Farewell to the 'Queen': Air India's Boeing 747 takes final flight from Mumbai Airport today!

Marking the end of an era, Boeing 747 of Air India, once hailed as the ‘Queen Of The Skies’ took its farewell flight from Mumbai International Airport today. At precisely 10:47 AM, the pilots flying the aircraft performed a ‘Wing Wave’, an aviation tradition typically reserved for retiring flights, over the skies of Santa Cruz. 

After acquiring the airline in January 2022, the Tata Group had mandated a UK-based remarketing firm Skytech-AIC to sell the four remaining planes to interested parties. As per reports, the new owner of the four Boeing 747-400 airplanes is US-based AerSale, a supplier of aftermarket commercial jet engines and parts. The report also mentioned that two of the aircrafts are expected to be converted to freighters, while the remaining ones will be disassembled for their parts.

Sisira Kanta Dash, Chief Technical Officer in Air India, shared photos of the aircraft's departure from Mumbai airport on Twitter. Former Jet Airways CEO Sanjiv Kapoor further shared his post, expressing, “Sad to see the end of an era. The 747s were the pinnacle of JRD's Air India (though the airline was nationalized in the 1950s, JRD ran it till 1978). Wish one could have been retained in his honor as a museum. Alas it was not to be.”

Air India's Boeing 747 last soared through the skies in March 2021, on a flight from Delhi to Mumbai.