Delta’s grand old 747 flew in to rescue Floridians from Irma’s wrath this week. Photo from Delta Museum’s 747 Experience at ATL. (Chris McGinnis)
Did you catch the hoo-hah surrounding Delta’s final domestic Boeing 747 flight earlier this week? The big jet flight originated in Honolulu, landed at Los Angeles LAX, and then flew its final commercial leg to Detroit. But as Irma strengthened in the Caribbean, and airlines took heat for price gouging and not doing enough to help travelers escape its path, Delta made a smart move– it pulled the Queen of the Skies out of her short retirement, and send it to Orlando several times over the weekend to help last minute evacuees get out of the way. Here’s our late Thursday tweet about this move, which proved to be one of our biggest tweets so far this year!
Good on @Delta! Putting the QUEEN back to work to help Floridians escape #Irma #747 MCO-DTW https://t.co/VmATtMPKhW #TravelSkills pic.twitter.com/MHuhCQwfPx
— Chris McGinnis (@cjmcginnis) September 8, 2017
Delta’s Boeing 747 is not done yet— it will continue to fly between the US and Asia until December. United’s final Boeing 747 flights will happen in October. Although neither airline has committed to a firm date, it’s expected that there will be some sort of ceremonial end for this beautiful bird. Stay tuned.
TravelSkills’ 10 most popular posts over the last week (descending order):
1 U.S. routes: Southwest, United, Alaska, AA, Delta, JetBlue + more
2 New transatlantic routes: Delta, American, BA, Lufthansa, United, WOW
3 Across the Pacific: Battle for Hong Kong + Flock of new A350s + lots more route news
4 New no-fee credit cards from Delta, United
5 Catching up after time off: What happened in August
6 A new way to Australia on United
7 Airberlin keeps operating – but for how long?
8 United, Delta 747 schedule: final flights
9 Planespotting: Boeing 737 vs Airbus A320 differences
10 Planespotting 101: Boeing 737 vs Airbus A320
Chris holed up at the fabulous St Regis Mexico City last month- don’t forget to sign up for SPG’s fall bonus! (Photo: Chris McGinnis)
It’s time to get signed up for all the new fall promotions from hotel chains— in order to take advantage of these deals to help boost fall and winter bookings, you have to register to get the special bonuses— don’t miss out on bonus points or free nights by not registering because you never know when you might end up at one of these hotel chains:
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There is a group in NYC of aviation enthusiasts and former Pan Am/Delta JFK employees who are trying to get Delta to paint the last 747 in Pan Am colors for the final flight (similar to how British Airways painted their 757 in original colors for the final flight). I suppose both United and Delta can claim to be the heir to the Pan Am legacy given that both own roughly half of the old PA network. Would certainly be cool if that actually happened.
Hello Mr. McGinnis: Thank you so much for the great story about Delta putting the Queen back to work for Hurricane Irma. That is really nice. I never hear great stories like this anywhere else except from you at Travel Skills! Thanks for being in the “know.”