Korean Air
Korean Air took 79 Boeing 747s, received the final passenger 747-8 in July 2017, and still flies both passenger and freighter versions.
Korean Air took 79 Boeing 747s, and holds a distinction no other airline can: it received the last passenger 747 ever built.
The final 747-8I
The final 747-8 Intercontinental was delivered to Korean Air on 7 July 2017, ending passenger 747 production after 48 aircraft. Freighter production carried on for another five and a half years, until the last of all 747s went to Atlas Air in January 2023.
Still flying
Korean Air remains one of four airlines operating scheduled passenger 747 services, with four 747-8Is, alongside seven 747-8 Freighters in its cargo division.
That combination — passenger and freighter 747-8s in the same group — is now rare.
The safety record, and what changed
Korean Air’s 747 history includes three of the accidents documented on this site:
- Korean Air Lines 007, shot down in 1983 after an autopilot mode error — the accident that led to GPS being opened to civilian use
- Korean Air 801 at Guam in 1997
- Korean Air Cargo 8509 at Stansted in 1999
The last two produced the same finding twice: a steep authority gradient on the flight deck meant junior crew who knew something was wrong did not stop it. The AAIB’s recommendations after 8509 went specifically to adapting crew resource management training so it worked within Korean cultural norms rather than against them.
Korean Air subsequently undertook a safety overhaul that is now a widely cited case study, and its record since is entirely different. It is worth stating plainly: the airline’s modern safety performance bears no resemblance to that period.
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Every major Boeing 747 operator — the launch customer, the biggest fleets ever flown, who still flies the 747 in 2026, and when the rest said goodbye.
Pan American World Airways
The airline that ordered the 747 into existence, flew the first service in 1970, took 65 aircraft, and was gone by 1991.
Japan Airlines
The largest 747 operator in history at 108 aircraft, and the airline Boeing built three special high-density variants for.
British Airways
94 Boeing 747s, the largest 747-400 fleet in the world, and a retirement brought forward four years by COVID-19.
Singapore Airlines
93 Boeing 747s, the Megatop 747-400s, and a retirement in 2012 in favour of the 777 and A380.
Lufthansa
81 Boeing 747s, the launch customer for the 747-8 Intercontinental, and the last major airline still flying the type.