A jet airliner or jetliner is an airliner powered by jet engines. Airliners usually have two or four jet engines; three-engined designs were popular in the 1970s but are less common today. Airliners are commonly classified as either the large wide-body aircraft, medium narrow-body aircraft and smaller regional jet.
The Boeing 737 was for many years the most widespread jetliner
The de Havilland Comet, the first purpose-built jet airliner
The Boeing 707, the first commercially successful jetliner
The Tupolev Tu-144, the first supersonic jet airliner
An airliner is a type of airplane for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. The modern and most common variant of the airliner is a long, tube shaped, and jet powered aircraft. The largest of them are wide-body jets which are also called twin-aisle because they generally have two separate aisles running from the front to the back of the passenger cabin. These are usually used for long-haul flights between airline hubs and major cities. A smaller, more common class of airliners is the narrow-body or single-aisle. These are generally used for short to medium-distance flights with fewer passengers than their wide-body counterparts.
A United Airlines Boeing 737 (foreground) and a Virgin America Airbus A320 (background), two of the world's most widely used airliners
Sikorsky Ilya Muromets
The Douglas DC-3 appeared in 1935
Prototype of the de Havilland Comet in 1949, the first jet airliner in the world
