A long-range narrowbody twinjet airliner produced by Boeing from 1981 through 2004.
The Boeing 757 is a narrowbody twinjet airliner formerly produced by boeing; production started in 1981, with the 757 entering service with Eastern Air Lines at the beginning of 1983. It was Boeing's last all-new narrowbody airliner.
There are two main variants of the 757:
- The vast majority of 757s built belong to the 757-200 family, which was the original version and saw 995 aircraft produced in both passenger and cargo versions. Although initially intended for short-to-medium-range domestic flights, the introduction of etops allowed airlines to shift many 757-200s to transoceanic routes that don't have quite enough traffic to justify using a large and expensive widebody aircraft.
- The 757-300, a stretched version, was introduced in 1999; although originally intended for the air-charter market, it was quickly adopted by mainline airlines as well. Although only 55 were ever built, the 757-300 holds the distinction of having a higher passenger capacity than any other narrowbody airliner ever produced; it also has the second-longest fuselage of any narrowbody, exceeded only by the Super 60/70 versions of the Douglas dc-8.
Production of the 757 was discontinued in October 2004, with the last aircraft being delivered in November 2005; Boeing chose not to offer a direct replacement for the 757, instead concentrating on their widebody offerings and on the smaller boeing-737 (although the largest 737s are quickly creeping up into the niche formerly occupied by the 757).
For more information, see Wikipedia.
