Air New Zealand’s Skycouches Pass ‘GeekDad’ Test

Andy Robertson is the self-styled ‘Chief GeekDad’ of UK Wired magazine.  Recently, he put Air New Zealand’s innovative Skycouch technology to the ‘geek’ test, flying from the UK to New Zealand with his young family. How did the technology stack up? The answer was – very well indeed. ‘The idea of an economy seat that converted to a bed platform at first seemed both gimmicky and too good to be true,’ Robertson wrote. But, as he said, ‘the proof of the pudding was… seeing [my children] resting more easily during the two ten-hour flights turned the gimmick into a much appreciated reality for us. We found that one adult and one child could happily sleep in one Skycouch row while the other two children shared a couple of Skycouch seats.’ Robertson wrote that, ‘the technology and design behind the Skycouch is relatively simple. Why not use the space in front of the seat and convert it into useable sleep space with a flip up leg rest?’ Robertson noted that Air New Zealand had put together a new set of belts that accommodate different sleeping positions. He had ‘read that some people found this a bit of an inconvenience… but for us the belts weren’t a big problem. In fact the children turned into miniature police officers, ensuring we had clipped the right hook to the right carabiners and were using the correct strap for our current sleeping configuration.’ In terms of value, Robertson wrote that, ‘with five of us travelling we had six Skycouch seats, in two sets of three. For more money you can improve the ratio of people to seats, and make the chances of sleeping for longer more likely.’ Robertson clearly appreciated the comfort and design of the couches. He did gently warn his readers that ‘it is important to go into this with the right expectations… it is closer to sleeping on a couch then bed.’ All up however, ‘GeekDad’ was one very satisfied Air New Zealand customer.