British Aerospace floated its first proposals for a stretched 146 at the 1984 Farnborough Air Show: a fuselage 3.2 metres longer than the -200, more powerful ALF 502R-7 engines and winglets. Airlines preferred a lower purchase price to the lowest seat-mile cost, and the definitive 146-300 came out more modest — a 2.34-metre stretch, no winglets and no new engines, seating a hundred passengers five abreast. The prototype was not built from scratch but converted from the very first 146-100, which flew again on 1 May 1987 and was certified that September. Seventy-one were delivered from December 1988 onwards. The same airframe produced the -300QT freighter and, in the twenty-first century, the 146-301 ARA flying laboratory.