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Braniff 747 Seat Maps

Braniff's 747SPs carried just 192 passengers in three classes with an upper-deck lounge — the most luxurious cabins the airline ever operated.

By , Boeing 747 EnthusiastReviewed

Braniff’s 747SPs were ordered in May 1978, at the dawn of US deregulation, as the airline bet on booming traffic with the longest-range jumbo Boeing then built. The bet misfired, but the cabins were unforgettable.

192 seats, three classes

Braniff took delivery of three SPs — N603BN, N604BN and N606BN — each configured to seat 192 passengers in three classes:

  • First class in the forward main-deck cabin.
  • Business class amidships.
  • Economy class aft.
  • A lounge in the short upper deck, exactly as the early-747 marketing intended.

At 192 seats the SP was among the lowest-density jumbos ever sold — the whole point being to give premium passengers space across an ultra-long stage. The surviving airframe records give the 192 total but not a class-by-class breakdown.

The short, spectacular career

The orange ‘Great Pumpkin’ SPs entered service in late 1979 and 1980 on transcontinental and Hawaii routes just as deregulation’s fare war was remaking the industry. Three years later Braniff collapsed in May 1982, and the SPs were dispersed — the last airframe flying on into the 1990s.

Cabin archive

Visual seat maps

Cabin zones run from the nose on the left to the tail on the right. Seat symbols show the typical abreast pattern, not every individual row.

Archived configuration1979–1982

747SP luxury layout

Braniff configured its three 747SPs to seat just 192 passengers in three classes — first, business and economy — with a lounge in the short upper deck.

192passenger seats
Upper deckThe short SP hump
Lounge
Main deckThree-class cabin
First Class
Business Class
Economy Class

Map note: The registries of the delivered airframes record a 192-seat three-class configuration as delivered. A published class-by-class split has not survived, so the sections below are described rather than counted.

Configuration source: AussieAirliners — N603BN / N604BN / N606BN aircraft pages

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the primary and institutional references below.

  1. N606BN Boeing 747SP-27 — AussieAirliners
  2. N603BN Boeing 747SP-27 — AussieAirliners
  3. N604BN Boeing 747SP-27 — AussieAirliners

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