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Boeing's 7E7 marketing looks beyond airlines to passengers

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  • Boeing's 7E7 marketing looks beyond airlines to passengers

    Boeing has been extolling the passenger-friendliness of its proposed new twin-jet 7E7.

    Mike Bair, vice president and general manager of the 7E7 program, spoke to a Bellevue Chamber of Commerce luncheon last week about such features as increased cabin humidity and air pressure, a quieter cabin, bigger windows.

    He also talked about features airlines will love: a bargain price and lower external noise.

    The new plane's noise ``footprint,'' for example, will not extend beyond the average airport's boundary fences, so airport neighbors will hardly know it's there.

    ``And we're not just talking about quieter engines,'' said Boeing spokeswoman Yvonne Leach. ``Mike was pointing out that much of the noise an airplane makes is caused by the way it cuts through the air.''

    Such aerodynamic noise, some say, was louder than the engines of the old tri-jet 727 during landing approach, when the engines were throttled back but the plane's huge wing flaps and slats were fully extended.

    Bair earlier had said Boeing ``is pretty clear about what our pricing strategy is going to be (for the 7E7): $125 million each plus or minus $5 million, depending on the exact configuration.''

    That's about the price of a 767-300ER, which the 7E7 is earmarked to replace, along with Airbus A300s, A310s and A330s.

    ``That pricing provides a lot of extra value to the customer for about what he paid for his last 767,'' Bair said -- more range, more seats, more revenue-rich belly cargo.

    But the rest of his talk at Bellevue's Hyatt Regency sounded like he was selling the plane not to airline customers, but to the customers' customers, the passengers.

    At eye level, the 7E7's 226-inch-wide fuselage will be 14 inches wider than Airbus' A330-A340. That width will allow eight-across seating in coach, 3-2-3, with 18½-inch-wide seat cushions and aisles 21½ inches wide. Six-across business-class seats, grouped 2-2-2, could be 21 inches wide with 25½-inch aisles.

    Cabin air currently is kept very dry at present, about 5 percent relative humidity, because condensation on the fuselage inner wall can corrode aluminum. But because the 7E7's composite fuselage will be less susceptible, the air will be humidified to 20-30 percent.

    While standard practice is to maintain cabin air pressure at 8,000 feet -- more than halfway up Mount Rainier -- the 7E7's cabin pressure will be 6,000, a little higher than downtown Denver.

    Cabin lighting will be supplied by banks of light-emitting diodes, giving airline cabin crew complete control of the lighting level and even color -- such as sky blue. And LEDs won't need to be replaced as often as fluorescent tubes.

    The windows will be 19 inches tall and 11 inches wide, the largest in commercial service, extending above the level of the seatbacks so those in the center-section seats can look out, too.

    They will not have pull-down shades, but will have variable opacity so cabin crew can darken them down to 3 percent opacity for movies or sleep cycles on long polar flights when the sun never sets.

    Overhead stow bins will be so deep that standard roll-on bags will go in with their tops out, not their sides. That will mean every passenger might stow a roll-on overhead, even without centerline bins in business class. That will leave the floor clear for foot room.

    The same on-board broadband networking and Internet connections that allows the plane to report its mechanical health to the airline's ground crews will keep passengers plugged in to their businesses.

    If you're a frequent flier now eager to board a 7E7, can you pressure your favorite airline into buying one? How well does it work to sell a new plane to passengers in hopes of selling to airlines?

    Perhaps not much, said Richard Aboulafia, aerospace analyst for the Teal Group in Fairfax Va.

    It's traditional to sell the passenger, he said -- early ads for the 747 showed passengers relaxing in an upper-deck piano bar. ``But there's no convincing evidence that passengers pick a certain plane to fly in.''

    Boeing's efforts to sell the 7E7 aren't as fanciful as Airbus' double-page spreads showing shopping malls, staterooms and showers in supersized, double-deck A380.

    ``Airlines offer such amenities and most passengers just say, `No thanks; I'd rather keep the extra $500,''' Aboulafia said.

    Paul Nisbet of JSA Research in Providence, R.I., agreed that airlines simply won't countenance features that take up valuable space that could provide more seats for more paying passengers.

    ``But you can provide passenger-friendly features such as Boeing is talking about that don't cost airlines money -- and people will clamor for it.''
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