Since the most prevalent aircraft are 3-3 narrowbodies, most of the flying public doesn't know window seats as anything but being two seats away from the aisle so they will easily make that tradeoff aboard a 3-3-3 / 3-4-3 widebody. There are many reasons to prefer window seats even if you're not into aviation - a form of entertainment, the feeling of better awareness of the flight progress, less claustrophobia, opportunities for photography (whether those are iPhone pics for a snapchat story or professional images), being able to sleep better by leaning against the wall, etc etc
Even outside the 'avgeek sphere' many people who sit by the window do so completely voluntarily, window seats are usually the first ones to be taken if you look at seat maps during online check in. Actually, some people prefer the 2-5-2 config over 3-3-3 due to the philosophy that there's only one person per row (middle seat) in 2-5-2 that needs to crawl over two people to get to the aisle, while there's 2 seats (two window seats) in 3-3-3 that require you to crawl over two people.īut with 3-3-3 there's a positive tradeoff to the drawback of having to climb over two people: A window. I once flew on an AA 777-200 in a 2-5-2 config, back before the retrofits.
