This is what a Boeing 787 looks like before seats are installed and it's totally surreal to see

Before the seats, aisles, and overhead bins are installed, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner looks almost nothing like the passenger aircraft we’re used to seeing.

The huge, empty cabin makes the aircraft look more like an enormous industrial spaceship than a commercial jet.

But stripping away the interior fittings reveals just how much space is packed inside one of Boeing’s most advanced passenger aircraft.

And seeing a 787 in this unfinished state is totally surreal.

The Boeing 787 looks completely different without its seats

Once the seats and other cabin equipment disappear, the Boeing 787 airplane wide fuselage becomes much easier to appreciate.

The open floor stretches from one end of the aircraft to the other, with the structural elements of the cabin exposed.

There are no rows of seats, no passengers, no luggage bins and none of the familiar features that make it immediately recognizable as a commercial plane, instead, you’re left with a huge open shell.

The Dreamliner’s high ceiling is particularly striking from this perspective and with nothing blocking the view, the scale of the cabin becomes much more obvious.

The aircraft’s oversized windows also stand out, giving the unfinished interior an almost futuristic appearance, like a spaceship and it’s a glimpse of the aircraft that most passengers will never experience.

This is what a 787 looks like before it becomes a passenger plane

The empty cabin also offers a fascinating look at just how much work goes into transforming an aircraft from a bare plane like this into a finished passenger airplane.

Seats, galleys, toilets, lighting, entertainment systems, overhead bins, and countless other components all have to be installed before the aircraft is ready to carry passengers.

Once everything is in place, much of the underlying structure disappears behind panels and cabin fittings.

That’s why these images are so fascinating.

The Boeing 787 is usually associated with luxury, like huge windows and comfortable passenger cabins, but underneath all of that is an enormous space and seeing it before the seats are installed completely changes the way the aircraft looks.

It also puts the sheer scale of a modern plane into perspective, making you wonder (probably for the millionth time) how planes actually stay in the air.

Before the interior goes in, however, it’s a vast empty space inside one of the world’s most recognizable passenger aircraft – and it looks almost like a completely different plane.