A British Airways (BA) jet has just carried out the shortest Boeing 747 flight ever as part of their plan to retire their oldest aircraft.

Travelling only four miles from Cardiff Airport to St Athan in South Wales, the jumbo jet was in the air for less than 10 minutes.

The jet only went as high as 3,750ft before it turned back around to reach its destination.

The plane, registration G-CIVG, took her final landing at St Athan yesterday morning, and will now be used for university course BA Engineering at Cardiff.

The 747’s trip to eCube Solutions in nearby St. Athan is the final destination for many aeroplanes which have come to the end of their lives.

There it will be stripped of the working parts which can be reused on the rest of BA's fleet, before being disassembled.

Earlier this year, British Airways announced a gradual retirement of all its ageing 747s - the end date for the process is estimated to be November 2022.

The latest retiring BA 747 has a lot of flight history, including its trip over the Bristol Channel, but BA are replacing its 747 fleet with Airbus 1350-1000s, and the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner.

A spokesperson for British Airways said : "As part of our £6.5 billion customer investment, we are receiving 73 brand new aircraft over the next 5 years including our new Airbus A350 and Boeing 787.

"As we are receiving these new aircraft we're retiring our long-serving ones after many years of flying our customers around the world."

source: BristolPost