A 62-year-old Boeing 707 once flown by Qantas has begun its long trip from Georgia to Australia, with the jet due to leave the Port of Brunswick area by sea early next week and reach Port Kembla, south of Sydney, after about 35 days on the water.
The aircraft is bound for the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society Aviation Museum Australia, where it will be restored after years sitting in coastal Georgia. The move closes a plan that began in 2017, when John Travolta announced he was donating the jet, and replaces an abandoned 2019 idea to fly it to Australia for full restoration.
The plane carries a long and unusual history. Qantas put it into service in 1964 on trans-Pacific routes, then sold it to Braniff in 1969. It later flew in the TAG Aviation fleet and passed through the hands of several private owners, including Frank Sinatra, Kirk Kerkorian and Travolta, who christened it the Jett Clipper Ella in honor of his children, Jett and Ella Travolta.
Travolta became one of the jet’s private owners in 1998 and struck a deal with Qantas in 2002 to serve as a brand ambassador, restoring the retro Qantas livery and, according to the deal, getting the airline to cover operating costs for the aging aircraft. He flew it on two worldwide tours to promote Qantas and aviation before grounding it for maintenance about a decade ago and storing it at Stambaugh Aviation near Brunswick Golden Isles Airport.
Getting the plane to Australia by air eventually proved impossible. Its age, repair costs and Georgia’s hot, humid climate made a flight impractical, so the HARS museum raised money for the sea journey and hired a company to take the Boeing 707 apart into several large sections before it was trucked in mid-March from the Brunswick airport to the Georgia Ports Authority’s Colonels Island terminal.
Now the final leg is in motion. HARS, often described as the Australian equivalent of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, expects the aircraft to arrive in about 35 days, ending a years-long effort to save one of the last links to the jet age and to the era when a movie star’s airliner became part of Qantas’s public face.
The move matters because it is the first time in years the plane is actually leaving storage for restoration, and because the sea voyage is the only route left that can get the 62-year-old jet home. For Travolta, the answer to what happens next is straightforward: the Boeing 707 is headed to the museum that will try to bring it back to life.
