On Long Flights, Airlines Offer Couch Seating

It’s a long-haul traveler’s dream: Tired and facing a flight of 10-plus hours in the back of the plane, you watch as, one by one, passengers walk by and no one sits next to you. The cabin doors close, and that’s when it hits you: You’ve got the row to yourself. Jackpot!

Now, some airlines are giving passengers the chance to pay for that form of traveler’s ecstasy, by offering a sleeper-seat option in the main cabin. The blueprints vary, but the basic concept is that passengers who book what is often called a sky couch get a whole row of seats for themselves. After takeoff, they can stretch out like a king, even in the heart of coach.

“No frills. No hot towels or Champagne,” said Dr. Amanda Meltzer, 44 and from Dallas, who has flown from the United States to New Zealand for work many times and often books Air New Zealand’s Economy Skycouch. “But you can sleep and avoid two weeks of horrendous jet lag when you get there. I honestly would never fly there again without it,” she said.

Designs vary

Some airlines keep the idea fairly rudimentary. On Lufthansa, either at check-in or at the gate — once it’s evident the flight is uncrowded enough to allow for it — you can book a Sleeper’s Row, where for around $200 you get what the company describes on its website as a “thin mattress plus a Business Class-quality blanket and pillow” to turn the row into a more comfortable mini-bed.

But the carriers that have really leaned into the couch idea — like Air New Zealand, Vietnam Airlines (Sky Sofa), Brazil’s Azul Airlines (SkySofa) and Kazakhstan’s Air Astana (Economy Sleeper) — are the ones that have fitted their aircraft with seats designed to be transformed.

On these, the leg rests can be raised up to the same height as the seats, creating a flat surface that extends nearly to the seatbacks in front. Do this to three or four seats in a row and it starts to resemble a twin bed.

In some cases, the airlines throw in bonuses: Air New Zealand provides kits with slim mattress pads, blankets and full-size pillows. Air Astana provides a similar kit, plus allows its Economy Sleeper passengers access to its airport’s business class lounge.

Air New Zealand has offered this feature for more than a decade, and it is now standard on all of its Boeing 777 and 787-9 aircraft. Other airlines at various times had sleeper seats, like China Airlines from 2014 to 2018 and the shuttered Thomas Cook Airlines, which declared bankruptcy in 2019. But only…