Airlines cramming more seats into Dreamliner than Boeing expected

beavis wrote:
American lost *millions* betting that people would pay for a little bit
of comfort. But they won't.


There is more to it.

The "More legroom" happened at a time when AA went on a major fleet
replacement cycle that resulted in larger 737s replacing MD8x aircraft.
The "More Room" project was simply a way to moderate the capacity growth
as a result of all those new bigger planes coming on-line. And a great
marketing opportunity. Eventually, they would have added seats to the
aircraft once load factors warranted it.


After 9-11, AA realised that its growth predictions were no longer
valid. Adding seats onto its new aircraft allowed AA to get rid of the
older aircraft sooner and postpone/cancel future deliveries.

nobody wrote:

beavis wrote:

American lost *millions* betting that people would pay for a little bit
of comfort. But they won't.



There is more to it.

The "More legroom" happened at a time when AA went on a major fleet
replacement cycle that resulted in larger 737s replacing MD8x aircraft.
The "More Room" project was simply a way to moderate the capacity growth
as a result of all those new bigger planes coming on-line. And a great
marketing opportunity. Eventually, they would have added seats to the
aircraft once load factors warranted it.

But... they actually removed seats from existing aircraft.

mrtravel wrote:
But... they actually removed seats from existing aircraft.

Correct. They did a system-wide change to increase seat pitch. But this
was because system-wide, AA was increasing its capacity with the
incoming new aircraft, so they could afford to make the bold marketing
move to increase seat pitch.

And in the end, what probably drove this move was the need to show good
financials. Decreasing number of seats of per aircraft when your fleet
in growing prevented the load factors from dropping too much.

Remember that this was at a time when AA have placed that huge order
for new Boeing planes with an "exclusive supplier for the next XX years"
clause which was later declared illegal. And this was at a time when AA
had to scramble to meet Stage III requirements (along with the other
legacy carriers who still had ancient planes in their fleets).