Boeing 777-200/200ER (B772)

The 777-200 is where the 777 began, and the way it was designed changed how Boeing builds airliners. In the late 1980s the company needed something between the 767 and the 747, and after a false start with a stretched 767 it opened a clean-sheet program in 1990 with United Airlines as launch customer. Unusually, Boeing brought eight airlines into the design process from the start, a program it called "Working Together," so cabin widths, galley positions and maintenance access were argued over with the people who would operate the airplane. It was also Boeing's first airliner designed entirely on computer, without a physical mock-up, and its first with fly-by-wire flight controls.

The first 777-200 flew on June 12, 1994 and entered service with United on June 7, 1995, London to Washington. From day one it was approved for 180-minute ETOPS, which no airliner had achieved at entry into service; that approval, and the engines' reliability, let the 777 take over ocean routes that had belonged to the 747, the DC-10 and the MD-11.

The basic 777-200 was built for US domestic and regional international flying. The version most airlines wanted was the 777-200ER, originally called the 777-200IGW for "increased gross weight," which added fuel and structural strength for about 7,000 nautical miles of range. British Airways put the first one into service in February 1997, and over the next decade it became the standard long-haul twin for carriers like United, American, Air France, Singapore Airlines and Emirates. Airlines chose between three engines, the GE90, the Pratt & Whitney PW4000 and the Rolls-Royce Trent 800, a choice Boeing never offered again on later 777s.

Boeing built 88 basic 777-200s and 422 777-200ERs, the last of them in 2013. The stretched 777-300 and the much longer-range 777-200LR and 777-300ER followed, and it was those later versions, especially the -300ER, that made the 777 the best-selling widebody of its generation. Many 777-200ERs are now in their third decade. A number have been retired or parked since 2020, some have been converted to freighters, but others remain on front-line service with the airlines that bought them new, carrying the dense long-haul cabins that still make the type economic.

The 777 introduced a fuselage cross-section about 6.2 meters wide, between the 767 and the 747, which lets airlines fit nine or ten seats across in economy. The cabin is the reason the type won so many orders: it is wide enough for ten-abreast economy and large enough for the premium cabins long-haul airlines sell.

Everything about the airframe was sized for the biggest turbofans then imaginable. The GE90 that launched with the 777 had a fan over three meters across, and the engines hang well forward on a wing with a 60.9-meter span and large, double-slotted flaps. Each main landing gear leg carries six wheels on three axles, the first six-wheel bogie on an airliner, which spreads the weight so the 777 can use runways built for lighter jets; the rear axle steers to reduce tire scrubbing in turns.

The flight deck has fly-by-wire controls that keep a conventional control column rather than Airbus-style sidesticks, with the computers providing envelope protection that pilots can override with force. Composites account for about nine percent of the structure, used in the floor beams, the tail and the control surfaces. Where the -200 and -200ER differ is weight and fuel: the ER's higher maximum takeoff weight and larger fuel capacity come with strengthened landing gear and structure, and the GE90-94B, PW4090 and Trent 895 engines rated for it.

The 777-200ER is still a working long-haul airliner, though no longer a growing one. United Airlines and American Airlines fly the largest fleets in the United States, using them on transatlantic, transpacific and Hawaii routes and, in United's case, on dense domestic trunk routes as well. British Airways keeps a large fleet at Heathrow and Gatwick, and the type remains in service with carriers such as Air France, Austrian, Asiana and several Middle Eastern and Asian airlines. Omni Air International and other charter operators fly ex-airline examples on government and military contracts. Freighter conversions by Israel Aerospace Industries and Mammoth Freighters are giving some airframes a second career. Early GE90-powered 777-200s are mostly gone; the basic -200 survives mainly with United.

Economy on a 777-200ER depends on which decade the airline configured it in. Original layouts were nine-abreast in 3-3-3 with seats around 18.5 inches wide, the most comfortable long-haul economy of the 2000s. Most airlines have since moved to ten-abreast 3-4-3, which shaves the seat to about 17 inches and makes the aisle seats on the center block the ones to want. Check the seat map before booking: nine-across 777-200ERs still exist, notably at some Asian carriers, and the difference is real on a twelve-hour flight. The cabin is quiet for its age, with the Trent and PW4000 versions slightly quieter in the back than GE90 aircraft. Overhead bins are generous. Over the wing the ride is smoothest; the rear rows sit behind the wing and feel more turbulence. Premium cabins vary wildly, from 1990s angled-flat seats on older fleets to fully refitted suites, so the airline and the specific aircraft matter more than the type.

Start with the main landing gear: six wheels per leg, three axles, something only the 777 and the A350-1000 have. The 777 then has a conventional swept wing with no winglets and a blade-like tail cone that ends in a flattened wedge rather than a point. Telling the -200 and -200ER apart from the ground is not possible; they share the same 63.7-meter fuselage, and only the registration gives it away. Against the stretched -300 the -200 is noticeably shorter in proportion to its wingspan, with eight main doors instead of ten. Against the 777-300ER, the ER lacks the raked wingtips. The engines help narrow the operator: GE90s are the largest, Trent 800s have a visible spinner cone, PW4000s sit between them.