Boeing 747 Classic Cabin Schemes

A note on this page. The original clip used a player that no longer works. The same film has since been found on YouTube and is embedded above, along with two others on the same subject.

Classic Boeing 747 cabin schemes, from the era when the upper deck was a lounge rather than a cabin.

The hump was never meant to hold seats

The 747’s upper deck exists because of the nose cargo door. Boeing expected supersonic airliners to take over long-haul passenger flying, so the 747 was designed to convert to a freighter — which meant the flight deck had to sit above the main deck to leave the nose clear.

That left a space behind the cockpit with no assigned purpose. On the earliest aircraft it held a lounge, reached by a spiral staircase, and airlines competed over what to put in it.

American Airlines fitted a piano bar. Continental had a lounge with swivel chairs. Qantas, Pan Am and others fitted their own variations. The 747-200’s options list offered a 15-place lounge, eight first class seats plus an 11-place lounge, 16 first class sleeper seats, or 32–45 economy seats.

Why the lounges disappeared

Economics, in two stages.

First, the oil shocks of the 1970s made every square foot of a wide-body cabin something that had to earn its keep. A lounge generates no revenue.

Second, the 747-300 arrived in 1983 with a stretched upper deck — 23 ft 4 in longer — and a straight staircase instead of the spiral. Both changes existed to create room for more seats, above and below. Once the space was big enough to be a proper cabin, it became one.

By the 747-400 the upper deck was a premium cabin, and it stayed that way to the end.

Related

• 747 interiors
• Seating layouts on the Boeing 747
• The 747-100