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Comment by baud147258 | Hacker News Reader

> If you want passengers to want your plane, design it without sardines in mind; People don't like being sardines.

Isn't that something that's more the responsibility of the airlines, who decide how many seats are put in a plane, following the limits of the aircraft? Like if you want more legroom you take a more expensive ticket from a company that doesn't try to cram as many passengers in each plane

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> Isn't that something that's more the responsibility of the airlines, who decide how many seats are put in a plane, following the limits of the aircraft?

For pitch, yes. For width, no —- you run into quantization pretty quickly. The difference between sardines and standard economy is less than the difference between 3+3 and 3+2 — it’s not really feasible for most traditional airlines to choose a different number of seats across than the design point. And for a 3+3 setup, adding 6” to fuselage diameter makes a noticeable difference to (wider) passengers, which the airlines can’t really take away.

There's no incentive. Passengers rarely know what type they'll be flying on when they book, and prioritize it over price even less. For airlines, a bigger airplane is a distinct disadvantage though, as it's operationally more expensive (increased cross section equals increased drag equals increased fuel burn).

A fully loaded 747 is extremely profitable, the large size has economies of scale. That's why the 747 was very very popular with the airlines.

So, yes, a 747 burns more fuel. But the fuel burn per paying passenger is less.

The real issue with the 747 is people will take a point to point route if at all possible. Worse, flying a small plane point to point is cheaper for the passenger than flying 2 747s. If you live in Lincoln NE - sorry your city is too small to get direct flights to anything but close major hubs (even then odds are you drive to nearby Omaha thus further reducing demand options). However if you live in a Larger non-hub city airlines can undercut each other by just doing direct flights to other large non-hub cities.

The 747 was at its most efficient when flying long haul routes, like overseas. The 747 was immensely profitable for Boeing for several decades. Every sale was a giant chunk of cash dumped on the company. But none of that would have happened if the 747 wasn't also immensely profitable for the airlines.

True but small planes are profitable too even for long flights. They have to compete against the more profitable large ones but they do that by emptying the large ones. I want to get to a destination and if a small plane isn't much more money it is cheaper to not transfer at a hub and pay for the 2nd plane to where I want to be. More smaller planes can also fit my schedule which can save money.

there is a reason nobody flies the 747 anymore. It isn't profitable enough agaisnt the 777 and small planes which are cheaper to run.

> there is a reason nobody flies the 747 anymore

The reason is the aerodynamics of it are 60 years old making it no longer competitive with modern aerodynamics.

Compare your car with a 1965 Chevy Impala, for example.

Mostly it's about engine tech. A 777/787 or whatever can fit almost as many passengers as a 747, but has only two engines, burning less fuel and requiring less maintenance.

Back when 747 was designed engine tech wasn't there yet to build really big two engine airplanes. There was also the issue of ETOPS limits. The regulations on how far away from nearest airport you can fly with two-engine aircraft were stricter than today, so for many routes flying over oceans you needed more than two engines.

There's also the issue of cargo space. The 777-300 actually has a larger hold, about 11% more. Cargo is pretty lucrative so even passenger airlines like being able to devote some of their hold space to it.

Modern wings made a huge difference. Take a close look at a modern wing vs a 747 wing.

Modern wings could be retrofitted to the 747. Maybe not completely, but the more important features. However there are a lot of other parts of the 747 that don't make sense, and so not enough buyers (if any!) would exist if they did.

The 757 started out as a re-winged and re-engined 737. It turned out to be cheaper to design a new airplane.

It was an old airplane too and not as optimized as newer airplanes in terms of engines, aerodynamic design, weight and so forth.

The A380 was a step up in size and had additional problems such as there not being that many airports which had upgraded their gates and other facilities to support an airplane that big.

As aviation technology improved, the 747 could not improve its aerodynamics and so became relatively costlier to fly. It's longevity, however, was due to it's cost effectiveness for several decades.

That only works if you make the airplane enough bigger so that you can fit more seats and thus paying passengers. The parent comment was arguing to make the plane only a little bigger so that each passenger has more space, but not enough so that extra seats can be fitted.

> Passengers rarely know what type they'll be flying on when they book, and prioritize it over price even less.

Virtually every booking page gives you that information during booking, and I (and several of my friends) actively avoid any flight that has a MAX operating it, to the point that we'd rather fly longer and/or more expensive alternative routes operated with other models.

Seat and aisle widths are customer selectable options. Hence, a customer may order a 787 with 3-3-3 seating or 2-4-2 seating. The vast majority of airlines chose sardines instead of comfort. In a 737, customers only can get 3-3 seating, but they can choose wide (17.8”) seats and skinny aisles, like Southwest does, or they can choose skinny (17.1”) seats and wider aisles, like Alaska does.

... with wider seats and skinny aisles bringing more weight (-> more fuel consumption), and slower boarding/deboarding times (-> more time on the ground), both of which are cost drivers.

Sort of timely because I was on an Alaska Max 9 yesterday I couldn't believe how narrow the aisle was. I actually looked up whether a Max 9 fuselage was narrower than a traditional 737, it was that bad. Now, it's possible this plane had the wider seat option (possible ex-Hawaiian, if they used a different config?), but even so, I've been on a lot of planes, and this is the first where I felt like I had to walk down the aisle sideways.

I've only flown on Airbus planes and one of them had a middle isle that I must have been less than 18 inches wide. I felt claustrophobic.

Boeing is in constant communication with the airlines on new airplane designs, as they want to build the most profitable airplane for their customers that they can. This means the airline has a lot of input on fuselage diameter.

Pretty much. You can outfit pretty much any airframe you want to be business class only seating but not enough people will buy when it pops up on Expedia at 2+ times the price of the alternative.

I don't love Economy on long flights either but I'm mostly not willing to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for a more comfortable alternative for 8 hours or so.

I would buy an upgrade if it was twice the price. In reality it's more like 10x.

That is, in no small part, because business/first class is being subsidized by economy (and a lot of the passengers in those classes are status upgrades).

So, yes, sticker price for upper class service is pretty expensive. In a world where upper class service was the norm on certain routes on certain planes it would probably be pretty expensive but probably cheaper than the upgrade on mixed class service.

Do you have a source showing $/sqft of economy vs business/first class? This video is basically saying the opposite of you: that business/first class subsidizes economy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzB5xtGGsTc

It might be better to say that they form a system which is economically optimized as a whole. It is genius, for instance, that frequent fliers get upgrades from coach to first class when they're available because it means if a first class flier changes their plans or wants to fly on short notice an economy flier just says in coach and won't feel mad about it -- the first class seats are 100% occupied in terms of providing somebody a somewhat premium experience but are 50% occupied with full revenue customers and that 50% occupation is part of the completely premium experience because it means it is always available.

Yes, I was imprecise in what I wrote. There's a lot of cross-subsidization in various forms going on that makes all-business class at business-class prices tough for airlines even on routes like NYC to London--which have existed but not sure they do at the moment.

I heard only place where business + premium economy works is ultra long routes. Where people are willing to pay the premium of single leg over multi leg. So it seems people might be willing to pay for time, but not for comfort.

> That is, in no small part, because business/first class is being subsidized by economy (and a lot of the passengers in those classes are status upgrades).

That's the complete 100% opposite of truth. For most airlines, the economy class is just a nice addition to the business class.

There is a business-class only airline (La Compagnie) that flies from Newark to Europe and they're profitable. A little more expensive than 2x the price though, but less than 10x.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Compagnie

Never heard of this airline so I just checked: Over the next few months the cheapest flight from EWR to their base in Orly is ~$2,500 vs ~$365 for Economy (French Bee to be exact). That seems like its still a separate class and would exclude most Economy flyers.

Yup, as another poster noted, the seating density and comfort are decided by airlines. Aircraft manufacturers install standardized rails for seating and console selection, and allow for many different configurations.

In airline parlance, this is called "buyer furnished equipment". Boeing sells the airframe (without the engines, even if there's only one choice) and the seats, lavatories, etc. are all provided by the customer. The certifying authority (e.g. FAA/JAA) will have a maximum passenger count for the type. I'm reasonably certain that the BFE has to be certified as well, as you couldn't evacuate the type limit if the aisle wasn't in the center or you mixed 3-2 and 2-3.

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