The Antonov An-225 Mriya was bigger. It was 84 m long with an 88.4 m wingspan, and it could lift 250 tonnes. The Boeing 747-8F is 76.3 m long with a 68.4 m wingspan and carries about 137 tonnes.
But the comparison has a catch: only one An-225 was ever finished, and it was destroyed in February 2022. The 747-8F is still flying every day, so it is the largest of the two you can actually put cargo on.
The short version:
- Size and lifting power: An-225. Nearly twice the payload and 43% more maximum take-off weight.
- Range with a heavy load: 747-8F. About 7,630 km at full payload, against roughly 4,000 km for the An-225 carrying 200 tonnes.
- Efficiency and cost: 747-8F. Four modern engines and two pilots, against six 1980s engines and a crew of six.
- Oversized single pieces: An-225. Its hold was wider, taller and uninterrupted from nose to tail.
- Availability today: 747-8F. More than 100 are in service. The An-225 count is zero.
The rest of this article works through each of those points with the numbers behind them.
747-8F vs. An-225 specifications side by side
| Specification | Boeing 747-8F | Antonov An-225 Mriya |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 76.3 m (250 ft 2 in) | 84 m (275 ft 7 in) |
| Wingspan | 68.4 m (224 ft 7 in) | 88.4 m (290 ft) |
| Tail height | 19.4 m (63 ft 6 in) | 18.1 m (59 ft 5 in) |
| Maximum take-off weight | 447.7 t (987,000 lb) | 640 t (1,411,000 lb) |
| Maximum payload | About 137 t (302,000 lb) | 250 t (551,000 lb) |
| Cargo volume | About 858 m³ (main + lower decks) | About 1,300 m³ (single hold) |
| Engines | 4 × GE GEnx-2B67, 66,500 lbf each | 6 × Progress D-18T, 51,600 lbf each |
| Total thrust | 266,000 lbf | 309,600 lbf |
| Cruise speed | About 908 km/h (490 kt) | About 800 km/h (432 kt) |
| Range with heavy load | 7,630 km (4,120 nmi) at full payload | About 4,000 km (2,160 nmi) with 200 t |
| Flight crew | 2 | 6 |
| Landing gear wheels | 18 | 32 |
| First flight | 8 February 2010 | 21 December 1988 |
| Number built | Just over 100 | 1 |
| Status | In service; production ended 2023 | Destroyed 27 February 2022 |
Published 747-8F payload figures run from about 133 t to 140 t depending on the source and the aircraft’s configuration.
How much bigger was the An-225 than the 747-8F?
The An-225 was 7.7 m longer and its wings reached 20 m further from tip to tip. On the ground that difference was hard to miss. An 88.4 m wingspan is close to the length of a football pitch, and it limited which taxiways and aprons the aircraft could use.
Weight is where the gap really opens. The An-225 could take off at 640 tonnes, the highest figure of any aircraft that has entered service. The 747-8F tops out at 447.7 tonnes. To spread that load, the Antonov rolled on 32 wheels against the Boeing’s 18.
The 747-8F does win one measurement. Its tail stands 19.4 m high, about 1.3 m taller than the An-225’s. The Antonov used a low twin-fin tail, a leftover from its original job of carrying a space shuttle on its back, where a single central fin would have sat in disturbed air.
The 747-8F also holds a record of its own. At 76.3 m it is one of the longest commercial aircraft ever to enter airline service.
Which carries more cargo?
The An-225 carried more, by a wide margin: 250 tonnes against about 137 tonnes for the 747-8F. In 2001 it lifted 253.8 tonnes on a record flight, a figure no other aircraft has matched.
Payload weight
A fully loaded 747-8F carries roughly what 55% of an An-225 load would weigh. Put another way, moving one maximum An-225 load takes two 747-8F flights.
That said, very few shipments ever needed 250 tonnes in one piece. Chapman Freeborn, a charter broker that used the aircraft, cites loads such as 232 tonnes of oil and gas equipment to Abu Dhabi and 140 tonnes of compressors from South Korea to France. The second of those is close to what a 747-8F can lift today.
Cargo hold size
The two holds are shaped for different work.
| Hold measurement | Boeing 747-8F | Antonov An-225 |
|---|---|---|
| Layout | Main deck plus lower deck | One open hold |
| Usable length | About 68 m main deck | 43.35 m |
| Width | About 6.1 m at the widest point | 6.4 m |
| Maximum height | About 3.05 m (120 in) on the main deck | 4.4 m |
| Nose opening height | About 2.49 m (98 in) | Full hold cross-section |
| Total volume | About 858 m³ | About 1,300 m³ |
The 747-8F’s main deck is longer, but its ceiling is lower and it curves inward at the sides. The space behind the nose door sits under the cockpit, which limits anything loaded through the nose to about 2.49 m tall. Taller pieces go through the side door, which opens 3.4 m wide and 3.1 m high.
The An-225’s hold was a single box 6.4 m wide and 4.4 m high, and the whole nose lifted out of the way. A piece of machinery more than 4 m tall could roll straight in. Four overhead cranes inside the hold moved it into position. The aircraft had no rear door or ramp, so everything went in and out through the nose.
What each one carries best
- 747-8F: palletised freight in volume. It takes 34 standard pallets on the main deck and 12 more below, which suits e-commerce, electronics, perishables and pharmaceuticals.
- An-225: single outsized items. Generators, turbines, wind turbine blades, locomotives and aircraft fuselages were typical loads.
Which flies farther and faster?
The 747-8F flies farther with a real load and cruises about 100 km/h faster.
With a full payload the 747-8F covers about 7,630 km (4,120 nautical miles). That is enough for Shanghai to Anchorage, or Frankfurt to Chicago, without a stop.
The An-225’s headline range of 15,400 km applied only with full fuel tanks and almost no cargo. With 200 tonnes on board the figure fell to about 4,000 km. A heavy charter from Europe to the Americas or East Asia usually meant one or more fuel stops.
The reason is simple arithmetic. Maximum payload and maximum fuel together weighed more than the aircraft was allowed to take off with, so every extra tonne of cargo displaced fuel.
Engines and fuel burn
The engines are a generation apart.
- 747-8F: four General Electric GEnx-2B67 turbofans, a design that entered service in 2011. The aircraft burns about 16% less fuel than the 747-400F it replaced.
- An-225: six Progress D-18T turbofans, a Soviet design from the early 1980s shared with the smaller An-124.
Six older engines produced only about 16% more total thrust than the Boeing’s four newer ones, while moving an aircraft that could weigh 43% more. The An-225 needed a take-off run of about 3,500 m at maximum weight, which ruled out many airports. The 747-8F needs about 3,300 m at its own maximum weight and operates from most major cargo hubs.
Why were they built so differently?
The two aircraft were designed for different customers, and that explains almost every difference between them.
The An-225: built to carry a spacecraft
The Soviet Union needed a way to move its Buran space shuttle and Energia rocket parts between factories and the launch site. Antonov stretched its An-124, added a third pair of engines, and replaced the tail with twin fins so a shuttle could ride on top. The An-225 first flew on 21 December 1988.
Buran flew once and the programme ended with the Soviet Union. The aircraft sat in storage for years, then returned in 2001 as a commercial freighter for Antonov Airlines. A second airframe was started in 1989 and abandoned unfinished in 1994.
It was a one-off built for a state programme, and operating cost was never the design goal.
The 747-8F: built to make airlines money
Boeing launched the 747-8 in 2005 as the final stretch of a design that had been hauling freight since the 1970s. The original 747 put its cockpit above the main deck so the nose could hinge upward for cargo, and the 747-8F keeps that feature.
Everything about it is tuned for scheduled service: standard pallet positions, two-pilot operation, engines shared with the 787 family, and turnaround times measured in hours. The first one was delivered in October 2011.
What that meant for cost
Neither aircraft has a published price list for charters, so exact comparisons are not possible. The pattern is clear, though.
- 747-8F: flies scheduled routes daily, so its costs are spread across thousands of flights a year. One broker quotes a guide rate of about $20,000 to $26,000 per flight hour.
- An-225: flew only a handful of missions a year. Each charter carried the cost of six engines, a large crew, specialised ground handling and positioning flights from Ukraine. Industry reports commonly put it at several times the hourly cost of a 747 freighter.
The An-225 made financial sense only when cargo could not be split and could not go by sea in time.
Is the An-225 still flying? Where both aircraft stand today
No. The only completed An-225 was destroyed on 27 February 2022 at Hostomel airport near Kyiv, during the first days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was in a hangar for maintenance and could not be flown out.
Will the An-225 be rebuilt?
It is unlikely in the near term, and nothing has been confirmed.
- Cost estimates vary widely. Antonov has said a rebuild would cost at least €500 million. Its parent company Ukroboronprom put the figure above $3 billion over more than five years.
- The second airframe may be gone. The unfinished second An-225 was stored at Antonov’s plant at Sviatoshyn airfield in Kyiv. A strike in April 2025 caused a large fire at that site. Several outlets reported the airframe was probably destroyed, but neither Antonov nor the Ukrainian government has confirmed it.
- Antonov has gone quiet. As of February 2026, four years after the loss, the company had given no substantive update on the project.
Any rebuild depends on the war ending, funding being found, and enough of the airframe and tooling surviving.
Is the 747-8F still in production?
No, but it will be flying for decades. Boeing delivered the last 747 ever built, a 747-8F, to Atlas Air on 31 January 2023. That closed a production run of 1,574 aircraft across all 747 versions.
More than 100 747-8Fs are in service with operators including Atlas Air, UPS, Cargolux, Cathay Pacific Cargo and Korean Air Cargo. Boeing’s 777-8F and the Airbus A350F are the planned successors, but neither has a nose door.
With the An-225 gone, the heaviest outsized loads now go on the An-124, which carries up to about 150 tonnes. The 747-8F picks up long or bulky freight that fits through its nose or side door.
Which is better: the 747-8F or the An-225?
Neither is better outright. Each was the right tool for a different job, and only one of those jobs is still being done.
| If the job is… | The better aircraft | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A single piece over 150 tonnes | An-225 | Nothing else could lift it |
| Cargo more than 3.1 m tall | An-225 | 4.4 m hold height and a full-section nose opening |
| Regular palletised freight | 747-8F | 46 pallet positions and fast turnarounds |
| Long-haul with a heavy load | 747-8F | Almost twice the range at high payload |
| Lowest cost per tonne | 747-8F | Four efficient engines, two pilots, high utilisation |
| Flying this year | 747-8F | The An-225 no longer exists |
We will be honest about where the 747-8F falls short. It cannot replace the An-225 for the largest single loads. Its nose door is under 2.5 m high, and its floor is not built for a 200-tonne generator. Those shipments now go on the An-124, get broken into smaller pieces, or travel by sea.
The An-225 had its own limits. It needed long, strong runways, a specialist crew and weeks of planning. For almost all air freight it was the wrong aircraft, and its owners knew it. It flew rarely because few jobs needed it.
If you want the record holder, it is the An-225. If you want the aircraft that changed how the world moves freight, it is the 747.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Antonov An-225 bigger than a Boeing 747?
Yes. The An-225 was 84 m long with an 88.4 m wingspan. The largest 747, the 747-8, is 76.3 m long with a 68.4 m wingspan. The An-225 could also weigh 640 tonnes at take-off against 447.7 tonnes for the 747-8F.
How much more could the An-225 carry than a 747-8F?
About 113 tonnes more. The An-225 was rated for 250 tonnes and the 747-8F carries about 137 tonnes.
Why did the An-225 have six engines?
It was derived from the four-engine An-124 and needed more thrust to lift a space shuttle on its back. Adding two more of the same D-18T engines was simpler than developing a new, larger engine.
How many An-225s were built?
One. A second airframe was started in 1989 but work stopped in 1994 and it was never completed.
What is the largest cargo plane flying today?
By payload, the Antonov An-124 is the largest in commercial service at about 150 tonnes. Among aircraft built for scheduled freight, the Boeing 747-8F is the largest. The Airbus BelugaXL has a bigger hold by volume but carries far less weight and flies only Airbus parts.
Can a 747-8F open its nose like the An-225?
Yes. Both have an upward-hinging nose door. The 747-8F’s nose opening is about 2.49 m high because the cockpit sits above it. The An-225’s opening matched the full 4.4 m height of its hold.
Which is faster, the 747-8F or the An-225?
The 747-8F. It cruises at about 908 km/h, compared with about 800 km/h for the An-225.
Hi, I’m Bruno. I’ve worked in the aviation industry for over 6 years as a B1.1 Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer. This blog is where I share insights on aviation and travel globally.