Boeing 7-Series Aircraft

Defining what actually constitutes an individual “plane” can be hard. In each case, there is a basic airframe (ex: 737), but there are sometimes dozens of variants of it (100 through 900, as well as MAX versions 7 though 10).

Some common changes:

• Lengthening the body (you can’t increase it in any other dimension, but you can make it longer)
• Changing the engines (even, in rare cases, the number of engines; the 737 was original a quad-jet)
• Changing the passenger configuration
• Adding or removing fuel capacity (and corresponding changes in passenger capacity)
• Changing the wing design (often adding winglets)

Also, there are often completely different configurations outside of commercial passenger service (freighters, military operations, private jets, etc.)

Over time, variants can sometimes differ so much from the original as to constitute an almost complete different plane, in any practical sense.

The statistics before are therefore pretty vague. Some caveats:

• Range is the longest range of any configuration
• Seats is the lowest and highest capacity of any configuration

Also, “wide-body” means the plane as two aisles. “Narrow-body” planes are a single aisle.

Current Planes

Right now, Boeing is only producing four planes – only three that carry people.

The most popular plane in the world. Boeing has built almost 10x as many of this plane as any other in its history.

This was produced as a wide-body passenger plane until 2014, but is currently only being built as a freighter. FedEx and UPS have large 767 fleets.

Federal emissions rules have put a time limit on the 767. It will be discontinued sometime around 2030. Several airlines still have passenger versions in service.

The largest plane in production today. The longest range of any commercial passenger aircraft.

The most fuel efficient aircraft in the world, due to it being built with lighter composite materials. The 787 burns about a third less fuel than the 777 (e.g. – over the same distance, the 787 would use 77 gallons compared to the 777 at 100 gallons).

Boeing has hinted that there will be a feighter version of the 787 to replace the 767.

Past Planes

The first Air Force One was a 707.

The last “tri-jet” – jets with two engines on the side, and one engine on the tail.

Passenger 747s ceased production earlier than the frieghter models.