Josh Cahill Boards Air China's Last Boeing 747-400s — A Time Capsule from Shanghai

There are very few places left on earth where a passenger can board a Boeing 747-400 on a domestic sector, settle into the upper deck, and order dumplings or mushroom noodles at 35,000 feet. Josh Cahill found one of them — and the airline operating it is Air China, departing from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport. Published on 16 May 2026, the video documents a journey aboard one of the carrier's final two Boeing 747-400 aircraft — a type that Air China now flies exclusively on domestic routes, making the experience as much an aviation history lesson as a flight review.

A Shrinking Fleet and a Coveted Seat

The hook of the video is embedded in the title itself: this is the aircraft that, according to Cahill, has transported North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on diplomatic visits to China — a claim that lends the ageing quad-jet an almost geopolitical mystique. Cahill secured a window seat on the upper deck at check-in, a small triumph he attributes to attentive ground staff.

On the service dimension, Cahill was unambiguous: "The service at the check-in counter was great, securing a window seat on the upper deck." That upper-deck position is, of course, the defining feature of the 747 experience — the staircase, the curved ceiling, the sense of occupying a separate world above the main cabin. For a domestic Chinese sector, it is an extraordinary product to encounter in 2026.

Cahill's observation about the fleet's scarcity is precise and worth underscoring: "Air China has only two 747-400s left in their fleet, flying exclusively on domestic sectors." That figure places this video in a narrow window of opportunity. Once those two aircraft are retired, the Chinese domestic 747 experience — already one of the last of its kind globally — will be gone entirely. Jeb Brooks covered a similar upper-deck 747 experience eleven months prior to this video, noting that "nothing in aviation is quite like climbing the stairs to the upper deck of a 747," though his review was of a Lufthansa aircraft rather than an Air China domestic service.

Catering Praised, Cabin Condition Noted

The overall verdict on Air China is positive, though qualified. Cahill praised the in-flight meal — a choice between dumplings and mushroom noodles — as genuinely good, a detail that will resonate with viewers who have followed his long-running assessment of Chinese airline catering. The food claim is consistent with his broader view of Air China's trajectory: in a video from January 2025, he stated that the carrier had "improved so much over the years," and his 2025 review of Air China's Comac C919 flight was similarly positive on catering and legroom.

It's definitely a bit of a time travel.

That phrase — "a bit of a time travel" — is the most economical summary of what the 747-400 cabin offers in 2026. The aircraft's interior, by Cahill's account, reflects its age: the hard product is outdated, and the cabin condition is not what a modern traveller would expect from a full-service carrier. This is a tension that has defined Air China reviews across the channel's history. As far back as 2019, Cahill's A330 economy class review criticised outdated IFE and service, while his A350 business class review from the same year was considerably more impressed. The 747-400 sits firmly in the former category: a product defined by its historical significance rather than its contemporary comfort.

This marks Cahill's twelfth video covering Air China across the channel's history, with the most recent prior entry being the Comac C919 review published in May 2025 — making this a return to the carrier approximately one year later. Noel Philips covered Air China five months before this video, reviewing the carrier's 15-hour Boeing 747 flight to New York, a long-haul context that makes Cahill's domestic angle a useful counterpoint.

Itinerary Context and Verdict

The video's itinerary, as listed, also references Lufthansa and Rossiya Airlines as additional legs departing from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, though the primary focus of the review is the Air China 747-400 segment. Cahill's coverage of Lufthansa has been extensive — fourteen prior videos — with his most recent entry from March 2026 delivering a highly positive verdict on the German carrier's new First Class product. Rossiya Airlines last appeared on the channel in March 2024, when Cahill reviewed the carrier's Sukhoi Superjet service and found it competitive despite the lack of inflight entertainment.

I couldn't be happier today.

That sentiment, expressed at the 12-minute mark, captures the emotional register of the video accurately. This is not a product review in the conventional sense — no one is recommending the Air China 747-400 for its seat pitch or its IFE system. What Cahill is documenting is something rarer: the final operational years of an iconic aircraft type on one of the world's most unusual domestic routes, flown by an airline that has, by his own assessment, improved meaningfully over the past decade. The catering is good, the service on the ground was efficient, and the upper deck window seat delivered precisely the view it promised. The cabin, however, belongs to another era — and that, for aviation enthusiasts, is precisely the point.