As far as i know the 35" on Thomas Cook is only on a couple of aircraft which fly dedicated routes to Canada. (i believe for Canadian Affair)
Before i give my opinion about the First Choice product i would like to make clear that this is not a stab at First Choice. I fly for another Charter operater and have been on board the FCA 767. When i was on board i had a chat with the Captain (management pilot) and he told me the following story.
The 767's and interior are payed for by Boeing as part of the 787 deal. The passengers love the product but are not willing to pay more for the service. Hence, FCA is having a hard time to make a profit on these aircraft. They do make a profit on them but not as much as a 767 would in the normal charter configuration. If the market recognizes the advantages of this FCA configuration and is prepared to pay for ti than FCA would continue this in their 787's. However if this is not the case than FCA would choosefor a more conventional charter configuration on their 787's.
Again i would like to stretch to any FCA employee this is not a fight against FCA. I have been on board the 767 and would choose FCA over my own company if i have the choice. The story above is exactly as it was told to me by this management pilot. I hope it all works out for you guys and that in the long term all charter operaters are changing their configuration to the same configuration as currently on the FCA 767's.
For the rest. For most charter company's the tour operater has a big influence in the seating capacity of the aircraft. Within our company everybody wants to reduce the amount of seats but the tour operaters request an aircraft with an X amount of seats. If we decide to remove seats than the tour operater would take their business to another airline and we are out of business. So, you can't always blame the airline.
FT