Air New Zealand adds beds… in economy

You know you’re a wanderlust when photos like this make your heart skip a beat:

What you see before you is Air New Zealand’s new “Skycouch,” a specially designed row of economy seats with a flip-up cushion that extends the seating area so that passengers can lay flat across the seats.  The armrests retract flat so that guests can spread out across three seats comfortably.

In order to book the Skycouch, passengers will have to purchase two full-price seats and the third at half-price — a completely worthwhile deal on those long haul flights between New Zealand and well, just about anywhere else in the world.  There will only be 22 sets of these Skycouch seats on each flight, and not every flight will have them.  Only the new Boeing 777s will contain the Skycouch seats when they first go on sale in April.  Air New Zealand plans to retrofit the rest of their entire long haul fleet by 2012.

Air New Zealand’s won some major marketing points in my book — between their “bare essentials of safety” video to economy-class couches, I might just book a ticket so I can hang out on a 777 for 12 hours.  Kidding.  Although I do hear Auckland is gorgeous in April.

Take a look at more drool-worthy airline cabin design photos from Qantas, Virgin and JetBlue.