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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

My takeaway is that Airbus and Boeing both need to make progress on their clean-sheet midsize designs. The A321XLR sounds great but it's kinda what Boeing has been doing to the 737, milking it for decades. The A320 is a newer design, for sure, but it's not young.

I won't miss the 737. What I'd love to see is a twin-aisle-but-small short range aircraft. Yeah, that won't happen, but it would be comfy.

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The Airbus A220 (formerly the Bombardier C-Series) is a clean sheet design and by most accounts, one of the best designs of its class today. It widely considered to be a next generation commercial aircraft, and will be unsurpassed by competitors for a couple of years until they catch up with newer designs. It’s enjoyed rave reviews by consumers and airplane nerds love it.

Delta has already bought a bunch and I look forward to these planes becoming more and more common.

Obligatory Wendover Productions video on the A220 and the fight with Boeing

https://youtu.be/V1YMPk3XhCc

IIRC, Boeing muscled the C-Series out of the market with race-to-the-bottom tactics, which eventually led to the Airbus acquisition of the program. If Airbus manages to meet its targets with the A220 this might constitute in ironic justice.

I look forward to the day when most of my regional flights are on A220s. CRJs are a little long in the tooth. ERJs are decent but A220s are much better.

Cabin config is of course airline dependent but in one of the default configurations the A220 middle seat is actually wider than the flanking seats. In a world no one cares about customer comfort this is a nice reversal.

As a frequent flyer customer I find comfort has much more to do with aircraft than cabin service: I flew 2 United segments in the past few days on 737 equipment. United flight attendants are the highest paid among US airlines but United doesn’t spend enough money on ops. Aircrafts had so many technical issues and both segments were heavily delayed and very uncomfortable. No amount of customer service would have helped.

My memory is that Bombardier expanded into territory they had never been in; outsourced to their partners a lot of details; had significant issues during major-part integration; and faced huge timeline crunches and overruns.

They also missed completion and delivery of air-frames on contracts with regional airlines. And other signs of "we messed up" on a project.

There seemed to be lots of complaints at the time (on Canadian forums and news-stories) about how the family that owns Bombardier would have been fired as C-levels in a public company based on this fiasco.

OTOH, I haven't heard anything about this in a long time.

It's also too small

No I don’t think so.

I know people that don't think a new airframe will be designed in our lifetimes, and it's hard to disagree. Why is it taking so long?

Because it costs money and Boeing would rather have larger executive bonuses than pay for a new design. The fact that a new design would be better for the future health of the company is irrelevant: the executives won't be there in 20-40 years, so why should they care about that? All that's important is their compensation in the next few years until they land a gig somewhere else.

It costs billions and take a decade. This is something to need to time very right, otherwise you can miss a shift in the market (see A380) or a new technology (like a new engine) after you started, or get a competitor to release before you. In the meantime, the current backlogs are full, so there's no rush; everyone is waiting for somebody to make a move and enjoying profits in the meantime.

But it will happen in our lifetime.

Twin aisle planes just aren't economical for 737-class short haul. Boeing's next plane[0] will probably be a twin-aisle design, but it's targeted as a slightly larger 757 replacement. Maybe if we're lucky we'll see that evolve to include a shorter variant to replace the MAX.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_New_Midsize_Airplane

Basically a 767-200

Got on a Delta 767-200 flight the other week and I loved it. Coach had so much room it was like sitting in first class on narrow-body. I had one of aisle seats on the side with only one row neighbor.

That's in the pipeline, but Airbus (and probably Boeing at this rate) are waiting for the next step up in engine technology before they make that investment so as to get the maximum step-up in fuel efficiency, and that is due in the 2025-2030 timeframe.

Why does the number of aisles matter to you?

It can be difficult/impossible to get to the bathroom during portions of the meal/drink service in a single aisle aircraft.

That's probably the least of their concerns when they design a plane though.

I wouldn't be so sure, passenger comfort was a big selling point of the 787 and the A380.

Absolutely- For a few years I was traveling over 100k miles annually interestingly mostly in the back of the bus on United's 757 fleet between EWR and SFO, and if I had a choice, I would choose a double aisle over a single aisle any day. In fact, I would do almost anything to avoid the 757- it's one of the oldest airplanes still in service, the last rolling off the assembly line 15 years ago.

Just the higher ceiling height on double-aisle aircraft make the trip so much less claustrophobic, and the double aisles mean that you aren't essentially held hostage until the service cart rolls by.

The 757 is an old, loud, design and loading/unloading it took forever, all the while you had cramped overhead bins. It wasn't often I could avoid the 757 when going to SF, but if I had any option, I would avoid it. Literally any other plane in service is a more pleasant experience. I always thought it was somewhat ironic that United chose the oldest plane in any major airline's fleet to fly between two tech hubs- those 757s were also pretty much the last to get wifi onboard as well.

The topic of 757s trigger me a bit :)

Twin-aisles are much easier to get around in.

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