Originally Posted by
JW95
Nothing specifically haha, I guess that would be pretty major as far as a passenger aircraft is concerned, plus I'm unsure if BA have extended the life of their aircraft this far previously - I don't recall any of their 747s - (100/200/400) being in service for that long
The -400 series B747 would still be in service if not for the pandemic, as the remaining aircraft were envisaged to be in service until at least 2025-6 and were all in the process of having the cabin upgraded [WI-FI/New Panasonic IFE/New club seats etc] and they were due to be replaced by the 777X, so they probably would have stayed on for longer as the 777X is delayed. The airframes were all still in good shape and there were no leasing costs [long since paid off] and they were a dependable aircraft and were regularly being used as back-ups for when the A380 went tech...
Getting back to how long the Boeing 777-236s will be in service on one of the last investor meetings to be held by WW before he left BA, I remember listening to a audio transcript of the meeting [I must have been bored that day
] and having to pause and replay the section more than once about how long he envisaged running the Boeing 777 fleet in BA as he stated it was the intention to keep them going for
40 years!! There isn't actually anything wrong with running older airframes, it's just with age, they just naturally need more maintenance and you get more problems on older airframes. The problem at BA is they have continued to shrink the size of their engineering departments over the years. LGW is a good example, they have completely shut down the hangar/base operation there and it is now only a ramp operation.
Now I know he has long gone from BA and IAG [he's now at IATA] but I suspect given how tight IAG are with the purse strings they probably intend to hold onto aircraft as long as possible.