The Boeing 747-400 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, an advanced variant of the initial Boeing 747.
The "Advanced Series 300" was announced at the September 1984 Farnborough Airshow, targeting a 10% cost reduction with more efficient engines and 1,000 nautical miles [nmi] of additional range. Northwest Airlines became the first customer with an order for 10 aircraft on October 22, 1985. The first 747-400 was rolled out on January 26, 1988, and made its maiden flight on April 29, 1988. Type certification was received on January 9, 1989, and it entered service with NWA on February 9, 1989.
Boeing 747-400
The computerized glass cockpit of the Boeing 747-400ER
The added canted winglet
An aerial view of Boeing Field, one of the sites used for 747-400 flight testing.
A wide-body aircraft, also known as a twin-aisle aircraft and in the largest cases as a jumbo jet, is an airliner with a fuselage wide enough to accommodate two passenger aisles with seven or more seats abreast. The typical fuselage diameter is 5 to 6 m. In the typical wide-body economy cabin, passengers are seated seven to ten abreast, allowing a total capacity of 200 to 850 passengers. Seven-abreast aircraft typically seat 160 to 260 passengers, eight-abreast 250 to 380, nine- and ten-abreast 350 to 480. The largest wide-body aircraft are over 6 m (20 ft) wide, and can accommodate up to eleven passengers abreast in high-density configurations.
A narrow-body Boeing 737 of Lufthansa in front of a wide-body Boeing 777 of Emirates
A Boeing 747, the first wide-body passenger aircraft, operated by Pan Am, its launch customer
Three widebodies: KLM's Airbus A330 twinjet, McDonnell Douglas MD-11 trijet and Boeing 747-400 quadjet
An Airbus A300's cross-section, showing cargo, passenger, and overhead areas