Qantas Airlines’ $1,048 Fully Stocked Boeing 747 Bar Carts Sold Out In Minutes
Buyers took home wine, Tim Tams, first-class sleep kits and a cool piece of flying history.
If you miss flying around the world, don't take a silly sightseeing flight to nowhere. Instead, you can experience the best part of flying from the comfort and safety of your own home thanks to Australia's Qantas Airlines, which put some of its fully stocked Boeing 747 drinks carts up for sale.
Qantas retired its last 747 in July, so it put the 747s' drinks cars up for sale to make a bit of extra cash, reports Simple Flying. That retirement came ahead of schedule due to the ongoing pandemic, so Qantas is now trying some interesting things to make up the loss in funds. You could get a full bar cart or a half bar cart from its fleet of 65 Boeing 747s, but you had to act fast—the bar carts sold out within minutes of going live.
Both bar carts included delivery, so there's no queuing whatsoever involved in claiming your new purchase, however, they were only available to people in Australia. The full-size carts cost $1,048 U.S. ($1,474.70 Australian) or 256,000 frequent flyer points, and the half-carts cost $687.75 U.S. ($974.70 Australian) or 169,000 frequent flier points.
The bar carts were used, so you're getting authentic in-flight dings and scuffs here. More importantly, though, they had everything you'd need to get cozy on a flight: Tim Tams, full-size bottles of champagne, mini-bottles of white and red wine, smoked almonds, savory biscuits, amenity kits, first-class blankets and sleepwear.
Simple Flying did the math on how much the full carts alone brought in using fleet data from Planespotters.net. Just selling 65 carts would net the airline $68,120 U.S. (or $95,855 Australian) in sales. That, of course, assumes that the airline had some extras and kept a few here and there.
Other memorabilia from the retired 747 fleet will be auctioned off to the 149 passengers who booked tickets on Qantas' sold-out flight to nowhere, reports Simple Flying. That flight also sold out in just minutes.
Meanwhile, Qantas' last 747 got its own worthy send-off, complete with water cannons and a picture of a kangaroo drawn in the sky. It ultimately got parked in the American desert.
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