Brand new Boeing 747 made as a VIP jet, scrapped after 16 flights
A Boeing 747 configured as a non-public VIP jet is being scrapped after having spent simply 30 hours in service over 16 flights.
The plane, initially supposed for a Saudi royal, sat on the bottom for nearly 10 years at EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg, situated on the border between France, Switzerland and Germany.
There, it was meant to be fitted with a lavish inside, however that by no means occurred, and after failing to discover a new purchaser, the airplane was finally flown to Pinal Airpark in Arizona — an plane boneyard the place retired planes get stripped for elements or saved indefinitely.
Fit for a royal
The airplane is a BBJ, for “Boeing Business Jet” — closely modified editions of Boeing’s jetliners focused to governments and company shoppers. Its vary of over 10,000 miles and cabin area of about 5,000 sq. ft are unrivalled by every other business plane.
It’s additionally essentially the most superior mannequin of the Boeing 747 ever produced — the 747-8 variant — which first flew in 2010 however failed to search out business success resulting from being costly to function. The last one, delivered to cargo operator Atlas Air in early 2023, marked the tip of the 747’s manufacturing historical past, although the variant nonetheless has a future within the highlight: two 747-8s are at the moment being remodeled into the subsequent Air Force One planes.
A Boeing 747-8 idea inside. (Boeing)
Boeing has offered over 250 BBJs thus far, the overwhelming majority of them 737s, which have a broader market attraction. The giant, costly, four-engined BBJ 747-8 was a tougher promote: “Ten were built in total, and this is the first one retired,” says Connor Diver, a senior analyst at aviation analytics agency Cirium. “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.”
This explicit one was supposed for the Saudi Arabian authorities, and particularly for the Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, however he died in 2011, simply months earlier than the scheduled supply. The airplane, which was assigned a compulsory license plate — N458BJ — first flew in May 2012 for testing, and was formally delivered in June 2012.
“According to our database, it flew via possibly San Bernardino and then San Antonio in Texas for a couple of months, and then in December of 2012 it went to Basel,” says Diver.
Typically, giant business jets are delivered in what’s referred to as a “green” situation — from the color of the protecting coating of the fuselage — which implies they’re empty inside and the inside must be put in.
“I’m guessing that’s the reason it went there initially, to be fitted out,” says Diver. “Of course, that never happened. And it looks like it sat there for 10 years.”
No patrons
In 2017, orphaned from its authentic function, the airplane went up on the market for $95 million — down from an authentic listing worth of round $350 million, based on Diver. It was nonetheless empty and marketed as “ready for conversion” in a brochure that may nonetheless be discovered on-line. But it by no means offered.
“No one apart from a Saudi head of state is going to want a private, four-engine business jet,” says Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at AeroDynamic Advisory. “You can’t convert just one aircraft to cargo, and nobody wants a passenger version. As a consequence, the parts and especially the engines, are worth far more than the airplane.”
One main hurdle to a sale was the excessive price of becoming the inside.
“Fitting one of these out would cost 30, 40 maybe 50 million dollars,” says Diver, “Although you might think it’s a brand new aircraft, the alternate uses for it are rather limited. The commercial passenger variant had a limited production and very few airlines operated it, and they would not be interested in taking any more. So the only other option was potentially another government, but obviously that didn’t happen.”
Boeing, which declined to reply a collection of questions concerning the airplane when contacted by CNN, finally purchased it again in 2022, from an plane buying and selling firm referred to as Aircraft Finance Germany. The airplane flew to Arizona on April 15, 2022, including 10 extra hours to its time within the air, representing a couple of quarter of its whole flying time. Its final takeoff from Basel, was immortalized on YouTube by planespotters.
Scrap worth
At Pinal Airpark, a Boeing contractor continues to be engaged on disassembling the airplane, which has been stripped of essentially the most precious elements. “I’ve seen pictures of it and it’s been dismantled already, the engines have already been removed,” says Diver. “They were effectively brand new, and one of them is probably in the region of $20 million, so four would be in the region of $80 million.”
Major programs just like the auxiliary energy unit and among the environmental management programs would even have been among the many first to go, based on Aboulafia.
“Total production of the 747-8 is about 150 aircraft,” he provides. “It’s a small group of users and a small number of aircraft. But on the other hand, they’re going to want to keep those going. I suspect a lot of the components will probably go to the cargo folks.”
It’s unclear whether or not the airplane will likely be scrapped completely or put in storage to be harvested for elements later. “What can happen in these cases is that it will sit there until a certain part is needed. They might not necessarily take it all the way down to scrap, and leave it for a few years until somebody wants a specific part,” says Diver.
Nine different BBJ 747s are nonetheless being operated by the governments of Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Turkey, based on Diver. With the lifespan of a 747 often clocking in at 25 to 30 years, this one being retired at simply 10 years of age goes to set a report that will likely be tough to beat.
