The Upper Deck Lounges In Boeing 747s Are A Reminder Of How High We Soared, How Far We’ve Fallen

I have a theory. There’s a set amount of Good Stuff in the universe, and a set amount of Crap, and the ratios aren’t great. Maybe it’s 20:80 good-to-crap ratio, maybe 30:70. Whatever it is, there does seem to be more Crap than Good Stuff. Even if there’s set quantities of these elements, how they get distributed is not fixed, not by a long shot. This means that the particular things that are Crap or Good Stuff can vary wildly over time, and you will likely live through many cycles of things in your life fluctuating between Crap and Good Stuff.

For example, at this moment in history, we live in a world where there are excellent quality television programming options, our air is relatively clean, and our airliners are boring and soulless flying tubes of people. Compare that to the 1970s, where most television was inane drivel (even if nostalgia makes it fun now, but go ahead, try sitting through an episode of Hello, Larry), air quality was garbage, but airliners had dazzling, colorful, and exciting interiors.

See? I don’t exactly know how all the math shakes out, but trust me, it’s the same ratios of Good Stuff to Crap. But I’m here to brighten your day, not defecate upon it, so let’s take a quick look at one of the things in the 1970s set of Good Stuff: airline interiors, specifically, the interiors of the upper-deck lounges on Boeing 747s.

We all are familiar with the distinctive humpbacked appearance of the 747. It’s perhaps one of the most recognizable commercial aircraft ever – almost anyone can identify a picture of a Boeing 747, unlike other common aircraft like an Airbus A330 or something, which, if you show a picture to a random person, they’ll just tell you that’s an “airplane” before demanding that you let go of their arm.

The 747 is notable for that second-deck hump. In most later (around the late 1980s/early 1990s to the end of production in 2022) configurations of the 747, that upper deck was used to cram in more lucrative first-class passengers, as you can see here:

But that wasn’t always the case! In the first full decade of 747 production and use, the 1970s, that upper deck was something far more incredible:

See what’s going on up there? Let’s get a better look! COMPUTER! Zoom and enhance!

Look at that! The upper deck wasn’t for shoving in more expensive seats; it was for letting the people in those seats roam and relax and, yes, lounge, the verb, because this was a lounge, the noun. And, it’s one of the most ’70s nouns I can think of. Lounge. It’s simultaneously classy and sleazy all at the same time, just like the ’70s. It’s uninhibited and decadent, luxurious and languid, all rich earthtone upholstery and draped people, made both physically and mentally loose and pliable thanks to the judicious application of quaaludes and booze.

There’s some good scenes of this majestic upper lounge in this promotional film from Qantas Airlines:

Here’s a better look at their lounge, which was themed around the famous British Royal Navy officer Captian Cook, who visited Hawaii and Australia in the 1700s:

Hot mangoes, that’s some raw, industrial-grade swank going on there.

Look at all those smooth operators, operating smoothly. And note the nautical themed decorations, the lanterns, the ship’s wheel, the portrait of the Captain himself. Fantastic.

Boeing themselves encouraged the use of the upper deck for lounge spaces, and even designed some of their own, like the incredible “Tiger Lounge”:

This one was never actually installed on any airline’s 747, but I’m sure it provided some inspiration to the airline executives as they hoovered up fat rails of cocaine off the polished surface of a beautiful mahogany desk. I mean, look at it! The animal prints! The orange carpet, the almost conversation pit, that leather center bar thing, everything, everything, everything! Oh, and as some commenters have pointed out, this concept appears to be under the upper deck, in the nose section. Which may be why no one wanted it, as that’s a lot of seating real estate to give up.

Even if the Tiger Lounge didn’t make it to production, don’t fret, because this one did, on Air India 747s:

Wow. That’s astounding.

It wasn’t just lounges that occupied these upper decks; there were also more full-fledged restaurants:

Why does Gingham Tie look so shocked by that coffee? What does he know? Is that the glass he dropped the bennies in?

…and of course, there were straightforward bars:

That’s on a Continental 747. I wonder if anyone has the heart to tell Baldy O’Hawaiianshirt on the right there how far out of his league he is.

Continental even took the concept a bit further (and into the 1980s) as they fitted not just some generic bar, but an actual pub on all their widebody jets:

I think my favorite of all of these, though, is what American Airlines did. They stuck an organ up there:

Yep, that was a real, working organ, for that piano bar sort of feeling. As far as I understand it, anyone could sit down and play; perhaps your flight was lucky enough to have actually talented people and/or flight attendants? Did tipsy travelers actually gather around these and belt out a spirited chorus of Rocket Man or something like that? I sure as hell hope so.

There are very few passenger 747s left (there are some, as commenters have noted), and even if there still were, they haven’t had lounges like these in quite a while. The world that allowed this gleeful madness to exist currently no longer exists. The cycles of Crap and Good Stuff have shifted, and wild 747 lounges were a casualty.

Well, they’re not completely gone; if you have the money for a business class ticket on Emirates Airlines and they stick you on an A380, then you can enjoy their modern take on the Lounge:

[Mercedes Note: A big reason the aircraft interior design of the 1970s went away is that the economics of running an airline have dramatically changed. The government used to control airline market entry, routes, and fare structures. Since airlines weren’t competing on pricing, they instead competed on the experience. Airlines marketed themselves on speed, luxury, and safety. Following the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, airlines had the freedom to set their own prices, and new airlines had far less red tape in entering the market. Soon enough, ticket prices plummeted as airlines tried to grab passengers with attractive fares.

If you account for inflation, even base tickets in the 1970s were thousands of dollars. People treated flying like going to a formal dinner, in part because it was so expensive and not an experience that just anyone could do. In the post-regulation world, you can fly thousands of miles for under $100. But to make that work, airlines have to cram as many people as possible on the planes, have those planes be as efficient as possible, and keep those planes in the sky for as many hours in a day as possible. So, while flying might not be magical anymore, it is accessible to far more people. – MS]

Maybe they’ll come back on a wider scale, but we’ll have to give up something good. I bet we could allocate a bit of how many craft beers there are now to get these back, right? I mean, we get it, we can go back from having a heptillion beer choices to just, I don’t know, hundreds? I’m willing to make that sacrifice, at least for a bit.