The airline “Rossiya” has begun bringing wide-body Boeing 747-400 passenger aircraft, also called the Queen of Skies or the Jumbo, back into service, which had not been in operation since the start of the pandemic. In early September, the head of Aeroflot Group, Sergey Alexandrovsky, announced that this measure, among others, would be necessary to further increase the group’s transportation capacity.
The first Boeing 747-400, with the registration number RA-73289, already flew from Moscow to Krasnoyarsk on September 22. According to Krasnoyarsk airport, the airline had scheduled two more flights with this aircraft on September 29 and 30.
“Rossiya” informed the media that a second airliner of this type will return to flights by the end of October.
On October 13, a reactivated plane with tail number RA-73286 arrived at Sochi airport from Moscow, fully loaded with 522 passengers for its return flight. Notably, this is the first commercial flight of the double-decker giants in Russia since 2022.
According to a long-standing tradition, the plane was met with a water arch, and the crew was presented with sweet gifts from Sochi Airport.
Boeing 747-400 RA-73286 was manufactured on December 11, 2000, and will soon be 24 years old. Until mid-2016, it was used by Transaero Airlines and then transferred to Rossiya.
At the moment, “Rossiya” is the only airline on the Russian market that operates Boeing 747s. It currently has seven planes: three with confirmed airworthiness certificates, while the rest have been in storage since the pandemic. How many of them will be put into service remains an open question, but some are already being prepared for flights and undergoing maintenance.
The third airworthy plane has the tail number RA-73289. The operator’s certificate lists 5 aircraft in its fleet.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the airline used Boeing 747-400s for flights to tourist destinations in the interest of the tour operator “Biblio-Globus.” One of these aircraft, which has the largest business class section, was used on the routes of the parent company “Aeroflot.”
It is worth noting that “Rossiya” received the Boeing 747s back in 2016-2017 from the largest private airline, Transaero. However, the situation changed due to the pandemic and Western sanctions. Now, supply chains for spare parts have been restored, and these planes are seen as a winning option because of their simplicity and reliability, even if they are not very fuel-efficient.
In 2005, “Transaero” became the sole operator of Boeing 747 passenger aircraft in Eastern Europe, the CIS, and Russia. “Transaero” was the first Russian airline to operate Boeing 747-400 aircraft on domestic routes and offer first-class services within Russia in 2009. It also made it into the top ten largest global carriers for leisure and tourism routes. In September 2017, the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region declared “Transaero” bankrupt and commenced bankruptcy proceedings. The 747s that were part of its fleet were transferred to Rossiaya.
Ironically, Rossiya announced in February 2022 that it would discontinue this model by the conclusion of 2024. At that time, the airline maintained a fleet of nine Boeing 747-400s.
“Rossiya’s” wide-body fleet contains seven Boeing 777-300 aircraft in addition to the Boeing 747-400.
The 747 cargo version is still in the fleet of the country’s primary cargo carrier, AirBridgeCargo (part of the Volga-Dnepr Group), which operates 4 B-747-400F and 13 B-747-8F. Two Boeing 747-400Fs are also operated by Sky Gates Airlines.
The Jumbo is recognized as the longest-lived and most mass-produced airliner capable of accommodating over 400 passengers, in addition to being one of the largest aircraft in the world (although there are now even larger options).
The Boeing 747 was the first wide-body passenger aircraft in the world and one of the largest passenger airliners. Its first flight took place on February 9, 1969.
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