Boeing 707 Douglas competition, Boeing soon realized this would not provide a viable payload, so it widened the fuselage to to allow five-abreast seating and use of the KC-135's tooling. Douglas Aircraft had launched its DC-8 with a fuselage width of . The airlines liked the extra space and six-abreast seating, so Boeing increased the 707's width again to compete, this time to . The first flight of the first-production 707-120 took place on December 20, 1957, and FAA certification followed on September 18, 1958. Both test pilots Joseph John "Tym" Tymczyszyn and James R. Gannett were awarded the first Iven C.
Boeing 377 Stratocruiser 377s (and United DC-6s) were scheduled between Honolulu and San Francisco () in 9 h 45 min each way. The longest (by distance) 377 nonstop flights were made by Pan Am from Tokyo to Honolulu during four winter seasons beginning in 1952–1953. In January 1953, two nonstops a week were scheduled with a flight time of 11 hr 1 min due to strong tailwinds; the following August all flights took 19 hours, with a stop at the Wake Island Airfield. By 1960, Stratocruisers were being superseded by jets, such as the de Havilland Comet, Boeing 707, and Douglas DC-8. The