Boeing handed over its last 747 on 31 January 2023, a freighter for Atlas Air, and by then the program had been running down for years. Boeing's own delivery table counts 1,573 of them, and it shows no unfilled orders at all.
Boeing's July 2020 letter gave one reason, market dynamics and outlook, and we haven't found a more detailed public explanation. What the record can show is the decline: the delivery history shows a program that delivered 481 aircraft in the 1990s and a handful a year at the end. Separate sections cover the models, the 2019 list prices, the US register and the accident files, and none of those explains the decision.
If you want the price of Boeing's current jets, the Boeing cost guide covers them. For what cargo aircraft cost, see the cargo plane cost guide, and for Boeing's biggest seller by deliveries, the Boeing 737 cost guide.
Data used: FAA registry through 2026-10-12; NTSB files through 2026-09-30. Source periods are shown with each table.
What Boeing said, and when the line stopped
Boeing announced the end of the 747 in a letter from its chief executive to employees, dated 29 July 2020. It said the 767 and 747 rates were unchanged for now, and that "in light of the current market dynamics and outlook" Boeing would complete production of the 747 in 2022. The letter was written in the middle of the pandemic and also announced cuts to 787 and 777 production.
Deliveries ran a little past that date. Boeing's release on the final delivery, dated 31 January 2023, says the last airplane was a 747-8 Freighter delivered to Atlas Air, and that the Everett factory had produced 1,574 airplanes over the life of the program. It describes the factory as the place where the program began in 1967.
The letter is the only statement from Boeing about the decision that we could verify. The sections below set out the record without claiming to explain it.
Deliveries, year by year
Boeing's table lists every delivery by year. The first came in 1969. In 1970 Boeing delivered 92 aircraft, its busiest year. Deliveries dipped after that, picked up around 1980 and again in the early 1990s, and the 1990s became the biggest decade.
- 1969
- 92 aircraft
- 1975
- 1981
- 1987
- 70 aircraft
- 1993
- 1999
- 2005
- 2011
- 31 aircraft
- 2017
- 1 aircraft2023
Boeing's table, as of September 2026. Years with no delivery are shown as zero. The count is aircraft handed over, whether or not each is still flying.
The 1970s delivered 410, the 1980s 341 and the 1990s 481, which is 31% of every 747 ever delivered. The 2000s fell to 182. The 2010s delivered 137, and the years from 2020 to 2023 delivered 18.
The 1969 deliveries are not in a bar. The gold bar is the 1990s.
The last six calendar years with deliveries, 2018 to 2023 inclusive, account for 31 airplanes between them. In 2023 there was one. A line that delivered 70 aircraft in 1990 delivered one in its final year.
Deliveries by model
Boeing's table splits the 747 into models. The three original models, the 747-100, 747-200 and 747-300, delivered 724 between them, or 46% of the total. The 747-400 family delivered 694, which is 44%. The 747-8 delivered 155.
The 747-400 family is the 747-400 and its D, ER, ERF, F and M versions in Boeing's table. The gold bar is the biggest group.
The 747-8, the final model, split in two. Boeing recorded 48 deliveries under the passenger 747-8 label, which includes VIP and military-program customers, against 107 under the 747-8F, so 69% of the 747-8s were freighters. All 155 deliveries since 2011 were 747-8s.
Boeing's table has three freighter-only model rows: the 747-400F with 126 delivered, the 747-400ERF with 40 and the 747-8F with 107. Together they come to 273. Boeing's table has no row for older freighter versions such as the 747-200F, so those sit inside the older model counts and the true cargo total is higher. The 61 747-400Ms are the combi version, which carries passengers and freight on the main deck.
Boeing's table also shows 0 unfilled orders for the 747, across every model, so nothing is waiting to be built.
- 747-1001969-12-30FAA type certificate approval for the first model
- 747-4001989-01-10Approval of the model that delivered the most aircraft
- 747-8F2011-08-19Approval of the final freighter
- 747-82011-12-14Approval of the final passenger model
What a new 747 listed at
You can't order a new 747 now, so there's no current price. The most complete Boeing price table we could verify is the one The Points Guy reproduced in an article dated 14 July 2019, and it still lists the 747-8. Every price here is a 2019 list price, and says so.
List prices as reported in July 2019. The gold bar is the 747-8. These aren't prices paid.
The 747-8 listed at $418,400,000 and the 747-8 Freighter at $419,200,000. That put the passenger 747-8 $42,900,000 above the 777-300ER at $375,500,000, and the cargo version $66,900,000 above the 777 Freighter at $352,300,000. Among the models shown, only the 777-9 and the 747-8 Freighter listed above the passenger 747-8.
Who holds the 747s registered in the US
The FAA register lists 192 747 registrations, and it marks 192 of them valid. The register covers aircraft with US registration only, so it's a slice of the world fleet, and it doesn't say whether an aircraft is flying today. For the other types that fly in the United States, see the types of planes guide.
Registry model labels vary and may include customer codes. We group labels beginning 747-8 together, labels beginning 747-4 together, and the earlier 747-1, 747-2, 747-3 and SP labels together.
The 747-400 labels lead with 123 registrations, and the 747-8 labels follow with 56. The single most common label is the 747-8F, with 33. The original models, the first-generation 747s, number 13.
- 531990s
- 482000s
- 372010s
- 172020s
26 records have a blank or invalid build year and are left out of the chart. The chart starts at the 1990s, so a small number of older aircraft are not shown.
53 were built in the 1990s and 48 in the 2000s, which together make 61% of the registrations with a usable build year. 37 date from the 2010s and 17 from the 2020s, the final years of production. The oldest registered airframe dates from 1969.
By registrant category, corporations hold 61.5% of the registrations and LLCs hold 35.9%, and the rest are government. The register lists no 747 under an individual or a partnership. Those are legal categories, not operating roles, so they don't say whether an aircraft carries passengers, cargo or neither. By state, New York addresses account for 24.0%, Kentucky for 22.4% and Michigan for 14.1%, so those three states hold 60% of the registrations between them. That's where the paperwork is filed, not where the aircraft fly.
Download the fleet CSV by model and build year. Free to use, please link back. It counts all registrations and valid ones by model label and build year, including blank years, and contains no personal records.
Show the registered-aircraft table
| Family | All registration statuses | Valid registrations |
|---|---|---|
| 747 | 192 | 192 |
| Total | 192 | 192 |
FAA registry through 2026-10-12. Registration is not proof of active airline service.
Why there is no hourly cost here
US airlines report their direct operating costs to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, aircraft type by aircraft type, and for the other Boeing pages we use the Form 41 Schedule P-5.2 data to give a cost per airborne hour. The 747 doesn't get one. The 2025 passenger table has a row for the 747-400, but fewer than three carriers reported it, and our rule is to publish a per-model figure only when at least three did.
That says nothing about cargo operators, other years or other sources, and we haven't found a 747 figure we can verify from them. We won't borrow one from another aircraft.
What the accident files record
The NTSB file lists 62 accidents involving the 747 between 2000 and 2025. Of those, 9 were fatal, and the fatal events reported 311 deaths in total. That's a sum of the database entries as recorded, not a verified death toll. It's also incomplete, because 2 fatal accidents carry no positive death count, and database entries can differ from final investigation reports. It covers everyone the NTSB counted as killed in those events.
- 2000
- 2005
- 72010
- 2015
- 2020
- 2025
Counts are accident records, not a rate. Years with no record are shown as zero.
In 2010 the file holds 7 records, the most of any year from 2000 to 2025. No year from 2014 to 2025 holds more than 2. The file doesn't say why, and nothing here gives a fleet size or flying hours to measure against.
The earliest coded occurrence in each record gives a first phase of flight. It was takeoff in 10 records and en route in 8, against 7 for landing and 6 for taxi. A further 19 have no coded sequence. These phase counts don't establish causes.
The six largest named phases. Records with no coded sequence are not shown.
Show the NTSB tables
| Aircraft | Accidents | Fatal accidents | Reported event deaths |
|---|---|---|---|
| 747 | 62 | 9 | 311 |
| One event with included aircraft in different families | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 62 | 9 | 311 |
2000 to 2025. US-focused NTSB records, including some foreign events where NTSB took part. These are not worldwide totals. Counts never establish rates or safety rankings. Reported deaths include other aircraft and ground deaths in a collision. Different families in one event have a separate row.
The worldwide hull-loss table
Boeing publishes a statistical summary of hull losses for the worldwide commercial jet fleet, 1959 to 2024. Boeing uses the term hull loss for the severity of damage an airplane suffers in an accident. For the 747-400 it counts 10 hull losses, 5 of them with fatalities. For the 747-8 it counts 0.
We use only the 747-400 and 747-8 rows. Boeing's table also covers the older 747 models, which we haven't used, and it marks the 747-8 as having accumulated fewer than one million departures. The counts are cumulative and reflect very different amounts of flying, so they can't establish a safety ranking.
So why did it end?
Boeing's own answer, in its letter, was market dynamics and outlook. The delivery record is consistent with a shrinking program: the 481 deliveries of the 1990s were never repeated, the final model's deliveries were mostly freighters (107 against 48 under the passenger label) and the order book is now empty.
What the numbers can't show is cause. They don't say whether four engines cost too much to run, whether airlines wanted smaller aircraft or how much the pandemic mattered. The sources we checked don't weigh those against each other.
Questions people ask
Why did Boeing stop making the 747?
Boeing said in a July 2020 letter to employees that, in light of the current market dynamics and outlook, it would complete 747 production in 2022. Boeing's delivery table records 48 deliveries under the passenger 747-8 label against 107 freighters, so the final model's deliveries were mostly cargo.
When was the last Boeing 747 delivered?
Boeing delivered the last 747, a 747-8 Freighter, to Atlas Air on 31 January 2023. Boeing's release says the factory had produced 1,574 airplanes.
How many Boeing 747s were delivered?
Boeing's orders and deliveries table counts 1,573 deliveries, and its release on the final delivery says the factory produced 1,574. We don't know which one accounts for the difference.
How much did a Boeing 747 cost?
A 2019 list-price table put the 747-8 at $418,400,000 and the 747-8 Freighter at $419,200,000. Those are list prices reproduced in a 2019 article, and they don't establish what airlines paid, which is often confidential.
Which 747 sold the most?
The 747-400 family. Boeing's table shows 694 deliveries, which is 44% of the total.
How many 747s are on the US register?
The FAA register holds 192 747 records, all marked valid. That covers US-registered aircraft only, and it doesn't say which are flying.
Are there any 747 orders left?
No. Boeing's table shows 0 unfilled 747 orders.
Keep PilotPassion in your Google results
Add us as a preferred source and we are more likely to appear in your Top Stories.
Sources and how the numbers were made
- Federal Aviation Administration. Releasable Aircraft Database. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The registry supplies fleet counts by model, build year, registrant type and state.
- Federal Aviation Administration. Aircraft Registration Database Description. Retrieved 2026-10-13. This document explains registration status and registrant-type codes.
- Federal Aviation Administration. Type Certificate Data Sheet A20WE. Retrieved 2026-10-14. The FAA sheet supplies certified approval dates, engines, thrust and weights for the covered models.
- National Transportation Safety Board. Aviation accident data: avall. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The records from 2008 onward supply the NTSB counts.
- National Transportation Safety Board. Historical aviation accident data: Pre2008. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The earlier records supply the years 2000 to 2007.
- National Transportation Safety Board. Aviation accident database data dictionary. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The data dictionary defines the injury and event codes.
- National Transportation Safety Board. Aviation accident data download directory. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The download directory lists the published files and their dates.
- National Transportation Safety Board. Aviation accident database release notes. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The release notes describe what each file contains.
- National Transportation Safety Board. Aviation accident database search help. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The search help explains how the NTSB selects and labels records.
- National Transportation Safety Board. Aviation accident database scope. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The scope note states that the database is US-focused and which events it covers.
- Federal Aviation Administration. General Aviation and Part 135 Activity Survey. Retrieved 2026-10-13. The survey is cited to explain why no accident rates are given.
- The Points Guy. Boeing list price table reproduced with article dated 2019-07-14. Retrieved 2026-10-14. The table supplies the 2019 Boeing list prices.
- Boeing / Tableau Public. Commercial orders and deliveries, September 2026. Retrieved 2026-10-14. Boeing's orders and deliveries table supplies deliveries and unfilled orders.
- Boeing / Tableau Public. ASC 606 backlog, September 2026. Retrieved 2026-10-14.
- Boeing / Tableau Public. Orders and deliveries workbook, data through 09/30/2026. Retrieved 2026-10-14. The workbook records the as-of date of the orders and deliveries data.
- Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Form 41 Schedule P-5.2 annual 2025. Retrieved 2026-10-14. Schedule P-5.2 supplies direct operating expense, fuel and airborne hours by aircraft type.
- Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Aircraft type lookup. Retrieved 2026-10-14. The lookup matches BTS aircraft codes to type descriptions.
- Bureau of Transportation Statistics. P-5.2 field descriptions. Retrieved 2026-10-14. The field descriptions define the P-5.2 columns.
- The Boeing Company. The Boeing Company. Retrieved 2026-10-15. Boeing's statistical summary supplies the worldwide hull-loss counts.
- Boeing. Boeing, Atlas Air Celebrate Delivery of Final 747, an Airplane that Transformed Aviation and Global Air Travel. Retrieved 2026-10-30. Boeing's release supplies the date and customer of the final delivery and the number of airplanes the factory produced.
- Boeing. Boeing CEO Updates Employees on Quarterly Results and Market Realities. Retrieved 2026-10-30. Boeing's July 2020 letter to employees supplies the announced end of 747 production and the reason it gave.