Updated 2025-05-01T13:11:00Z
- Korean Air is once again flying the world's longest Boeing 747 flight.
- Airlines have been phasing out the massive jet in favor of more efficient widebodies.
- Just four global carriers still operate the 747 in 2025.
Korean Air won't stop flying the world's longest Boeing 747 flight after all.
The airline stopped flying the jumbo jet between Seoul and Atlanta — a 7,153-mile trek and the world's longest for the plane type — in March, but has brought it back as its replacement, the 777, just can't keep up with demand.
Flight data from the aviation analytics company Cirium shows the 747 returned on April 25 and April 27 and will fuly take over from May 7 through August 31. The 777 will take over again in September.
A Korean Air spokesperson told Business Insider that the decision was based on demand and that the 747 could return again in the future after its seasonal run.
Korean's double-decker jet can carry up to 368 passengers, compared to the 227 to 338 seats on the 777, depending on the configuration.
Korean remains just one of four airlines flying the 747 in 2025
Carriers globally are phasing out the famous "Queen of the Skies" in favor of less costly twin-engine widebodies.
Cirium data shows Air China, Korean Air, Lufthansa, and Russian carrier Rossiya Airlines have about 18,600 collective 747 flights scheduled this year on 37 routes.
That's a 75% decrease from the nearly 76,000 scheduled flights across 25 carriers in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lufthansa's more than two dozen 747 jets are expected to cover 21 routes from Frankfurt in 2025, totaling about 12,000 flights, per Cirium. That's about 65% of 2025's total scheduled 747 flights.
The airline is retrofitting the aircraft with new seats, an investment that signals a commitment to keeping the fleet in service.
Air China's roughly 4,100 scheduled flights will cover five routes from Beijing, Korean's about 2,000 scheduled flights will cover seven routes from Seoul, and Rossiya's about 470 scheduled flights will cover four domestic routes from Moscow.
Korean's flight to Tokyo has just one round-trip scheduled for May. The same goes for Rossiya's one-off flights to Kaliningrad and the eastern Russian town of Magadan.
Rossiya is a subsidiary of Russian flag carrier Aeroflot and restarted 747 operations in 2024, likely to take advantage of the 522-seat capacity as Western sanctions limit Russia's available planes.
Cirium data shows a majority of Rossiya's 2025 routes are set to fly to the country's Far East. This suggests the massive 747s are useful not just for tourism but also for cargo in the remote Russian region.
Air China runs the longest and shortest 747 flights by time
Although not the longest by distance, Air China's service from New York to Beijing is the longest passenger 747 trek by flight time at about 17 hours. It covers 6,838 miles.
By comparison, Korean's route from Atlanta to Seoul is about 15 hours. Westbound flying generally takes longer than eastbound because of the jetstream's headwinds.
Air China also operates the shortest regularly scheduled 747 flight by distance and time in 2025, flying just two and a half hours across 667 miles between Beijing and Shanghai.
According to data from OAG, the route's nearly 7.8 million available seats ranked it among the world's top 10 busiest domestic flights in 2024.
