The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a long-range, mid-size wide-body

Wide-body aircraft

A wide-body aircraft is a large airliner with two passenger aisles, also known as a widebody aircraft or twin-aisle aircraft. The typical fuselage diameter is . In the typical wide-body economy cabin, passengers are seated seven to ten abreast, allowing a total capacity of 200 to 850 passengers...

, twin-engine

Twinjet

A twinjet or twin jet is a jet aircraft powered by two engines. Such configuration of an aircraft is the most popular today for commercial airliners, for fighters, and many other kinds, because while offering safety from a single engine failure, it is also acceptably fuel-efficient.-Aircraft...

 jet airliner

Jet airliner

A jet airliner is an airliner that is powered by jet engines. This term is sometimes contracted to jetliner or jet.In contrast to today's relatively fuel-efficient, turbofan-powered air travel, first generation jet airliner travel was noisy and fuel inefficient...

 developed by Boeing Commercial Airplanes

Boeing Commercial Airplanes

Boeing Commercial Airplanes designs, assembles, markets and sells large commercial jet aircraft and provides product-related maintenance and training to customers worldwide...

. It seats 210 to 290 passengers, depending on the variant. Boeing states that it is the company's most fuel-efficient

Fuel efficiency

Fuel efficiency is a form of thermal efficiency, meaning the efficiency of a process that converts chemical potential energy contained in a carrier fuel into kinetic energy or work. Overall fuel efficiency may vary per device, which in turn may vary per application, and this spectrum of variance is...

 airliner and the world's first major airliner to use composite material

Composite material

Composite materials, often shortened to composites or called composition materials, are engineered or naturally occurring materials made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties which remain separate and distinct at the macroscopic or...

s for most of its construction. The 787 consumes 20% less fuel than the similarly-sized Boeing 767

Boeing 767

The Boeing 767 is a mid-size, wide-body twin-engine jet airliner built by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. It was the manufacturer's first wide-body twinjet and its first airliner with a two-crew glass cockpit. The aircraft features two turbofan engines, a supercritical wing, and a conventional tail...

. Some of its distinguishing features include a four-panel windshield, noise-reducing chevrons on its engine nacelle

Nacelle

The nacelle is a cover housing that holds engines, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft. In some cases—for instance in the typical "Farman" type "pusher" aircraft, or the World War II-era P-38 Lightning—an aircraft's cockpit may also be housed in a nacelle, which essentially fills the...

s, and a smoother nose contour.

The aircraft's initial designation was 7E7, prior to its renaming in January 2005.