Boeing 707 version was numbered 707-320. Pan Am was the first airline to operate the 707; the carrier inaugurated 707 service with a christening at National Airport on October 17, 1958, attended by President Eisenhower, followed by a transatlantic flight for VIPs (personal guests of founder Juan Trippe) from Baltimore's Friendship International Airport to Paris. The aircraft's first commercial flight was from Idlewild Airport, New York, to Le Bourget, Paris, on October 26, 1958, with a fuel stop in Gander, Newfoundland. In December, National Airlines operated the first U.S. domestic jet airline flights between New York/Idlewild and Miami, using 707s leased from
Boeing 720 costs, which allowed it to be successful despite few sales. The company built 154 Boeing 720s and 720Bs from 1959 to 1967. The 720's wing modification was later added on the -120B and on -120s retrofitted to the B standard. The Boeing 720 is a four-engined low-wing cantilever monoplane. Although it was similar to the Boeing 707, compared with the 707-120, it was 9 ft (2.73 m) shorter in length, and had a lighter structure through use of lighter forged metal parts and thinner fuselage skins and structures. The rearmost of the 707's over-wing emergency exits was deleted on each