The Giant Engines of the Boeing 777 and an Iconic British Airways Photo

When British Airways introduced its first Boeing 777-200 into the fleet, the airline emphasized the aircraft’s extraordinarily large engines. At the time, the Boeing 777 stood out for featuring the biggest turbofan engines ever built — the GE90s — which staff jokingly described as “almost the size of an aircraft themselves.”

To visually demonstrate the scale of the engines, the British Airways team created a striking comparison. A Boeing 737 was positioned as close as possible to the 777’s GE90 engine, revealing that the fuselage of the 737 is nearly the same width as a single 777 engine.

The resulting photo became one of the most iconic images in aviation history.