headed for the airport while the first 747 was still down in LAX. We were delayed even further, leaving SFO about 10:45pm as flight 525 down there and 283 back, arriving early Saturday morning about 345am. We had several passengers come up for pictures etc before each leg, and it was nice to meet people who realized it was a rare chance to experience an iconic aircraft that will be retired from service near the end of the year. Being used to flying the big “18-wheeler” across oceans, it
    was fun flying down to LAX and back….just like the old Shuttle by
    United days in 737’s. GOING TO MISS FLYING THE 747 FOR SURE!!!

  43. In the 80s I remember my first trip to China as a teenager. We flew on a CAAC (now split into several state airlines) 747SP. That’s the shortened, extended-range version of the 747-100. It looked a bit odd, especially with a larger tail. The route it took is one that I’m not sure is done any more. It went LAX-SFO-SHA-PEK. I’m not sure any routes these days would do something like that.

  44. I heard about those through the unfortunate JAL 123 flight. It kind of boggle my mind that so many passengers could be packed into a single commercial aircraft with a single class.

  45. IIRC the 600 pax 744Ds were done with 34″ pitch, so I imagine if you start cramming 31″ or 30″ seats you can get to 700? I assume the 1200 was just people packed like sardines and lying on each other and stuff too?

  46. It’s still not as packed as they can get.

    El Al managed 2 flights exceeding 1000 PAX during the Operation Solomon evacuation (1225+ on one that was officially carrying 1088) in 1991 and several airlines running Hajj flights into Mecca used to routinely carry 700+ on much longer flight legs than japanese domestic flights.

  47. ~20 years ago I flew O’Hare-LAX on a brand new Untied 777 (in service less than a week) with 6 passengers on board (it was due to go LAX-Beijing as its next leg) – The cabin crew still managed to be obnoxiously rude to the 2 chinese passengers onboard.

    On another occasion around the same time I flew Christchurch-Auckland (a 70 minute flight) on a Air New Zealand international 747-400 with 25 PAX instead of the usual 737-200 domestic bird.

    Even 20 years ago, United’s 747s were looking (and feeling) pretty tired compared to the 777 (or competitor’s 747s) and were uncomfortable at best on 11 hour long international legs.

  49. I was in LAX a few years back during a major storm. UA LAX-SFO flights were getting cancelled left and right. They brought in a 747 to clear up the backlog. I had status with UA at that time, and they upgraded my coworker and I to Business. It was very basic service for such a short flight, but awesome! I also took a UA 747 from SFO-ORD just a little over a week after 9/11. There were only 47 people on my flight. That was a bit more memorable.

  50. I was on that plane on the return flight (283) to SFO that eventually left LAX at 2:30am on Sat. morning. I was supposed to have been on a flight out of SNA that afternoon, but as soon as I discovered it was cancelled, I called reservations who told me there were open seats on the 8pm from LAX. I jumped, figuring my chances were better from LA. I was right. Only after that did I discover it was on a 747, which I correctly assumed was brought in to move a whole bunch of folks from the other flights. Even though I didn’t get to sit upstairs, I appreciate every last chance I get to fly on a 747 before the end of this year.

  51. Qantas used to turn their daily 747 flight from Sydney to SFO, to Vancouver and back. I flew Alaska F outbound (this is when they also had an SFO-YVR nonstop), where I was served a wrap in a box (sans Bible verse–they had stopped that by then). I flew back on the QF 747 in business class. The Qantas flight attendant came around to apologize for only serving a 3-course meal because the flight was short.

  52. D! Wow! Thanks for commenting. I was hoping we’d find someone who actually took the flight. I’m going to edit the post and call out your comment. This is great. Cheers–Chris

  53. My wife and I were on the flight. Not the Polaris experience we were hoping for in Business Class, but still pretty nice to fly what will probably be one of my last UA 747 flights.

    The day started with a new seat map in the UA app — however not able to switch from downstairs to upstairs as the logistics of the aircraft switch were clearly messy. We were first directed to a gate on the F concourse, but clearly not much happening there with respect to an on-time boarding. After an hour we were all moved to 93 on the G concourse. 400 people hurrying over to international.

    Given the circumstances of the aircraft switch from one 747 to another including the complete move off all the baggage, it could have been a lot worse. We actually got to LAX only 90 minutes late. Ironically, the real delay came from no available gate at LAX as only two of their gates seem equipped for a 747 and we stayed in the penalty box for an hour.

    A final note was landing on runway 6R over the Pacific. First time I’ve done that and it’s a real thrill to see the white caps on a stormy day outside the window at only a couple hundred feet on final.

  54. Yup. Been on one of those before. It’s crazy packed full, and I just recall the gate to just have a sea of people. With that said the boarding process in Japan is super efficient, so it wasn’t at all chaotic.

  56. The Japanese airlines used to regularly fly B747s for their popular domestic runs. Tokyo-Osaka was one of them. On that run, some would swear by the bullet train while others would swear by flying.

  58. In August 2015 I had booked a ticket on VietNam Airlines from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in business class because I wanted to try their 787 Dreamliner. Well they changed my flight time and aircraft. I ended up on a brand new A350 that had just come into service. There were about 10 of us in business class including the Prime Minister and his wife. The whole crew was in celebrity mode. And yes after he departed the front door we were allowed to follow on the red carpet also.

  59. Yes, I was on a couple Pan Am 747s between SFO and LAX back in the 80s. Disneyland for a weekend was less than 300 bucks including Air, Hotel, and food, and rent a car back then.

  60. Back in the late 70’s early 80’s Pan Am operated both the 747-200 and 747 SP between SFO-LAX, the fare? $19.00 or $15.00 for standby.

  61. That’s cool! I would love a “Queen of the Skies” thrill even on a short hop like that!

    I had a similar “upgrade” a few years ago. I was at CES in Las Vegas. Apparently, most of the airlines under estimated the expected attendees and every flight everywhere was oversold. I was on a midday United LAS-SFO flight which was typically served by a 737. By the time I reached the airport, there were tons of excess passengers bumped from all the earlier flights to SFO. It wasn’t getting any better as each flight was already full and the overflow passengers continued to cascade onto the next flight and so on. I myself got bumped off of at least two flights. Then I heard an announcement that UA was bringing in an extra plane to airlift all the excess passengers and get us all home. Great! It turned out they deadheaded a wide-body 767 straight to LAS from SFO! All of us “strandees” got on, I got bumped to a free upgrade to Business, and enjoyed a “luxury” flight for that short flight. I mentioned to the crew that if they wanted to continue to Hawaii, that was fine with me. Ha!

  62. Had something similar happen January 7th, CLT>MCO. Had some ice/snow blow through the south east that morning. After the flight being delayed a few times due to a missing flight attendant, it started boarding. As soon as my boarding pass was scanned, it made a rejected tone. Desk agent called flight tower and found out our flight had been cancelled and combined with the later flight on a bigger international jet. There was no way to mass move the passenger list, so it had to be done one by one. Went to the Admirals Club and got a quick seat assignment, but couldn’t get upgraded to business class, much less first class.

  64. *Seriously, United **flew** a Boeing 747 **on a one-time flight** SFO-LAX

    Fixed your clickbait title. Really excited to see I could have a chance to take it one more time on a short flight, then disappointment as I read through the actual article.

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