Tinseth, Boeing Commercial Airplanes vice president of marketing. Boeing customer airlines, however, took that list only as a suggestion and found additional potential. “We had not thought of opportunities like London-Heathrow to Austin, Texas, or in and out of places like San Jose,” Tinseth said. The 787 family’s long-range capabilities aren’t the only reason airlines use it for extended routes. Ron Baur, United Airlines vice president of Fleet, said some long routes could be performed with the larger 777, but now they can start up with or use the 787, which requires fewer passengers to fly at profitable load factors. “We love the flexibility the 787 offers so we can match the demand in the market,” he said. “If a route proves 28 | BOEING FRONTIERS more popular, we then can use a bigger aircraft to match it.” Baur said size, range and fuel economy are what make the 787 family work for the airline, which now can fly nonstop from its main hubs to secondary cities such as the ones dotting China, where United is the largest U.S. airline offering service. But there’s another benefit that airlines see—and passengers and crew feel. Flights as long as 17 hours, 25 minutes between San Francisco and Singapore—or even nearly 16 hours, as with the second-longest United Dreamliner flight, Los Angeles to Melbourne—can be tiresome on any airplane. Boeing designed the 787 family not only to fly long distances nonstop, thereby reducing connections and travel time for passengers, but also to improve their sense of comfort with an advanced cabin environment based on research. Inspiration for the 787’s passenger-centric design—including increased cabin humidity; larger, dimmable windows; LED dynamic lighting; vaulted ceilings to provide a sense of spaciousness; among other features— originated when Blake Emery, Commercial Airplanes’ director of differentiation strategy, and his team talked directly to their customers’ customers: passengers. “We figured out needs that passengers had but couldn’t articulate,” Emery said, describing how his team engaged
Frontiers December 2016 Issue
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