You need to submit a complaint to the airline.
I would ask them to either take action or give you some sort of compensation.

My dear friend works on the 787 (a different airline) and she tells me in her manual it states that the windows must be left alone so pax can control them (except for takeoff and landing of course).

Are cabin crew really this controlling on the 787 over the windows?

Working up the pointy end, I really do admire and respect the cabin crew I fly with for what they have to put up with and of course the huge amount of training they have to do. In my opinion they aren't paid enough (but then again, what profession is?)

Really!

Yes, really.

Some passengers pay for the window seat especially... and by having the window locked to dim and not being able to look out the window ruins the experience altogether.

I'm pretty sure the listing of controls above is not entirely correct. Cabin Crew have control over zones [as in the flickr image in the link] but not individual windows, so it is not possible to just unlock an individual window in a zone. From an engineering perspective I find these windows a completely unnecessary 'gadget' on the aircraft and another thing to go wrong [and they do go wrong] often failing with an uncontrollable 'yellow hue' when they fail. They are both expensive and time consuming to replace as well as being heavier, whereas the old style manual pull-down blinds on Boeing aircraft, could be replaced in a very quick time and being just a plastic assembly were both light and cheap.

I loathe flying 787s because of the window shade. QR and BA do it and it is so annoying. This was my view all the way from Doha to Edinburgh, bar the last 15 minutes

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....decb8f25ba.jpg

wub Thanks for the warning to avoid BS 787s too, Really nasty non-view.

I’ve not flown the 787 recently, but agree with other posters here about the desirability to enjoy the view. I always arrange a window seat away from the sun depending on route and time of day. I suspect we may be a somewhat select subset of passengers.

Last flew on the 787 about 8 years ago, when in short order I flew Qatar Airways, UK – Doha and return, Oman Air, UK – Muscat – Bangkok and return and KLM somewhere (?!) with no problems controlling the window at any flight stage – things may well have changed since then.

I don't want to keep all the cabin awake, but if I've paid for my seat (& extra nowadays to get a window seat of my choice), then for god's sake, please let me enjoy the view out of the window! Which I've paid for as much as Pax X paid for the aisle seat or Pax Y who likes watching cartoons on the IFE...

Exactly. I too pay ridiculous amounts for a window seat (ok, because I travel solo, so don't want to be 'stuck in the middle'...). I get tired of this argument that 'you'll keep everyone awake, with the shade open' I don't think anyone is suggesting having the shade fully or even half open and flooding light into the cabin' But the fact the choice has been taken away is my issue. At least BA didn't do that on their 787 the one and only time I flew it with them (don't know if they do now).

I don't mind if the cabin crew change the settings so that the brightest levels are not an option for the pax, but at least keep the lower settings available; that's an acceptable compromise, but no-one seems to compromise anymore. It's either/or - from one extreme to the other.

I was reading a thread on Reddit and so many people were pissed off because, as I understand it, in the States, UA close the shades even on day time flights! Mark my words, it will be windowless tubes in no time.

What happened to curiosity and admiring the natural world once in a while...

Question: Would the airlines, as the customer, have had to agree with this option on the 787?

I very much doubt that the window controls differ on any airline's 787s.

Being a dyed in the wool "looker out of the window" kind of guy, I was a bit confused on my last 787 Transatlantic.
Over Greenland, my window kept dimming.
Seemed like every time I looked away this happened.
I turned up the brightness so to speak and within a couple of minutes a hand appeared from the seat behind and dimmed it again.

Apparently the Didums behind wanted to sleep and the light was puting him off.
I contested him and he got really nasty.
Amongst other things, he claimed part ownership of the said window.
I did something I never do, as I hate it being done to me, I whacked my seat to the max recline and took 100% of ownership !

In fairness, as soon as we were over water, I dimmed it again for Didums :-)