The 747 was truly a pioneer. It was the first-ever commercial widebody jet and opened up doors across the whole travel industry. Pan American leader Juan Trippe wanted an efficient way to place 400 passengers on one aircraft. Initially, he felt the best route would be to stack two single-aisle cabins on top of each other. Boeing's engineers came up with the widebody solution with a partial second deck.

However, in 1968, the program cost was already at $1 billion. This figure may not seem like a lot, but today, the cost would be equivalent to approximately $7.61 billion. The initial 747 rolled out of Boeing's assembly line in Everett at the end of September, and the type conducted its first flight on February 9th, 1969. //

A return flight between New York and London was retailing for approximately $550 in 1970. This is $5,350 with inflation. So, the higher business costs were backed by higher ticket prices to balance operations. Overall, flying was more expensive across the board during this period. Regardless, long-haul rates were generally higher pre-jumbo.

With Pan Am's management heavily involved in the launch of the project, the carrier naturally became the first to introduce the plane. In April 1966, Pan Am placed an order for 25 Boeing 747-100s. The total cost of this order was $525 million (~$4 billion today). So, Boeing was already halfway to matching the cost of the program with this invoice alone. Each unit would have worked out to cost approximately $21 million (~$160 million today).