Sky Couch’ Offers Coach Cabin Innovation

For the past decade or more, innovation in the airline business has come outside the U.S. The biggest contribution from U.S. carriers lately: baggage fees.

Overseas, airlines developed lie-flat business-class beds and first-class suites. They were the early adopters of video-on-demand entertainment systems, new aircraft like the Airbus A380 and now the Boeing 787. They’ve had the profits to invest in developing new products and services.

This week’s Middle Seat explores one of the first new innovations in the coach cabin in many years, and it comes, predictably, from an airline outside the U.S. Air New Zealand did some creative thinking and careful research in a warehouse in downtown Auckland and created a flying futon for coach passengers.

The “sky couch’’ gives a couple or parents traveling with a child the chance to lie down and sleep in the coach cabin. It’s still cramped — “cuddle class’’ is the best way to describe it. But in these days of flights 80%-90% full on average, there’s no other way to lie down in economy.

The idea is amazingly simple. Arm rests recede into the seatbacks and a footrest padded panel swings up and locks into place, extending the seat bottoms all the way to the seats in front of you. You turn three seats into a small couch.

Feet hang out into the aisle, and cuddlers have to work to find mutually comfortable sleeping positions. Most people in the 15 sky couches sold on a recent flight I was on liked it; a few said they probably wouldn’t pay the extra $500 or more for the sky couch. One added benefit: Even if you don’t like the couch, at least you bought the middle seat between you for half-price, an option many travelers appreciate.

Installing the flip-up panel means the airline carries a bit of extra weight on every flight. But it also collects extra revenue, selling middle seats that likely otherwise would be empty. But beyond the economics for airlines, there is the benefit of offering more choice and new ideas to weary travelers rather than repacking the same services for added fees.