Originally Posted by
Dan Winterland
When Boeing were planning the 777, they were going to offer a version with folding wingtips so that it could fit onto narrow gates.
This arose because when the 777 was being designed (around 1990) it was envisaged as replacing the DC-10/L1011 then deployed on routes like Chicago to Los Angeles, and several US domestic terminals had sized their gates so the old big trijets would just fit. As a result it was not much of a fold envisaged to fit its larger wingspan, just a few feet, which would probably have just made it like a big winglet if you took off with it (OK all aerodynamicists, there's a tad of hyperbole there).
In the event by the time the 777 came into service its usage had changed completely to long-haul, and those trunk US routes had gone back to narrowbodies, so the squeeze at the terminal wasn't needed. There are no 777s actually in US domestic configuration.