Boeing 707 center section tanks. Its first flight was on January 11, 1958; 69 turbojet 707-320s were delivered through January 1963, the first passengers being carried (by Pan Am) in August 1959. The 707-420 was identical to the −320, but fitted with Rolls-Royce Conway 508 (RCo.12) turbofans (or by-pass turbojets as Rolls-Royce called them) of 18,000 lb (79 kN) thrust each. The first announced customer was Lufthansa. BOAC's controversial order was announced six months later, but the British carrier got the first service-ready aircraft off the production line. The British Air Registration Board refused to give the aircraft a certificate of airworthiness,
Freedoms of the air rights. From its 1962 initiation of Boeing 707 service to Idlewild (renamed JFK in 1964) flights had intermediate stops at one Middle East airport (Kuwait, Cairo, or Beirut), then two or three European airports, the last of which was always London's Heathrow, with trans-Atlantic service operating between Heathrow and JFK. This service continued well into the Boeing 747 era. Currently, Air India's North American flights are nonstop Boeing 777 service to India, with one exception, that being a revival of fifth freedom flights operating Boeing 787 service on the Newark—Heathrow—Ahmedabad route. The fifth freedom has been discussed in 2017 in