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Tennessean

Why Airplane Bathrooms Are About to Get Even Smaller

Jun 10, 2015  •  Post A Comment

The bathrooms on airplanes are already pretty small. As the newspaper The Tennessean puts it, “Airplane bathrooms and some London hotel rooms might be the only places where you can sit on a toilet, touch two walls with your kneecaps and wash your hands at the same time.”

But the paper reports that those onboard bathrooms are about to get even smaller.

“The engineers at Boeing (who are possibly sadistic but definitely not incontinent) have discovered that by shrinking the size of the lavatories, they can fit as many as 14 additional seats onto the newest 777-300ER,” the story reports.

The 777-300ER, the largest member of the 777 group of planes, currently has seats for up to 386 passengers. That number will go up with the 777X, which is due in 2020.

“In addition to stealing some square footage from the bathrooms, the engineers re-hung the overhead bins in a new way that lightened the plane’s overall weight by 1,200 pounds,” the story reports. “According to Bloomberg, the interior reconfiguration, along with enhancements to the engines and the wings, could improve the plane’s fuel economy by up to 5%.”

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