Originally Posted by
RustyC
... Yet this disconnect keeps happening, even though Boeing should have learned long ago to assume the worst and don't give 'em a choice where one option would be to make things really miserable for pax. ...
I joined the 777 Customer Engineering organization shortly after Boeing launched the program in 1995, so my perspective isn't necessarily current ... but I will suggest that passengers' feelings about cabin accommodations absolutely do NOT matter to Boeing (nor, presumably, to every other major airframer) in terms of influencing design decisions
Boeing Commercial provides the interfaces (structural attach points. power, air, water, etc) for pretty much everything in the cabin as part of the airframe; all the passenger-facing items -- seats, galleys, lavs, overhead bins, passenger service units (containing vents, lights, call buttons, etc), closets, IFE, and the like -- are buyer-furnished equipment
Boeing Commercial makes money from their customers -- principally airlines and leasing companies -- thus only indirectly from the paying passengers