Why are there so many 747s from Anchorage?

Most North America/Asia cargo flights make a pit stop in Anchorage. The aircraft carry far less fuel than a non-stop, and as a result can haul a lot more cargo. When an aircraft lands in Anchorage, cargo can be moved to other aircraft heading to different destinations (nice efficiency boost).



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Most North America/Asia cargo flights make a pit stop in Anchorage. The aircraft carry far less fuel than a non-stop, and as a result can haul a lot more cargo. When an aircraft lands in Anchorage, cargo can be moved to other aircraft heading to different destinations (nice efficiency boost).

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More than 80 percent of Alaska's communities, including the state capital of Juneau, are not connected to highways or road systems, making travel by air or water an essential.

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No city embodies the cargo 747 more than Anchorage. Because of its perfect location as a stopover between Asia and North America, Anchorage sees nearly double the amount of 747 traffic than the next highest city. In November 2022, there were 4,101 747 take offs and landings at Anchorage, all of them cargo flights.

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An aircraft would not be safe to fly over the Pacific Ocean due to the stormy weather and frequent lightning strikes that occur there. Most planes from the Americas bound for East Asia use the overland route through Canada and Alaska due to the more favorable weather conditions.

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Even at 30,000 feet, flying over the Rockies can be bumpy because of the mountain effect. At Juneau, the mountains are right there and the wind is channeled. JAWS keeps pilots updated. The weather phenomenon changes not from minute to minute so much as over a longer period of time.

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Thanks to the low visibility and undeveloped infrastructure, flying over Antarctica is extremely difficult. Specifically, because of the strong magnetic fields that surround the polar regions, navigating there, no matter how well-equipped the airplane is in terms of instrumentation, can be particularly challenging.

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Built in 1967 to produce the mammoth jet, it remains the world's largest manufacturing plant according to Boeing. But after five decades, customer demand for the 747 eroded as Boeing and Airbus (AIR.PA) developed more fuel efficient two-engine widebody planes.

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Crashes that destroy the airframe are the most obvious answer, but minor, low-speed incidents on the ground can also bring a plane's career to an end. This was the case for a Saudia Boeing 747-300, which taxied into a ditch in Kuala Lumpur in 2001.

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Bottom line. Alaska Airlines will retire its last Airbus A321neo on September 30, 2023, and at that point the airline will no longer have any Airbus jets. The airline will then again proudly have an all-Boeing mainline fleet.

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Unfortunately, airlines can't just fly eastward from Russia to the USA due to the curvature of the Earth. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and since our planet is round, flying in a straight line would mean that planes would eventually end up back where they started!

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4 November 1993: China Airlines Flight 605, a Boeing 747-409, ended up in water after it overran runway 13 at Kai Tak International Airport on landing during a typhoon with wind gusting to gale force. All of the 396 occupants donned life-vests, boarded the eight slide/rafts and no fatalities resulted.

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Although the aircraft is considered a safe design, some 4% of Boeing 747s have been total hull losses. In 1985, Air India Flight 182 was destroyed by a bomb, killing 329 people. Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a terrorist bomb over Lockerbie, UK, in 1988, killing 270. (A perpetrator was recently apprehended.)

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Boeing's latest widebody is hoping to replace its most popular one. Now that the Boeing 747 program has officially come to an end with the delivery of the last 747-8F this month, we look to the future. Boeing is currently in the certification process for the 777X program, with the first deliveries scheduled for 2025.

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For some airlines, the A380 offered too much capacity, while for Emirates, the airline can't get enough of the plane. Unfortunately for Emirates (and us passengers), the days of the Airbus A380 are numbered. Airbus stopped A380 production in 2021, as there weren't sufficient orders to keep production going.

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Summary. Airlines avoid flying over Tibet due to its high average terrain, which would make it difficult for aircraft to descend in case of emergencies. The mountainous region of Tibet increases the risk of turbulence, making it disruptive for passengers and potentially dangerous.

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You might think circling the globe by airplane is no big deal anymore. But you'd be wrong. Surprisingly, circumnavigating the world via the North Pole to the South Pole in an airliner is a feat accomplished only three times.

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