British Airways (BA) is to retire all of its Boeing 747s ahead of schedule, due to the sharp decrease in air travel in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
"It is with great sadness that we can confirm we are proposing to retire our entire 747 fleet with immediate effect," a BA spokesman told the BBC.
The UK airline is the world's largest operator of 747s, the first planes to be dubbed "jumbo jets." They were first brought into service in 1969 (although BA only acquired its first models in the early 1970s), and BA had planned to retire the four-engine craft in 2024, due to their heavy fuel consumption in comparison with modern twin-engine models.
BA once had a fleet of 57 747-400s, and now has just 31. The huge craft have a wing-span of 213 feet, the width of 50 cars.