Over the Pacific Ocean

Steve Metz of Houston cuddled up with his wife Jackie and slept as they flew to New Zealand on a small futon. This flying couch wasn't in a private jet or even a high-priced business-class cabin. They snuggled in coach.

Innovation has been virtually non-existent in the coach cabin for decades. Now Air New Zealand has produced something new: A way for coach passengers to lie flat, via a new-fangled futon. Scott McCartney has details on Lunch Break.

"I don't sleep well on planes, but I actually slept a good five hours," said Mr. Metz, aboard a 13-hour Air New Zealand flight from Los Angeles to Auckland recently. "It's no king-sized bed, but we made do."



"It was OK, but not necessarily everything I was looking for," said Bryan Anderson of Denver, who decided to upgrade to sky couch for his honeymoon flight with his bride Carla.

He found the space tighter than anticipated and struggled with what to do with his feet and how to find a comfortable position for two people. "It is a sky couch and not a sky bed. It was a lot like sleeping on the couch at home," Mr. Anderson said.


Legrests open to make a flying futon, but space is still tight. Air New Zealand

It's been decades since major innovation has come to the airline coach cabins, unless you count squeezing seats closer together or selling soggy sandwiches. Work on the sky couch project began in 2004, when Air New Zealand began ordering 17 new 787 and 777 aircraft from Boeing BA -2.04% Boeing Co. U.S.: NYSE $121.89 -2.54 -2.04% March 13, 2014 4:01 pm Volume (Delayed 15m) : 6.04M AFTER HOURS $122.15 +0.26 +0.21% March 13, 2014 7:58 pm Volume (Delayed 15m): 35,786 P/E Ratio 20.20 Market Cap $92.50 Billion Dividend Yield 2.40% Rev. per Employee $514,388 03/13/14 Boeing and Airbus More Bullish... 03/13/14 China Mobile Says It Was Unabl... 03/13/14 Investigators Suspect Missing ... More quote details and news » and decided to try and come up with something completely new in long-haul airline travel. This goal led to a secretive warehouse research lab in downtown Auckland, next door to the House of Haghi rug shop.

Air New Zealand studied household furniture and, in its warehouse lab, experimented with bunk beds, staggered coach seating in kind of a tic-tac-toe pattern that would allow passengers to stretch out more with legs protruding between seats, or even stacking seats atop each other in the coach cabin. Ideas were plentiful, but coming up with something that would pass safety standards so that people and seats wouldn't go flying in an accident proved difficult.

"There's quite a small number of practical ideas you can deliver," said Kerry Reeves, the airline's program director who led the redesign.

Bunk beds, with the top bunk actually a flat panel pulled down from the bottom of overhead bins, were something that could be built to required safety standards. With two seats facing each other, one passenger would take the top bunk and the other would fold the two seats into one lie-flat surface. The top bed locked into place and had a ladder for climbing in and out. The idea was similar to a train layout.

But Air New Zealand couldn't quite figure out how to sell it. The accommodations weren't up to business-class standards, but were better than "premium economy." Selling it would create a new class, which might be difficult for computer-reservation systems or alliance partners.

"The product was good, but for the market right now, we had to park and leave it," Mr. Reeves said. He, however, is sure the bunk bed idea will come back.

Seat manufacturers built mock-ups of Air New Zealand's most promising ideas, and the airline invited some customers and staff to secretly test them out. Pretend three-hour flights were run in the warehouse, which is marked only by a mysterious "Cellar Nine" sign with the airline's logo over the front door. The sessions included safety briefings, meals, in-flight entertainment and aircraft noises. Actors were hired to role-play some typical customer behaviors—sometimes invasive, distracting or disturbing—to make the experience as accurate as possible.

The airline thought staggered seats would be a hit because people got more space, but customers hated them. Some said it felt like sitting in the middle of a room with everyone watching you.

What they did like was the sky couch, Mr. Reeves said. The airline considered putting the couches across the four seats in the middle of the 777-300 coach cabin, but people in the tests preferred three seats on the side, where they felt less exposed and more like they were in a private cocoon. Different methods of making the couches were tested, such as removable boards or inflatable bags. A fold-up leg rest proved best.

"Everybody says, 'Oh, it's so simple. Why wasn't that thought of before?' " said Mr. Reeves. "You had to go through the whole process to get there."

So far, the seats are selling well. On a Los Angeles-Auckland flight last month, 15 of the 20 sky couches on the 777-300 were sold, said flight attendant Jaheb Barnett, the concierge on the trip. Since travel agency computers aren't set up to deal with sky couch bookings, most are bought through the airline's website or through a call to the carrier. It's been so popular, the airline is studying whether to add more couches to its fleet.

Air New Zealand figures it is selling middle seats at half-price that otherwise would have gone empty on flights. The airline, which patented the sky couch, says it has had numerous inquiries from other carriers. "It's not going to make an airline instantly profitable, but it is a revenue stream," Mr. Reeves said

About half of the sky couches sold have been bought by couples. Most of the rest are bought by families, Air New Zealand said. A single person can buy the three-seat couch, but the cost approaches a more-comfortable business-class seat. If two strangers end up seated in one of the sky couches, they are free to flip up the panel and snuggle, too.