As carriers try to drive down costs, taking legroom and comfort with them, Air New Zealand is trying to change the narrative with their soon-to-be-patented on-flight sleeping pods.
Watch the airline unveil the novel travel concept here:
[rumble video_id=v69irl domain_id=u7nb2]
Video credit: Rumble
The pods will be triple-stacked and are called the Economy Skynest. Featuring six full-length sleep pods, they are over 6 feet long and 22 inches wide. Each pod also includes privacy curtains, blankets, sheets, and pillows.
Mike Tod, Air New Zealand’s chief marketing and customer officer, said in a statement, “A clear pain point for economy travelers on long-haul flights is the inability to stretch out.”
Once available, economy-class passengers can book a pod as well as their seat.
The pod has undergone testing with some 200 customers at the airline’s Auckland innovation center. The sky pods will be introduced to their non-stop 17-hour Auckland-New York service and will decide if they will implement it on a larger scale based on its first-year performance on that route.
Since the route will begin in October, the earliest the public may see the pods is late 2021. The pods would be ideal for similar long-haul flights. Air New Zealand’s Auckland to Vancouver route, for example, lasts 14-and-a-half hours. However, the airline did not say if they plan to put bed options on their Canadian routes.
But Seth Kaplan, a transportation analyst at Kaplan Research, cautions that the airline will have to weigh the costs before going all out on the Skynest.
“I have to imagine they’re thinking about a fairly substantial price. It’s not $50 or $100, you know. I see this being at least several hundred dollars extra,” Kaplan said.
And the Skynest seems to fall somewhere between economy and business class. “It definitely goes against the general trend in recent years of airlines kind of packing more and more seats onto the plane, for (Air New Zealand) to remove some economy seats to make room for this,” Kaplan said.
“But on the other hand, it aligns with the trend of sort of unbundling the product and saying maybe there are some people who can’t afford to pay or don’t want to pay for business class but want something more than the bare-bones experience.”
Air New Zealand hasn’t clarified the placement of the pods, only saying that it will be part of the economy cabin.
Kaplan said Air New Zealand has a reputation for experimenting with risky products. In 2010, the airline launched Skycouch for economy class which transforms three seats into a couch for families or a couple.
Nikki Goodman, Air New Zealand general manager of customer experience, thinks the Skynest will be of interest to other airlines.
“We’re sure this innovation is going to be a game-changer for the industry and bring significant improvements to long-haul flying,” she said in a statement.
Replaced!