When the hump was a bar

For roughly the first decade of the 747’s life, the space behind the flight deck was not a cabin. It was a lounge, reached by a spiral staircase, and what went in it was a matter of airline taste.

Why the space existed at all

By accident, essentially. The flight deck was placed above the main deck so the nose could hinge up for freight loading. That left a volume behind it with no assigned purpose — and in 1970, when the aircraft’s problem was filling it rather than cramming it, a lounge was a reasonable answer.

What airlines put there

American Airlines fitted a piano bar. Others installed standing bars, swivel chairs and low tables. The 747-200’s options list captures how open the question was:

Option	Detail
Lounge	15 places
Mixed	8 first class seats plus an 11-place lounge
Sleepers	16 first class sleeper seats
Economy	32–45 seats

The same physical space, sold four different ways — and the last of those options shows where things were heading.

The spiral staircase

The early aircraft reached the upper deck by a spiral staircase, which is the detail people remember most fondly and which was the first thing to go.

It ate floor area both above and below, because a helix needs clearance all the way round. The 747-300 replaced it with a straight stair, and that change alone created room for more seats at both levels. The 747-8 later restored some of the drama with a curved, sweeping staircase, but by then it led to a cabin, not a bar.

Why the lounges ended

Two things, in order.

The oil shocks of the 1970s. Fuel costs rose sharply and every square foot of a widebody cabin had to justify itself. A lounge generates no revenue, and an aircraft carrying an empty bar across the Atlantic is carrying weight for nothing.

The stretched upper deck. When the 747-300 arrived in 1983 with a deck 23 ft 4 in longer, the space stopped being an awkward leftover and became a proper cabin — around 44 more seats’ worth. Once it was big enough to sell, it was sold.

What replaced it

Not nothing. The upper deck became the most sought-after cabin on the aircraft: typically 2-2 in first or 3-3 in economy against 3-4-3 downstairs, with its own galley, its own crew and a staircase separating it from the rest of the aeroplane. British Airways’ Club World upper deck developed a following out of all proportion to its twenty-odd seats.

The bar went, but the sense of being somewhere separate survived to the end.

Related

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• Classic 747 cabin schemes on film
• Seating layouts