Originally Posted by fastair

But that 1 inch more throughout nets a total of 28 MORE seats for lan after the rather substantial E+ adjustment, so it isn't quite an even trade off. For those that want 8 across and E+, would result in 20 less seat, (48 less than LAN) for 199 total seats. The entire economics of flying ultra long rangewith such a reduced revenue would take many of those markets off the table. ANA doesn't exactly fly in the sam competitive markets that the North American carriers do. It currently fits as a capacity replacement to a 767, but to remove 20 more seats would suck the potential porfit right out of the aircraft. UA's config gives almost 50% of the aircraft (108/219) to some sort of a premium seat, be it BF or E+. Using 8 across, more than 50% of the seats would be eithr a BF or E+ premium seat, and as a very large % of those are given away in terms of a loyalty perk vs cash in the bank, I think it would be a very unfavorable return on investment, especially to 2ndary long haul markets where each ticket sold of addl capacity is addl $$ with the only extra cost being marginal fuel per passenger and 1 extra flight attendant (and I doubt it will be staffed at FAA minimum for ultra long flying anyway as I am sure contract issues will staff them heavy for crew rest, so that cost may be moot.)

While I in no way consider it a "game chaging" aircraft, the way ETOPS was, or the 747 was for over water flying, I don't think "game changing" ever meant to lose money on the aircraft so under $200 people flying ultra long haul routes to secondary markets could have "the ultimate" in comfort at the expenceof long term viability of UAL corp as an entity by reducing potential revenue on every flight even more. As others have posted, "game changing" in reality is that it will be able to bypass hubs, and can be profitable into some smaller long haul markets given the lower operating costs. Reducing operaing revenues by an equal amount as reducing costs is not the way to make more money.