El Al Phases Out Jumbo Jets for Dreamliners

YERUSHALAYIM
A 747 Jumbo Jet on the runway at Ben-Gurion International Airport. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

El Al Airlines is in the midst of replacing its fleet of Boeing 747-400 Jumbo Jets with Dreamliners.

One of the carrier’s four Jumbo Jets, also known as Queen of the Skies, made its last flight on Wednesday, from New York to Tel Aviv. The remaining three will also be retired from service by the end of the year, according to Globes.

In their stead, 10 of the 16 Dreamliners ordered by El Al are already flying in routes to various destinations, and the other six are scheduled to check in by 2020. El Al’s fleet currently numbers 42 planes.

During its years of service since 1994, the plane named Haifa took off and landed 11,000 times, accumulating 90,000 flight hours and covering a distance equivalent to 16,000 circumnavigations of the earth. The plane, which had 403 seats, operated mainly on routes between Tel Aviv and New York, Bangkok, London, Paris, and Barcelona.

The Jumbos will be taken apart, the engines sold to another airline, and their chassis used for spare parts.

To Read The Full Story

Are you already a subscriber?
Click to log in!