Boeing knew that it needed to sell a minimum of aircraft to make the a success. However, by December , it had received orders for just 40 aircraft from Eastern Airlines and United. Even by the time the aircraft made its first test flight in , orders were still well-below the break-even point. In an attempt to drum up business, Boeing sent the on a tour of 26 counties, in which the aircraft clocked up an impressive 76, miles , km. Ultimately, the gamble paid off, and, as we shall see, Boeing far surpassed its original target.
The first flew commercially with Eastern Airlines in However, the following year, tragedy plagued the new aircraft. By November , Boeing had witnessed three of its aircraft crash within three months. But the was largely a failure with only 55 sales , leaving the to dominate.
The was an impressive stretch it is still the longest twinjet narrowbody. But it was launched much later, and airlines just did not want the extra capacity, with the reduced range and increased operating cost that came with it. For many years the Boeing was the most sold widebody. It was overtaken by the though in Its development and rise really came about with the increasing ability of twin-engine aircraft.
It offered more seats than the but less than the , which filled a gap in the market. The developed quickly. This proved a winning combination for long-haul flights, and of course, it remains popular today with many airlines.
Although the beats the for total series sales s have been delivered compared to 1, s , the has the better selling individual variant. The ER was by far the best selling of the series.
While this was the final passenger flight, dozens of Boeing freighters remain in service — and there are even a few being used as VIP jets for governments or charter. Journalist Babak Taghvaee posted a video on Twitter showing a reporter on the ramp at Tehran Mehrabad, standing in front of the Boeing It was, Taghvaee said, the final flight of an Aseman While TPG could not confirm independently that Aseman Airlines is grounding the , the airline is indeed its last confirmed operator as a passenger aircraft.
However, its age alone is no indication of lack of safety. And freighter carriers routinely operate aircraft that first took flight more than 40 years ago.
Still, the Boeing is an expensive aircraft to operate in Its three engines are very fuel-inefficient and costly to service; the world has since moved on to twinjets. When the Boeing debuted in service in , the aircraft was state of the art. It could fly more passengers than most other narrowbody aircraft and it could do so at higher speeds and at a lower operating cost per passenger. Airlines looking to embrace the jet age ordered hundreds of Boeing s. The first Boeing entered service with Eastern Air Lines in , and most major US airlines at some time in their operational history had the Boeing trijet in their fleet, including American Airlines, United, Delta and Alaska Airlines.
The paved the way for the Boeing and shaped the US domestic market. When production ended in , it was the most widely sold commercial jet in history — a total that has since been taken by the Today, a few of those s remain in storage , and even fewer remain in service. Like the MAX, the three-engined was billed as one of the most advanced aircraft of its time. Boeing introduced the in and portrayed it as a more efficient alternative to the standard four-engine jets of the day, with new features designed to make the easier to operate from short airfields.
Investigators looking into the crashes discovered that some pilots did not fully understand the flap system and were therefore allowing the planes to descend at too great a speed.
S-based Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He uses the accidents as part of a case study.
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