Boeing 777 Vs 747: Which Is The Faster Passenger Jet?

Introduced on February 9, 1969, Boeing's 747 passenger plane was the first wide-body aircraft and became a popular plane with aviation fans and airlines alike. By 2022, Boeing built and delivered more than 1,500 747s. Not only did airlines appreciate the "jumbo jet" for its size and capabilities, but the USAF chose the Boeing 747 jet to replace Air Force One and serve as the Oval Office in the sky for the president. Despite numerous updates to its avionics and multiple variants built to keep up with modern technology, it reaches a certain point where the decades-old plane needs to retire and make room for a new "Queen of the Skies." Okay, nobody gave the 777 that nickname, but it has become one of the best-selling wide-body planes by Boeing.

Boeing's 777 debuted in 1994, just in time for the first 747s to hit retirement in the 2000s. The triple seven was the first plane Boeing designed completely with a computer and introduced a slew of new technologies with it. As time has gone on and the 777 has received numerous variants, the twinjet has gradually replaced its older sibling, getting people to wonder which plane is faster. In terms of speed, the 747 beats the 777 every time. But exactly how much faster is it?

Every iteration of Boeing's 777 that's in service, from the 777-200 to the 777-300ER, has a maximum cruising speed of Mach 0.84(roughly 640 mph). The 777-200LR, a passenger jet with an incredibly long range, can travel as far as 9,395 nautical miles. While that comes close to the newest iteration of the 747, it's just shy of matching its top speed and won't win in a head-to-head.

The newest version of the 747, the 747-8, has four new GEnx-2B engines and reaches a max cruising speed of Mach 0.86  (roughly 655 mph). This also makes it faster than the Boeing 787 Dreamliner passenger jet. The GEnx-2B engines are more efficient with fuel than previous Boeing aircraft and quieter, too. That's because the propulsion nacelle is lined with a sound-absorbing liner, decreasing the noise coming from the turbofans as the plane flies at such speeds.

However, even the Boeing 747-8 might never beat the fastest subsonic transatlantic world record set by a 747-400. British Airways flight BA112, flying from New York JFK to London Heathrow, made it across the Atlantic in just under five hours, traveling at 825 mph (relative to the ground). This broke the previous subsonic record set by a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. The 747-400 managed to do this because of a storm in the North Atlantic that placed the plane in the middle of a wind tunnel.