Skip to content
The Flying Dutchman is back!
Hartelijk welkom PH-BFG! Proudly presenting the third KLM plane in the Aviationtag family. The Boeing 747-400 left the factory doors in April 1990 sporting registration PH-BFG and manufacturer serial number (MSN) 24517 headed for Dutch airline KLM - the oldest airline in the world still operating under its original name. It was christened “City of Guayaquil” after the port city of Guayaquil and capital of the Ecuadorian province of Guayas. With a name like that, South America was no doubt among its destinations at some point during its 30 years of service. The list of its known destinations is long: Hong Kong, Tokyo and Toronto - to name just a few major cities it served. The aircraft boasted a total of 408 seats, divided into business class (35 seats), premium economy (36 seats) and economy (337 seats).
Dutch national airline KLM took delivery of its first 747 back in 1971, so the Dutch carrier’s jumbo era spanned almost half a century. On 29 March 2020, the last three Boeing 747s PH-BFW, (“City of Shanghai”), PH-BFV (“City of Vancouver”) and PH-BFT (“City of Tokyo”) were retired. Currently, the KLM fleet comprises 109 aircraft averaging 12.4 years in age - the Boeing 737-800 is the most common with 31 planes. Incidentally, if you’ve ever wondered why the KLM colour is “blue”, we can enlighten you: KLM was the first commercial airline so could choose from all the colours of the rainbow. Given the association with blue skies, it went for blue. Back to our plane: In 2019 it was already time to say “Tot ziens” and head for retirement for our PH-BFG (“City of Guayaquil”).
It was then transferred to Air Atlanta Icelandic for recycling. They re-registered it as TF-AMG, parking it at Cotswold Airport, where it was finally dismantled in March 2021. We now proudly present our third KLM Aviationtag edition!
Go, get yours now!
Leave a comment