Eric said--- I have no idea if they put any effort into making them [airplanes] attractive. Hardly any reason for it. When a person books a flight I don't think he or she cares one twit what the airplane looks like.
Yes, passengers do care about what a plane looks like. Survey after survey proves this and it's why the 747 is still the most recognized and favorite plane among passengers even if its era is over. It's why the highway sign symbol for an international airport in the US and other countries is a 747 silhouette. It's why the initial design for the 787 had a streamlined hump in the forward body, to capitalize on the recognition factor that the 747 has proved is there among the flying public.
The CEO of Qantas told me back when that airline started ordering its 737s with winglets that one of the reasons that influenced their decision to get winglets on all their 737s even though the ones in short haul service didn't benefit from them all that much was that passengers were commenting over and over that the winglets made the planes look "cool" and "sophisticated," "modern," and "high-tech." This was a huge branding and image boost for Qantas and the CEO said that this made it well worth the extra cost of putting winglets on all their planes.
So yes, we put a hell of a lot of effort into making the plane look attractive, particularly the interior.
And aesthetics are fiercely contested at times. There were major knock-down-drag-out fights between the marketing and sales people, the airlines, and the design engineers on the final shape of the 787. Some of them, like the elimination of the hump, were won by the design engineers. Some of them, like the shape of the tail, were won, or at least partly won, by the marketing and sales folks. And some of them, like the dimensions of the cabin, were won by the airlines. We video taped a lot of these meetings and it was absolutely fascinating to hear the reasons--- both practical and psychological, objective and subjective---- given by all sides in support of their arguments. Probably the most interesting and educational thing I've ever been witness to.
I even had a teeny, tiny role in it. I'm the reason the flowing speed stripe in the company livery goes over the top of the horizontal stabilizer instead of under it.
There are aesthetics, too, in the shape of flight deck windows, the fairings, even the look of the wing light assemblies. There are certainly aerodynamic and structural considerations, too, with these things. But there are a lot of ways to meet those requirements with a wing light assembly, for example. You can make them look ugly or you can make them look nice. They will be functional either way. But the design engineers generally try to make them look nice for their own satisfaction if nothing else.
