Boeing is set to officially bid farewell to the original jumbo jet, the 747, as it makes its final commercial delivery of an aircraft that democratised flying.

Thousands of current and former employees will converge on Tuesday afternoon at Boeing's factory in Everett, Washington, in the Northwestern part of the United States for a final send-off celebration in parallel with the delivery of a Boeing 747-8 cargo plane to Atlas Air.

The existing fleet of planes are expected to fly for decades more, but in ceasing 747 production more than 50 years after aircraft's first flight, Boeing is closing a chapter in the history of civil aviation.

The plane's size, flying range and efficacy "made it possible for the middle class to travel outside Europe or the United States at an affordable price, even during the energy shocks of the 1970s," said Michel Merluzeau, director of aerospace and defense analysis at AIR consultancy. "It opened up the world."

Boeing built 1,574 747s in all. But the jet has over time been eclipsed by newer models that fly more efficiently and burn less fuel.

The 747's origins date to the 1960s, a period when aviation was on the upswing and airports were becoming increasingly busy.

At the urging of Pan American Airways, Boeing began to plan for a jet that could carry significantly more passengers. Engineers initially conceived of a plane with two fuselages, but dropped that idea due to concerns about evacuating passengers from a second level.

Instead of making the plane taller, the 747 was made wider, Michael Lombardi, Boeing's company historian said of a jet that became the first designed with two aisles.

"This airplane will always be recognised as the queen of the sky," Lombardi said at a recent briefing with journalists.

The 747 runs on four engines and was conceived from the start as a plane that would also carry cargo.

But that imperative required other adjustments, including the need to raise the cockpit above the nose, leading to the 747's famous "hump."

The 747 remained the biggest passenger plane until the arrival in the 2000s of the Airbus 380.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the 747 was "really the industry's workhorse," with countless trips between destinations like New York, Paris and London, said Merluzeau.

But the arrival of later generations of long-distance jets such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus 350, which are more fuel efficient than the 747, have remade intercontinental travel, allowing for direct trips between more places and diminishing the dominance of hubs.

The newer planes "have changed flying to what we want, point to point," Lombardi said. (AFP)