> but Pan American Airlines boss Juan Trippe wanted something special for his passengers, and he approached the aircraft manufacturer with a request for a plane that could carry twice as many passengers as its bread-and-butter long-haul model. In 1966, Trippe signed an order for 25 of the new passenger airliners. The first of these entered service in 1970, and the world would never be the same again.
This is one of those stories that is so often repeated it becomes truth. My issue is that it makes it sound as if Boeing took on creating the 747 because Juan asked for it and business wise there is no way it could have happened like that. But it sounds nice and the type of thing PR wise the press would repeat forever. It was probably more closely that there was a discussion between the heads of the two companies and then Boeing ran the idea by other airlines or did their research and decided it made sense to bet the company on building the 747 (which was another story that has been told time and time again 'the big bet'). I would suspect that Boeing didn't even have a signed commitment from Pan Am to even take on the enormous cost of the program (prior to the first order in 1966) as it wouldn't have made sense for Pan Am to pay anything and/or even guarantee any purchase without being able to get out of the contract w/o any penalties. So this is a bit different than when a ship is built to order for a cruise line because in that case it's a firm order and an order for 1 (or 3 whatever).
Not doubting that a version of this happened just that it sounds so romantic and unrealistic business wise.
This is one of those stories that is so often repeated it becomes truth. My issue is that it makes it sound as if Boeing took on creating the 747 because Juan asked for it and business wise there is no way it could have happened like that. But it sounds nice and the type of thing PR wise the press would repeat forever. It was probably more closely that there was a discussion between the heads of the two companies and then Boeing ran the idea by other airlines or did their research and decided it made sense to bet the company on building the 747 (which was another story that has been told time and time again 'the big bet'). I would suspect that Boeing didn't even have a signed commitment from Pan Am to even take on the enormous cost of the program (prior to the first order in 1966) as it wouldn't have made sense for Pan Am to pay anything and/or even guarantee any purchase without being able to get out of the contract w/o any penalties. So this is a bit different than when a ship is built to order for a cruise line because in that case it's a firm order and an order for 1 (or 3 whatever).
Not doubting that a version of this happened just that it sounds so romantic and unrealistic business wise.