Airliner Design Dilemma
With the recent publicity about squeezing in additional seats on the T7 and 78 to increase the capacity at the expense of pax comfort it occurs to me that Boeing while making hugely successful aircraft in terms of sales didn't do a very good job for the end user (Pax) by making the aircraft too narrow for the optimum number of seats abreast in Y.
oddly Boeing in designing the 76 made it one of the very best planes to fly on as passenger as 2-3-2 is really nice compared say to the DC10 and the dreaded middle block of 5 seats.
However with all that experience why di they not build the T7 a tad wider to accommodate the 747 standard 10 abreast and similarly allow for an extra seat width wise on the 787.
Obviously there are costs involved but it seems to be a bit of a Boeing thing to skimp on width apart from the mighty 74 and the aforementioned 767.
So my question is when they do the huge amount of design work do they take a conscious decision that we will build it this width and if airlines want to risk loads by overcrowding that's there problem.
Of the the biggest contrast in this is to fly on a 380 which is wonderfully comfortable in all classes and a 777 which can feel very cramped by comparison and for my tastes does wallow around quite a bit in the cruise.
PB