SYDNEY: Plane spotters and veteran pilots gathered Wednesday to bid farewell to the national carrier's last Boeing 747, as it headed from Australia to retirement in a desert in the United States.

The jumbo jet lifted off from Sydney airport bound first for Los Angeles before its final destination in the Mojave desert, ending the model's nearly five decades of flying for Qantas.

It was an early retirement for the 747, which was originally slated to go out of service in six months. But the chaos wreaked on the travel industry by the coronavirus pandemic brought the date forward. "It will be bittersweet because of that amazing history, because of what this aircraft has done to change the aviation industry," Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said, ahead of the take off.