An airliner is a type of aircraft initially designed for the transportation of paying passengers.
There may be variants developed for air freight, military or luxury corporate use. Occasionally the military version precedes the civilian airliner. Examples are the Boeing KC-135 and Boeing 707/720 series and, looking to the future, perhaps the Bell-Boeing MV-22 Osprey. Corporate or military use may follow the withdrawal of the airplane from use as a passenger transport, possibly for reasons of economy or environmental restraint. Most airliners are owned or leased by airlines.
Therefore, most regional airliners are equipped with lavatories and have a flight attendant to look after the in-flight needs of the passengers.
As airliners are very expensive, most are leased out for long periods of time (typically from 20 to 40 years) and very few go back into service after a long lease is up because evolving aerospace technology leaves older airliners unable to compete against newer machines that can be operated at a lower cost.
An airliner may have several classes of seating: first class, business class, and/or economy class (which may be referred to as coach class, and sometimes has a separate "premium" section with more legroom and amenities).
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