The last commercial Boeing 747 will be delivered to Atlas Air this week, ending its reign as "Queen of the Skies" 53 years after capturing the world's attention as a Pan Am passenger jet.

Designed in the late 1960s to meet demand for mass travel, the world's first twin-aisle wide body jetliner's nose and upper deck became the world's most luxurious club above the clouds.

But it was in the seemingly endless rows at the back of the new jumbo that the 747 transformed travel.

The final delivery comes after Qantas retired its last Boeing 747 in 2020 which was bought in 1971 and made air travel accessible to many Australians for the first time. 

Air France-KLM chief executive Ben Smith said it also introduced flying for the middle class in the US. 

"Prior to the 747 your average family couldn't fly from the US to Europe affordably," he said. 

The jumbo made its mark on global affairs, symbolising war and peace, from America's "Doomsday Plane" nuclear command post to papal visits on chartered 747s nicknamed "Shepherd One".

As a Pan Am flight attendant, Linda Freier served passengers ranging from Michael Jackson to Mother Teresa.

"It was an incredible diversity of passengers. People who were well dressed and people who had very little and spent everything they had on that ticket," Ms Freier said.

When the first 747 took off from New York on January 22, 1970, after a delay due to an engine glitch, it more than doubled plane capacity to 350-400 seats.

"It was transformational across all aspects of the industry." 

Its birth become the stuff of aviation myth.

Pan Am founder Juan Trippe sought to cut costs by increasing the number of seats.

On a fishing trip, he challenged Boeing president William Allen to make something dwarfing the 707.

Mr Allen put engineer Joe Sutter in charge and it took his team 28 months to develop the 747 before the first flight on February 9, 1969.

The 747's initial years were riddled with problems and the $1.4 billion development costs almost bankrupted Boeing, which believed the future of air travel lay in supersonic jets.

After a slump during the 1970s oil crisis, the plane's heyday arrived in 1989 when Boeing introduced the 747-400 with new engines and lighter materials, making it a perfect fit to meet growing demand for trans-Pacific flights.

New model makes 747 'obsolete' 

The same swell of innovation that got the 747 off the ground has spelled its end, as advances made it possible for dual-engine jets to replicate its range and capacity at lower cost.

Yet the 777X, set to take the 747's place at the top of the jet market, will not be ready until at least 2025.

"In terms of impressive technology, great capacity, great economics … [the 777X] does sadly make the 747 look obsolete," AeroDynamic Advisory managing director Richard Aboulafia said.