First class on the 747
From 16 first class sleeper seats on the 747-200 options list to lie-flat beds and the 747-8's upper deck.
The 747 sold the front of the aircraft for its entire career, and how it did so tracks the whole history of premium air travel.
The sleeper seats
The 747-200 options list already offered 16 first class sleeper seats on the upper deck as an alternative to a lounge — in the early 1970s, when most of the industry’s idea of premium was a wider seat and more legroom.
Downstairs, first class occupied the nose section ahead of the wing: the quietest part of the aircraft, furthest from the engines.
Upstairs or downstairs
The 747 gave airlines an unusual choice, and they never fully agreed on it.
Upstairs is a small, separate cabin with its own galley and crew, reached by a staircase, typically 2-2. It feels private, and frequent flyers sought it out.
Downstairs in the nose is wider, quieter still, and easier to serve — but part of the same deck as everything else.
Different carriers put first in different places, and some put business upstairs and first in the nose. British Airways’ Club World upper deck became the best-known example of the small-cabin approach.
The lie-flat era
The 1990s and 2000s brought lie-flat beds, and the 747 carried them well because the nose section and the upper deck both suited enclosed suites better than a straight tube of a cabin.
The United Airlines seat maps on this site show the 747-400 in that configuration.
The last first class
The 747-8 Intercontinental carried 467 passengers in three classes, with the 787-derived cabin — larger windows, LED mood lighting, curved ceiling architecture — and a sweeping staircase to a business cabin upstairs.
Lufthansa, which took 19 of them and still flies them, is where you can still find a 747 first class cabin in scheduled service. That will not be true forever.
What went the other way
It is worth noting the opposite extreme on the same airframe. The 747-400D was certified for up to 660 passengers in a single class for Japanese domestic routes — the same aeroplane, with the premium cabins deleted entirely and the winglets removed.
The 747 could be a flying lounge or a commuter bus, and it was both at once in different parts of the world.
Related
More in Interiors
Inside the 747
How the 747 cabin changed — upper-deck lounges and spiral stairs on the early aircraft, a 787-derived cabin on the last ones.
When the hump was a bar
Piano bars, swivel chairs and spiral staircases — what airlines put in the 747's upper deck before seat counts took it back.
Three staircases
Spiral, straight, then sweeping — the 747's stair to the upper deck changed three times, and each change was about floor area.
Galleys and crew rest
Feeding 400 people and resting the crew that does it — the parts of a 747 cabin passengers never think about.
The 747-8 interior
The Boeing 747-8 cabin — 787-derived architecture, a curved staircase, larger windows, LED mood lighting and the VIP concepts.
The forward cabin
Boeing's rendering of the 747-8 forward cabin zone, showing the curved ceiling architecture carried over from the 787.