Boeing 747-200 vs 747-300

The 747-300 is the quietest of the 747 upgrades: no new wing, no new weights, no record-breaking range. It was built when airlines had a different problem - how to carry more people without growing the airport.

What the stretch did

Fourteen years after the design's first flight, Boeing stretched the upper deck by 23 ft 4 in, turning it from a ten-window lounge back into the high-density cabin the "wide-body" concept had promised. The main deck never changed: the entire increase in the aircraft's 10 percent capacity gain is upstairs.

	747-200	747-300
Upper deck length	10 windows (original)	+ 23 ft 4 in; standard from here on
Passengers, 3-class	366	400
Length	231 ft 10 in	231 ft 10 in
Max takeoff weight	up to 833,000 lb	up to 833,000 lb

The deck was long enough that Boeing moved the upper-deck escape slide from the front to the rear of the upper cabin - the only external sign of the change visible from outside the aircraft.

Why so few were built

The -300's problem was timing. It entered service in 1983, and within two years Boeing had announced the 747-400, which took every improvement of the -300 - including its stretch - and added the winglets, glass cockpit, tail fuel and new engines that made the earlier aircraft look old.

Only 81 -300s were built, but the stretch itself survived: it is the upper deck every later 747 carried, and the reason a 747-400 looks so different from a 747-100 despite sharing the same fuselage length.

The one thing Boeing never built

Boeing produced no factory 747-300 freighter. The passenger -300's main-deck windows made conversion more work for less structural value, and by 2000 the market was converting it anyway. Every 747-300F in the record is a conversion, not a production freighter - the gap between what Boeing delivered and what the market needed.