# How much the same aircraft varies

URL: https://departcart.com/learn/cabin-layout-variation
Published: 2026-08-28
Updated: 2026-08-28

The same aircraft type can carry twice as many seats for one airline as another. What 454 published cabin layouts show about variation, density and pitch.

Ask what a Boeing 777-300ER's cabin looks like and you have not asked a
question yet. Across the researched layouts published on this site, that one
airframe flies with as few as 212 seats and as many as 472. The walls are
identical. Everything between them is an airline's commercial decision.

The same aircraft type can differ by hundreds of seats between airlines. Across
the 454 published cabin layouts, the widest spread on one type is 260 seats on
the Boeing 777-300ER, displayed economy pitch runs from 28 to 33 inches, and 11
aircraft types show a spread of more than 100 seats between their operators.
A seat map is only accurate when it is drawn for the airline flying the
aircraft, not for the type.

## One airframe, two very different aircraft

[All Nippon Airways configures the Boeing 777-300ER](/seat-maps/all-nippon-airways-nh/boeing-777-300er-b77w)
with 212 seats, giving most of the cabin to premium classes.
[Air France's densest researched configuration](/seat-maps/air-france-af/boeing-777-300er-b77w)
of the same type carries 472. A traveller who has flown one would not
recognise the other from the inside, and a seat map drawn for either one
misdescribes the other in nearly every row.

The pattern is not a widebody quirk. Of the 28 researched aircraft types flown
by two or more airlines, 11 show a spread of more than 100 seats between their
smallest and largest configuration.

**Fewest and most seats on one aircraft type, across researched layouts**

| Category | Fewest seats | Most seats |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 777-300ER | 212 | 472 |
| A350-900 | 161 | 391 |
| A380-800 | 407 | 615 |
| A350-1000 | 213 | 397 |
| 787-8 | 184 | 335 |
| A330-300 | 226 | 363 |

Across the researched layouts, the Boeing 777-300ER spans 212 to 472 seats, the Airbus A350-900 spans 161 to 391, the Airbus A380-800 spans 407 to 615, the Airbus A350-1000 spans 213 to 397, the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner spans 184 to 335, and the Airbus A330-300 spans 226 to 363.

The extremes have stories the data states plainly.
[Singapore Airlines' smallest researched Airbus A350-900 configuration](/seat-maps/singapore-airlines-sq/airbus-a350-900-a359)
carries 161 seats and no economy cabin at all: 67 in business and 94 in premium
economy. [Emirates' densest Airbus A380-800](/seat-maps/emirates-ek/airbus-a380-800-a388)
carries 615 across two classes, while
[Korean Air configures the same double decker](/seat-maps/korean-air-ke/airbus-a380-800-a388)
with 407.

## Pitch varies as much as the seat count

Seat count is the visible half of density. The other half is
[seat pitch](/glossary/seat-pitch), and across the 167 economy cabins where
the pages display one, it runs from 28 inches on
[Austrian Airlines' Airbus A320neo](/seat-maps/austrian-airlines-os/airbus-a320neo-a20n)
to 33 inches on
[Philippine Airlines' Boeing 777-300ER](/seat-maps/philippine-airlines-pr/boeing-777-300er-b77w).
Five inches is the difference between a laptop that opens and one that does
not, on two seats that both sell as economy.

The pages display a pitch on 230 of the 977 cabins in the published layouts,
because a pitch is shown only where it is recorded with confidence. Where it
is not, the pages say "not recorded" rather than estimating, and this article
holds itself to the pages' own gate: a figure the reader cannot see on the
linked page does not appear here either.

## What this means for anyone selling a seat

A seat map keyed to the aircraft type is wrong somewhere for 11 of the types
above, and can be wrong by an entire cabin class. The researched layouts
behind this article are published as
[browsable seat maps for every airline and aircraft pairing](/seat-maps), and
the [seat selection product](/platform/seat-selection) draws the cabin for the
operating airline of the actual flight, which is the only version of the map
that answers the traveller's real question: what is this seat, on this
aircraft, on my booking?

**Insight:** Every figure on this page is computed from the researched layout data that
renders the seat map pages, and a test recomputes each figure whenever that
data regenerates. When the coverage grows, the numbers here change with it or
the build fails. That is the same standard we hold any external statistic to,
applied to our own.

## See the cabins behind the numbers

Browse the researched layouts airline by airline, or read how the seat selection product uses them on a live booking.

[Browse the seat maps](/seat-maps)

## Frequently asked questions

### Why does the same aircraft type have different seat maps?

Because the airframe fixes the walls and the airline chooses everything inside them. Cabin classes, seat models, galley positions and pitch are commercial decisions, so two airlines can configure the same aircraft type with hundreds of seats between them.

### How different can two airlines' versions of one aircraft be?

In the researched data, the widest gap on one type is 260 seats: the Boeing 777-300ER flies with 212 seats in its most premium researched configuration and 472 in its densest.

### Does a generic seat map for an aircraft type mislead travellers?

Often, yes. A generic map shows one configuration of a type that may fly in a dozen. The row that map shows as standard economy can be an exit row, a different cabin, or missing entirely on the aircraft actually scheduled.

### Where do these figures come from?

From the cabin layouts published on this site, through the same publication filters the seat map pages use: every figure is computed from the same data that renders those pages, and a test recomputes each one whenever the data changes.