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British Airways 787-9: where are those pesky boxes under the seats?

Posted by (Tucson) on

I'm on British Airways flight 0048 from Seattle to London and 0049 London back to Seattle. I can pay in advance to select my economy main cabin World Traveller seats or wait to select them 24 hours before the flight for free.

The plane both directions is a 787-9. The seating pattern is ABC aisle DEF aisle HJK. I do not want a seat with one of those boxes under the seat in front of me limiting the space for my big feet and inhibiting the ability to move my cranky knees. I prefer aisle seats C or F, but would consider D or H -- if C or F have boxes but D or H don't. The seats in the main cabin are 17.5" wide, so having a box really narrows the foot and leg room.

I've researched online and guess what? I get different answers to the locations of those boxes from organizations supposedly in the know. I searched here and never found anything mentioning them at all. Seat Guru didn't have that much detail either, but there is one 2017 passenger taken photo that shows a box under seat A (window). It's on the right and appears to be about 4 inches wide.

Has anyone flown on British Airways in a 787-9 and actually seen where those boxes are? If they are under C or F seats how big are they?

Thanks in advance for your observation.

Posted by
4853 posts

Very good question, unfortunately it may not be answerable. Even given a particular type of aircraft, there are still various sub-configurations. Coming back from Paris on Delta, without notice our plane was substituted for an "equivalent" plane, except the seating was different enough that there were people with matching seat assignments trying to figure out what to do.

If it's any help, on one of those Delta flights I was peeved to discover those damned boxes in front of me. Luckily I had premium econ so there was enough legroom but my bag had to go into the overhead.

Posted by
65 posts

This link on Flyertalk indicates that boxes are under A, C, D, F, H, K seats on the 787-9, so you may be out of luck in terms of avoiding them altogether.

Posted by
59 posts

The box under the seat is the hardware for the inflight entertainment system. Seat maps won’t indicate which specific seats have them.

Posted by
114 posts

I was on the BA to Sea flight last week. I had an F seat and due to the box there wasn't enough room for my under the seat bag - which normally fits with no problem. Fortunately the person in the middle E seat let me share some of her underseat space.

Posted by
892 posts

You might also be able to find a YT trip report of someone on that same flight who will mention the boxes.

Posted by
4183 posts

It looks like there's no hope in economy. I finally found some pictures online that show just how crowded the foot space is for aisle and window seats. I'll just have to cope. 🥴

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