Couches in coach: A cozier way to fly?
驰别蝉迟别谤诲补测鈥檚 Wall Street Journal had a fun article about Air New Zealand鈥檚 latest innovation: Cuddle Class. As 鈥渢he Middle Seat鈥� columnist Scott McCartney describes it:
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鈥檛 in a private jet or even a high-priced business-class cabin. They snuggled in coach.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 sleep well on planes, but I actually slept a good five hours,鈥� said Mr. Metz, aboard a 13-hour Air New Zealand flight from Los Angeles to Auckland recently. 鈥淚t鈥檚 no king-sized bed, but we made do.鈥�
鈥淐uddle class鈥� is an innovative seat design that has given coach passengers the first real opportunity to lie flat for sleep on long flights. To create the extra space, three seats in a row have fold-away armrests and a padded foot-rest panel that flips up and locks into place. Two passengers take up three seats and pay an average of half the cost of the third seat, typically an extra $500 to $800 for an overnight flight.
This sounds a fun innovation, but don鈥檛 get too excited:
The sky couch has limitations. To make it fit, Air New Zealand narrowed the aisles in the coach cabin. And since the couch is only about 4陆-feet long, most people have to scrunch up to keep their feet from hanging into the aisle. In the middle of the night on a recent flight, it was impossible to walk through the coach cabin without bumping feet and legs hanging out of sky couches. And since it鈥檚 still the cheap-ticket cabin, two people have to cuddle closely in only 32 to 33 inches of width for each row, including the seat.
Now what does this have to do with economics, you might ask? Well, Air New Zealand faces a classic problem for any supplier who offers different levels of service. On the one hand, it wants to聽offer better聽service to attract more customers. On the other, it wants to make sure that some travelers still opt for聽higher-priced聽service. As McCartney puts聽its:
Air New Zealand doesn鈥檛 want to make the couch longer or wider鈥攊f it were better, it might start cannibalizing passengers from business-class or premium-economy seats.
So there you have it. Coach air travel isn鈥檛 unpleasant just because the airlines want to reduce costs. It鈥檚 unpleasant so that some flyers will pony up for better service.
P.S. For more economics of the air, see this post on the .
