Ron - I DID read what you said - and I said I THOUGHT I had read that Airbus were making a change.
And YES - I'm all for the fact the aircraft are applying a differential pressure as you state. But for passengers the experience is more in terms of "attitude felt" which is what I THOUGHT I was summarizing.
Dig Dig Dig Dig.....
So to summarize a number of decent looking sources.
Turns out - CONCORD was the first to offer an improved cabin experience over other pressurized airliners. Operating at 60,000ft - the cabin "felt" like 6,000ft. At a time when most airliners were aiming for 8-10,000ft after applying maximum pressure differential to their maximum cruise height. They had a serious differential of 13.6lb applied. No wonder those windows were tiny and thick. I wonder what a decompression event would have felt like at maximum altitude. Serious case of the bends I think.
Turns out I was wrong about it being Airbus. Boeing were next to make a substantive difference with the Dreamliner. Aiming for a 6,000ft experience - and from what I read - not using bleed air. Another benefit of the carbon hull being not having to scrub all the humidity out the air to dry it to help with long term corrosion issues of pressurized wet air on an aluminum hull. Passengers feel less dehydrated after a long trip as the air is moister.
And Airbus were next with the A350.
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Peace.
