How do you arrive at the statement that 2/3 of all 747 were sold due to range? Doesn't seem to make sense to me then that each version of the 747 was bigger than the previous one. This trend will be continued with the 747-8. It must have something to do with capacity and not with range.
Well, you aren't paying attention to 747s if you believe that. Leaving out the 747-8 for the moment which doesn't exist yet, there virtually no difference in capacity between a 400 and a 100 from 1970. just a few seats on the upperdeck.
The BIG difference between the 2 is RANGE. for 30 years the 747 ruled the world as the worlds longest ranged airliner. The 777-200lr finally took that away from it. All the growth in the 747 was put to range.
There is a SMALL market for capacity. but not a large one. the ability to connect more city pairs profitably on non stop services without need to go to a hub and change planes reduces the market for very large aircraft. Boeing has NOT raised their estimates of the market, which is why they haven't launched an all new aircraft.
Don't believe me? what is the predominant short haul aircaft these days? In the USA its the 737/a320. etc.... It WAS bigger aircraft for a while. The dominant domestic aircraft at AA for the longest time was the DC-10. A DC-10 full still has lower seat mile costs than a 737, but you have to fill it.
Same thing is happening in Europe. A300 is gone. b757 is leaving, being replaced with SMALLER jets not bigger ones.
Same thing happend on the atlantic. 747s became A310/767/dc-10 have now become 757s in many cases. smallest aircraft that can connect two cities pulls all the hub connection traffic that those city pairs used to generate.
787s are gonna exacerbate the trend.
yes there are a FEW city pairs that can justify 700 seat aircraft, some of the year, and even fewer that can do it year around. But its a miniscule market and its under attack as people bypass hubs.
Cheers
Wino