Flying-Vs and longer wings: how the familiar shape of passenger planes is about to change

How Airbus’s ZeroE blended wing concept planes could look in flight. Photograph: Airbus

Almost everybody on the planet knows what a passenger aeroplane looks like. Its shape hasn’t changed for decades.

Take the world’s bestselling liner, the Boeing 737: the first model in 1967 looks roughly the same as the latest version, the 737 Max. Yet that extraordinary run may be about to change as manufacturers look at a new wave of innovations that could literally change the shape of aviation.