and yet there's still 40 plus year old 747's still doing the rounds
without any issues

There are just a few companies left that still use the 747 in passenger
service ... Lufthansa that I know of, the only user of the 747-8 as a
passenger plane, and they re-activated their 747-4's which were stored in Twente (The Netherlands), but that is temporary and will be phased out.

Nowhere will you find 40+ year 747's in service ... it's just too expensive
to run that kind of engine-technology and a D-check for them unaffordable.

BA btw has ditched all of its passenger 747s, so has KLM, AirFrance, others
... KLM has kept 3 freighters as they're relatively new. In cargo you still
see them but Cargolux has dumped all the old-ones, so has Atlas (the buyer of the last 747) ... you may still see flying crap with Kallita ... but that's Kallita of course. A few Asians. Some Russians were flying 747-freighters but they're als grounded and probably will be too expensive to reactivate after storage in inproper conditions ... they will require a D-check as well ...

Mojave and Pima are now one giant 747-storage area. And Teruel in Spain.

For Airbus stuff you need to be in Tarbes, France.

--- DB4 - 20230201
* Origin: AVIATION ECHO HQ (2:292/854)

i dont know about BA - i would assume they're on other ER/LR aircraft,
but there's a number of other "majors" that still fly the 74's with PAX
on them including lufthansa. while i agree that newer or more modern aircraft are more efficient etc, i am certainly not looking forward to
the day where i dont see any more 74's outside of the few cargo ones that come into orlando etc.

Air China, Korean, Rossiya and Lufthansa as the only "majors" with Rossiya being grounded due to sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine.

Air China . 3 747-4 7 747-8
Korean 4 747-4 9 747-8
Lufthanse 8 747-4 19 747-8
Rossiya 9 747-4 (grounded)

There are some charter operations such as Atlas and others but they are not 'majors'. Also an accumulated high number of government planes.

54% of all remaining scheduled 747 pax operation are by Lufthansa.

\%/@rd

--- DB4 - 20230201
* Origin: AVIATION ECHO HQ (2:292/854)