747-100 Seat Map | 1971

Introduced in 1971, the Royal Imperial Air Company 747-100s featured 57 First Class and 310 Tourist Class seats, with each class being divided into a smoking and non-smoking section. These 747s usually flew with 21 cabin crew (including a Chief Purser, Assistant Purser, two Chefs and Private Waiter), three flight crew, and three relief flight crew.

The separation of smoking and non-smoking passengers was a novel concept at the time, possible only because of the aircraft's size and presenting a major change in how seating was handled on long-range aircraft. By the 1974 merger with BIA and BAA, RIAC had smoking and non-smoking sections on all aircraft except the Airspeed Ambassador and HS.748. At the time of their introduction, the 747s also featured a First Class lounge on the upper deck, which had a comfortable curved seating area, dining tables, and a bar. In addition, there was also a (simpler) lower-deck lounge for Tourist Class passengers, featuring a self-service bar. There were more self-service drink stations scattered throughout the Tourist cabin zones, and one with a more varied selection in the First Class cabin.

RIAC's 747s also presented several advancements in on-board dining. Firstly, there were three groups of First Class seats which could swivel to face three full-size tables, allowing passengers to dine together in a restaurant-like setting. The aircraft also had a feature which has not been replicated since, except for on later Royal Airways 747s. This was the Royal Imperial Private Dining concept, where couples traveling together could book a private room on the top deck to eat a seven-course meal in private. Food would be delivered from the main deck by means of a specially-designed elevator, ensuring no contact with any passengers or crew except for the Private Waiter during the meal.

All of this was extremely well-loved by both First Class and Tourist passengers. The 747-100 was operated by RIAC, and continued to be operated by Royal Airways after the 1974 merger, on routes to North America, the Middle East, and Asia, as well as on the two multi-stop Australia routes, on which it was especially popular. This popularity was both due to its unfathomable increase in passenger comfort over the 707s previously operating the routes, and the fact that its range allowed the elimination of fuel-only (so useless to passengers) stops in Erbil on the Australia North route and Damascus on the Australia South route.

Between 1984 and 1988, all Royal Airways 747-100s (many of which had originally been delivered to RIAC) and -200s (which were all delivered in the same configuration as the original -100s except for a small change to the upper deck lounge layout) were retrofitted with new cabin configurations. The Tourist Class seats in zone C, as well as the Tourist lounge, were removed, and replaced with Empire Class seats in a 2-3-2 configuration. The rest of Tourist Class in ones D and E remained the same, as did First Class and the upper deck lounge. Additionally, in 1990 all Royal Airways flights became non-smoking.

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