Boeing 747 Family

The Boeing 747 was built in five passenger generations and more than twenty distinct sub-variants between 1968 and 2023. 1,574 aircraft were completed before the last one was delivered to Atlas Air on 31 January 2023.

This page is the map. Each variant below has its own page with the detail.

Every variant, by generation

First generation — the 747-100

Variant	Built	What it is
747-100	168	The original. First flight 9 February 1969, in service with Pan Am January 1970
747-100B	9	Strengthened airframe and gear, 750,000 lb MTOW. Iran Air and Saudia only
747-100SR	29 (all SR)	Short range, high density, reinforced for Japanese domestic cycles
747-100F	—	The freighter the hinging nose door was always designed for
747SP	45	Nearly 48 ft shorter, for range. The only 747 ever shortened

Second generation — the 747-200

Variant	Built	What it is
747-200	393 total	More thrust, more fuel, and the first 747 offered with all three engine makers
747-200B	233	The passenger aircraft. About 6,857 nmi fully loaded
747-200M	74	Combi — passengers forward, freight aft on the same deck
747-200C	13	Convertible — removable seats, nose cargo door
747-200F	73	Freighter. 105 tons, in service with Lufthansa from 1972

Third generation — the 747-300

Variant	Built	What it is
747-300	81 total	The stretched upper deck arrives, and stays for good
747-300 passenger	56	Mach 0.85 cruise, straight staircase, 10 percent more seats
747-300M	21	Combi with the stretched upper deck
747-300SR	4	Japanese domestic, over 600 seats

Fourth generation — the 747-400

Variant	Built	What it is
747-400	694 total	Winglets, a glass cockpit, and no flight engineer. The most successful 747
747-400 passenger	442	The standard aircraft
747-400M	61	The last and most numerous Combi
747-400D	19	Japanese domestic — the 747 built without winglets, deliberately
747-400F	126	Factory freighter on the -200F fuselage
747-400ER	6	Extended range. Qantas was the only passenger customer
747-400ERF	40	The extended-range freighter, which sold far better
747-400BCF	~50 conversions	Retired passenger aircraft rebuilt as freighters
747-400C	0	Does not exist — a common mix-up with the -400M Combi

Fifth generation — the 747-8

Variant	Built	What it is
747-8	155 total	Stretched 18 ft 3 in, an entirely new wing, GEnx-2B engines
747-8F	107	The freighter, which carried the programme and closed the line
747-8I	48	The Intercontinental — the last passenger 747

There is a full reference section on the 747-8 covering the wing, the engines, the flight deck and the cabin in detail.

The ones never built

Proposal	Fate
747 trijet	Studied against the L-1011 and DC-10. Killed by the wing redesign it needed
747-500X, -600X, -700X	Announced at Farnborough 1996. Over $5 billion, and no launch customers
747-400XQLR	Quiet Long Range. Cancelled, but its ideas became the 747-8
Yellowstone Y3	Boeing’s planned 747 replacement. Never launched

The pattern behind the numbers

Read down that table and the same story repeats in each generation.

The freighter always outlives the airliner. A passenger 747 is retired when its fuel burn per seat stops competing with a newer twin. A freighter is retired when the airframe runs out of cycles. That is why the 747-8F outsold the Intercontinental more than two to one, and why the production line stayed open for a decade after passenger orders dried up.

Japan drove the odd variants. The 747-100SR, 747-300SR and 747-400D exist because Japanese trunk routes needed 500-plus seats over one-hour sectors — the opposite of what the 747 was designed for. The stretched upper deck that defines every modern 747 first appeared on two Japanese SR aircraft.

Engine choice sold aeroplanes. The 747-100 was a Pratt & Whitney aircraft. The 747-200 could be had with three manufacturers’ engines and sold more than twice as many. The 747-8 was offered with exactly one engine, and sold 155.

The third crew member decided the -300’s fate. The 747-300 was the last three-crew 747, and Boeing launched the two-crew 747-400 just two years after it entered service. 81 -300s were built; 694 -400s followed.

How it ended

Boeing’s own long-term plan, the Yellowstone Project, had the 747’s successor as a 300- to 400-seat aircraft — smaller, with two engines. That aircraft, Y3, was never launched; the 777X took its place.

Meanwhile the routes the 747 had held moved to the 777, the 787 and the A350. Airbus’s A380 bet the other way and ended production in 2021. The 747 followed in 2023.

The freighters, though, are young. 747-8Fs delivered into the early 2020s have decades of work ahead of them, which means the 747 will be flying well into the 2040s.

Elsewhere on the site

• Special Boeing 747s — Air Force One, the Dreamlifter, SOFIA, the Shuttle Carrier and the Airborne Laser
• Everything about the Boeing 747-8 — the final generation in detail
• The 747 timeline — the whole story by date
• Photo album — the aircraft in pictures