Why isn't there one large window at each seat anymore?

By Mon Feb 6, 2017

History

Ever since the days of the Ford Tri-Motor and Douglas DC-3, airliners were designed with one large window for each passenger row so that each window seat was actually located right at the window. This design tenet carried over from Lockheed’s famed Constellation to their turboprop Electra and from Douglas’s DC-7 to their DC-8 jet aircraft. However Boeing and Convair jets sported additional smaller rectangular windows spaced fairly close together, and most jet aircraft today use that configuration.

Flexibility

The seat track configuration gives the airlines the ability to configure the passenger cabin to meet rapidly changing demands both for types of seating – first business or economy – and the number of seats.

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