Originally Posted by
captjns
At a first group meeting, attended by UAL, JAL, AA, and BA to name a few, held in January 1990, a 23-page questionnaire was distributed to the airlines, asking what each wanted in the design. By March of 1990, preliminary designs, for the B777, were started. First Flight... June, 1994, and entered into service, by UAL, a 121 operator, June of 1995.
Look at 787 and A350, both took close to 10 years. Partly because of new manufacturing methods required, and because of market requirements. Both would play a huge role on development of a single pilot plane.
It's harder today to design a new airplane that someone would actually buy, the market is pretty saturated with existing models for pretty much any segment you can imagine.