New planes were meant to be more comfortable. Here's why it didn't happen
Quick quiz for airline enthusiasts: flying economy class aboard Singapore Airlines, would you rather sit in one of the airline's Boeing 777 aircraft or a Boeing 787? The 787 Dreamliner is newer, its cabin is pressurised to a lower altitude, which means more oxygen in your lungs, the seat back comes with a slightly larger in-flight entertainment screen and both aircraft have the same 3-3-3 seating configuration, but there's one crucial factor that makes the 777 the aircraft I'd prefer to fly on.
On Singapore Airlines' 777s, the seat width is 18 inches (45.7cm);* aboard the 787, the tape measure says 17 inches (43.2cm). That's just 2.5 centimetres, less than half the size of a credit card from top to bottom. An inch, if you like. How First World-problematic can you get? But that 2.5cm matters.
Seat pitch, which determines the amount of legroom per seat, is the standard measure of comfort in economy class seating, but the width of the seat is just as important. When you're reading a book or eating in a narrow seat you need to squish in your elbows and give yourself T-Rex hands, especially in the middle seat. A narrow seat also gives you less shoulder room, and a shoulder that sticks out into the aisle gets plenty of attention from passing passengers, as well as the meal trolley.
It wasn't supposed to be this way
Boeing conceived the 787 with eight seats across in its economy cabin, with a seat width of 18.5 inches (47cm), but airlines had other ideas. By squeezing in another seat per row, they could add at least 15 seats per aircraft, and for airlines, that's money in the bank. That meant tighter seating for passengers, but cash trumps comfort when it comes to economy class air travel.
One of the very few airlines that flies the Boeing 787-9 and most of its 787-8s with eight economy seats per row in a 2-4-2 configuration is Japan Airlines. Those seats are a comfy 47.8cm wide, and seat pitch is an equally commendable 83.8cm. However, note that one of the three versions of JAL's Boeing 787–8 aircraft has a 3-3-3 configuration, which shrinks the seat width to just 43.2cm.
The same thing happened to the 787's wide-body predecessor, the 777. Boeing designed the 777 with nine economy seats per row in mind, with a 3-3-3 configuration, and that was what airlines got when the aircraft entered service in the mid-1990s. After just a few years, the US carriers levered another seat into the mid-section and the trend caught on, especially with the introduction of the 777-300ER. Today it's almost impossible to find any airline operating a Boeing 777 with nine seats across.
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