Why give away the farm and deliver beyond their industry-leading, over-generous 31" pitch for short flights like EWR-HKG, when 9-abreast and 31" pitch might result in being able to squeeze in one more row of whY seats? Your proposal would be sheer madness.

I do not know.

I thought the consensus on the forum was that the 787's would end up with 32" pitch, but nine accross?

The 777 is very wide for 9-abreast. CO uses the extra width on the actual seatwidth and the aisle. It has easily the widest aisles (two of them, remember too) on any aircraft I've flown on in coach.

I've flown on AF's 777-300. They use part of that width in the armrests instead.

9-abreast on the 787 will have seat width similar to 10-abreast on the 747 (which airlines had used since the mid-70's, after converting from 9-abreast earlier on), and is better than than 10-abreast on the 777 like EK or CZ.

A small part of the 16 inches disappear in the fuselage skin, etc. The useful interior width of the 777 (per Boeing specs, total width of aisles + seats + armresets) is 5.82m. The 787 useful interior width is 5.45m. Thats about 14.5in difference.

Boeing standard designs:
8 across 787 has 21.5in aisles and 18.5in seats
9 across 787 has 18in aisles (7in more to the seats) and 17.2in seats
9 across 777 has 19.25in aisles and 18.5in seats
10 across 777 has 17in aisles and 17in seats
info from http://boeing.com/commercial/airports/plan_manuals.html

It seems that 737/757 seat width (17.2) is CO's minimum, or perhaps a 17in aisle (on the 10 across 777, like on EK) is too small for CO.

Edit: 10 abreast 747 has 19.5in aisles and 16.5in seats! (I did the math, since the 747 numbers include the armrest in the width). However, the standard 747 design seems to waste 2.5in by having a 2nd armrest in the middle of the center of 4 seats, as the seats are installed in pairs.

Bah! Give the peons and rabble down the back an inch, and they'll take a mile

Indeed - they already have demonstrated the willingness to sit in 31" pitch for up to 16 hours to HKG - why not reduce it to 30", for good measure? Perhaps CO could offer coupons for vascular surgery in each edition of the Continental Magazine.

Probably. See my above post. It's actually better than the 747 with 10 across. What would be great is if CO and other airlines did 9 across as:

xxx - xxxx - xx (seat = x, aisle = -)

instead of

xxx - xxx - xxx

It'll never happen, since it would add cost: it would require buying seats in both pairs and triples, and buying one more AVOD unit per row (one for the 3, two for the 4, one for the 2). It would also kill 2" of width between the center of the four seats, as that would be built as a pair of doubles.

My bet is narrower seats and less seat pitch...I hope I'm wrong...

As far as the innovative seats that "take less width", anyway you look at it, less space is less space...whether or not your armrest is 1.2 inches wide or 0.7 inches wide...

Bring it on! I'm planning to send my future children to Harvard by pursuing Class-Action DVT Litigation

At this rate, I fail to see why they are calling it the Dreamliner.

It is because of the large windows, higher ceiling, fancy interior lighting, and cabin air/humidity control system.

I must admit that the large windows will be a great feature. The innovative lighting system I experienced on the EK 345 was not terribly impressive, IMO, although the humidity control was nice.

As an aside, I find the windows on 767's and 777's to be adequate, but those on the 330's and 340's to be annoyingly small.

Small comforts if you are still crammed in like sardines!

Quote:
Originally Posted by BF263533 View Post
�The 787's better lighting, larger windows and smell of a new aircraft will make up for the crammed seat width.�

Yes. I have been a critic here on FlyerTalk of the 8 across coach 787 for probably almost a year. If you look at Boeing's advertisements, my opinion is that they are trying to convince us that we will "feel" more comfortable because of these appearance factors. Every time I see a Boeing ad or promo citing these factors, I ask myself how do they stop fatal blood clots from forming during long flights?

Just watch the Boeing ads and promos, and the airlines and Boeing trying to avoid discussing the 787's more narrow inside width.

Yes; larger windows do nothing to stop the development of DVT in one's legs.