Air New Zealand has introduced a new sleeping seat for long-distance travel. It is called the skycouch. It is the first step up from coach. Basically, it allows two passengers to share what amounts it seems to a twin bed.
The new seat allows passengers to choose to extend the bottom cushion of their seats to the seats in front of them providing an amble bed to sleep on. This will work great if you are flying with a significant other, but might be a little awkward if with a complete stranger.
22 sets of the SkyCouch seats will be available and will cost about the same as two and a half non-Skycouch seats.
The seats at first glance look like a normal set of three coach seats. The difference is that what seems be a footrest rises forward providing a wide enough space for a couple to sleep side-by-side. Or, it might be good for a parent and a couple of toddlers.
Each person sharing the seats will be charged for one-and-a-half coach seats. At least that is the plan. According to the Times of London
The pioneering design has been developed specifically to cater for young families or older couples on the high-end tourist route. It takes up no more space than a conventional economy seat, so the airline will not lose passenger numbers — although a couple will have to buy a third ticket at half the standard fare to be able to lie together.
I guess anyon who has traveled on European trains could look at these seats as the couchettes of of the air.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
A couple will need to pay 2.5 times fare to get a skycouch, ie 25% extra each.
Great! Another way to penalize the solo traveler! I wonder if buying three seats is any cheaper than business class or first class. But I suppose it’s a useful option for a specific group of customers.
@Hapgood, what you can do? It [almost] always was cheaper to travel with somebody, instead of solo.
At first I thought this was a joke announcement by ANZ, then I realized this wasn’t.
Roger Poulton, vice president of the Americas for Air New Zealand, said, “… the Skycouch design will likely be very popular … especially for families traveling together. Parents could purchase two seats in the center of the cabin, and then a row of three across from them where the kids can lay out and sleep.
I’d like to know what Poulton has been smoking. Most of the families I know with two kids wouldn’t, couldn’t use it. At an early age my two wouldn’t ever consider being draped against each other to go to sleep on a plane, or anywhere else. I asked around to neighbors about this who have children. They said, even if they thought it a great idea for themselves (they don’t) their kids wouldn’t consider it for a millisecond. The kids would consider it torture on the level of water-boarding at Abu Ghraib.
I checked with Seat Guru. The widest seat on ANZ is 17.8”. The new seats aren’t going to be wider since the planes aren’t wide enough to accommodate wider seats. That makes the three seats have a total of 53.4″ or just a shade under 4.5 feet! That makes me question even more than before how much additional comfort one could derive from the new configuration. I’m a short person and my legs would extend more than a foot past the end of that “bench.” So, to keep my legs inside the end of the row, even I’m going to be scrunched up.
I’m wondering, as people sleep, and “involuntarily” stretch out, what’s going to happen when someone wants to move through the aisle.
Maybe I’m missing something which someone can explain to me, but I think a regular economy seat would be more comfortable to sleep on than this row, unless I had it to myself, and that would be some hefty fee for a padded bench.
Further, how do you do seat belts? If the seat belt light is lit, do the “footrests” need to go down? How do you stay belted? One person could “twist” the middle or window seat belt to hold them. But if there are two, the one who is the forward-most of the two would not have access to the belts. So, everytime a liability-sensitive pilot illuminates the seat belt sign due to CAT, the FA’s are going to have to wake up everyone and get them belted. I’d sooner sleep seated upright.