Fancy a snooze on a long haul flight? Now Air New Zealand is launching bunk beds for economy class passengers

You’re flying 12+ hours to a global destination, and the number one thing you want to do to pass the time is sleep, right?

Air New Zealand is now launching the world’s first lie-flat pods, coming to economy class.

SkyNest has been in development for the past five years, but by 2024 the new beds will be ready to take off.

The seats are fully flat, made up with real mattresses plus cooling pillows and bedding, and located in the back of the plane, right behind the premium economy cabin.

The new beds were meant to debut on Air New Zealand in 2020 but were pushed back due to the pandemic.

Passengers will be able to fly on them on the Auckland-New York route, flying non-stop for an 18 hour journey.

The fine print

But not so fast, after all this is an aviation announcement in a post covid world.

First, you can’t just rock up to the flight and sleep, and they’re not included in the economy price ticket, of course.

SkyNest is a separate product, and the bunk beds will be stacked three high, bookable in four hour increments.

That’s how much time the airline believes we need for two sleep cycles (about 90 minutes each).

When you can try it

Skynest is set to debut on the airline’s Boeing 787 Dreamliners in 2024.

We don’t have any details yet on the cost of booking one of these bunk beds, but they will be available to all economy and premium economy passengers.

It makes us wonder what Qantas is thinking with an even longer flight to New York or London from Sydney on Project Sunrise, with not much more planned than LED lighting and space to stretch, because who really ever does that on a plane?

Over to you flying Roo!