So what do you want? Gas guzzling, noisy, polluting 3/4 engine aircraft burning almost 3 x as much fuel? I had the chance to fly an A321 Neo across the ocean and it was a pretty nice experience due to the seats and legroom.

It was the A380 that was removed from the Mel -Lhr route and replaced with the 787 which halved capacity and improved their yields.

They should have replaced it with a TBM850. Think of the yields!

At that time, the alternatives (767, 747, L1011, DC-10/MD-11...) offered more space for the passengers.
Today with 10 abreast 777, 9 abreast 787 and A330neo the A321XLR actually offers wider seats than their widebody competitors, so passengers will love to fly long range in "not that narrow"-body aircraft, which still allows 18 inch wide seats

What still puzzles me is why an 1980s short range aircraft becomes more economic on the transatlantic routes than a 2010s long range aircraft by simply adding additional fuel tanks :confused:
Did the modern engineers f*** up the A350/787 design so badly, that an old low sweep all metal wing with a larger engine more disturbing it can beat them ?

If the GTF makes all the difference, why not putting 4 of them on the A340s ? They are available in the required thrust range.

The A350 has a 3x heavier empty weight than the 321NEO, but it doesn't fit 3x more pax.

You're not alone, I 100% agree. The 737 is my least favorite plane as pax, and I fly on them a lot. Not so many 757s around anymore, but they were even worse.

The number of available seats is irrelevant, what matters for any specific route is the available bums to put on the seats.
Economy is driven by occupancy, running a small aircraft full of passengers will always make more money than a larger aircraft with too many empty seats.
The market is evolving towards tthe centre, small aircraft are getting bigger to cope with more traffic and at the same time large aircraft are getting smaller to cope with more secondary destinations and less big hubs.

The A321XLR fills a niche economically and it seems more comfortably. Larger aircraft are heavier but can fly a lot further and carry a lot more lucrative cargo.

At slot constrained airports if you can fill a 300 seat plane on a 7 hour sector you will still likely fly that over a 180 seat A321 but the latter might open up markets from the regions where a larger aircraft would struggle to fill.

6 abreast seating should create a more streamlined hull than 9/10 abreast seating as the fuselage cross section grows as the diameter squared.
(It's a bit flattened but still)
You also have one aisle for 6 rows, not 2 aisles for 9/10 rows.
I'm not sure how bending moments on the longer fuselage affect the weight but that could also be a factor.

The modern widebodies are all designed to fly 12 to 18 hours, not 6-8 hours.

Isn't it also much cheaper per seat to buy and service an A320 compared to an A350?

I'm mostly guessing, maybe someone can elaborate or refute the points i made.

My worst flight ever was on a Monarch 757 to the US, if i decide to fly long haul again i would much prefer a wide body.

A strechted aircraft is always the most efficient one.

That is one of the problems of the A380 - it was overdesigned to be strechted later but that never happened.

It was even made to be double stretched. The A380-800 is sized like the small A319 of the possible family. Imagine the A321's A380 equivalent.

Have flown across the pond many many times in BA's A318, 32 pax, flat beds, takes 5 minutes for everyone to board or get off - perfect. A little bit bumpy in winter on the eastbound though.

Flew a CO 757 GLA-EWR back in the day in Y which was less pleasant, CO handed out burgers for lunch, lady next to me asked for a vegetarian option and was told "just eat the bread."

It's not just the seat width - 'narrow body' aircraft simply feel small and claustrophobic - especially that long tube when they get long enough for over 200 passengers. Plus, loading/unloading over 200 people with a single aisle takes a long time which hurts turn times. I personally hate flying coach in a 757 (and I worked on the thing) - if I can't end up in first class I avoid flying 757s (same thing with 737/A320 when the flight is over a few hours). A cabin wide enough for twin aisle hurts drag and weight, but it opens up the cabin and makes for a generally more pleasant passenger experience (even with the same seat width/pitch). It also allows far more cargo room and even makes many maintenance tasks easier (I've spent time crawling around in the 757 avionics bay - and I mean literally crawling - by comparison I can stand upright in a 767 avionics bay).
That's why Boeing is probably going to go with a twin aisle one the MMA.

I think it is more likely to be a single aisle replacement for both the 737 and the 757.
Boeing has reached the end of the line on stretching the 737 which is their big cash cow so a replacement must be high on the urgency list.

That's not what my buddies still on the inside are telling me - 90% chance it'll be a twin aisle - it'll cover the passenger count range from the higher capacity 737s to the lower range of the 787.
My expectation is it'll basically be a plastic 767.

Has to be a twin aisle 2-3-2 design, anything bigger like 2-4-2 would compete with they already have.
Singles aisle are already stretched too far, and especially with a brand new design, a waste of a single aisle.
The issue with a 2-3-2 is the fuselage would be ovum, (aka 767) too heavy with aluminum, unlikely with composites to be cheap/easy to make.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0ec99a99ec.jpg


No wonder its taking so long to decide.

Maybe the dilemma is exactly what you point out. 2 Isles for only one extra seat (2-3-2) is not enough of a competitive advantage, and fuselage for 2-4-2 becomes heavy and/or expensive to build.

So how much further will the XLR then?