Aircraft – Boeing 747-400

The best replacement for a 747? Another 747 of course

Boeing’s steady improvement of the 747 jumbo jet through the 1970s, and Pratt & Whitney’s refinement of their JT9D turbofan, gave better and better range, reliability, and uplift capability. The 747-200Bs delivered in the early 1980s allowed for Tokyo-Chicago and Taipei-Los Angeles nonstops, for instance, and Northwest built a hefty fleet of them to radically ramp up their Pacific and even Atlantic flying. (See our blog post, “Maps of Northwest’s 747 Routes Over the Years,” for where they were used.)

Northwest did not buy the short-bodied but long-ranged 747SP in the late 1970s, nor the extended upper cabin 747-300 in the mid-1980s, preferring to build economies of scale in maintenance and training with its -100, -200, and -200 Freighter cohort. By 1985, however, new technologies in airframe design, flight systems automation, and engine efficiency had come together for Boeing to consider a significant upgrade to the 747 line. NWA was invited to provide input and feedback in the design process, and in December 1985 became the launch customer for the -400 series with an initial order of ten frames.

The aircraft itself was stretched, as was its signature upper deck, to accommodate another 50 seats and additional cargo containers underfloor. Range for the -400 was everything a U.S.-based carrier could ask for at the time: New York to Tokyo or Seoul, Los Angeles to Sydney or Hong Kong, without any restriction to load, and largely using procedures and training in place for earlier 747 models. Northwest would ultimately acquire 16 of these aircraft for its highest-profile routes.

The 747-400 planted the seeds for its own retirement

NWA’s launch of the -400 further opened long-range routes and made the Detroit WorldHub possible – but it also demonstrated that the Narita hub could be bypassed profitably from US bases. The -400 also gave JAL and ANA (and Korean Air, Asiana, Cathay Pacific, and others) the range and economics to nullify the feed NWA had from Asia into Tokyo. From there, it was only a matter of time before the intra-Asia network was torn down, leaving a need for only a handful of 747-class aircraft in the network. 

Even before the merger with Delta, Northwest had signaled it would eventually retire the type with its North American launch order for the Boeing 787, whose range easily eclipsed the 747-400 but whose capacity was better suited to adding frequencies on key routes (where the 747’s enormous size dictated the need to funnel traffic onto it at the cost of running several flights per day on a route), and economics scaled to pioneering new and untested routes.

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1997’s WorldPlane

As part of NWA’s 50th anniversary of Transpacific operations, an art contest for kids of ages 5-12 was held in 10 Asia-Pacific countries, and 9 U.S. cities, looking for festivals, traditions, landmarks, and icons of their hometowns. 95 entries were narrowed to 19 artworks that 3M turned into giant decals.

N670US received the special livery in February 1997 and made her debut on the MSP-Narita run on March 12th, eventually making her way to every 747 station in the network. After a year she was repainted into standard colors. Concluding 27 years with Northwest and Delta, she was retired in December 2017.

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