Sleeper beds in planes only from Sydney to US

By CHRIS DANIELS

Fears that New Zealand business travellers will be forced to fly to Sydney if they want new sleeper bed seats on their trip to the US appear to have been confirmed by Qantas.

The Australian airline says its sleeper seatsn being progressively installed in its bigger planes, will be available only on "selected routes from Australia".

In advertising, Qantas says the seats, which it calls "Skybeds", will be "progressively introduced in 2003-04 in business class on 747-400 aircraft".

Qantas dropped its first-class service between New Zealand and the United States in February. Air NZ, the only other airline flying the Auckland-Los Angeles direct route, does not have sleeper seats.

Qantas spokesman Simon Rushton said "it was too soon to say" whether the new beds would be installed in the aircraft that flew between Auckland and the US. Qantas flies older Boeing 747-300 planes on that route, with only economy and business class.

Rushton said it would take at least 12 months to install the new seats into Qantas' fleet of Boeing 747-400 aircraft.

International music promoter Stuart Clumpas, who moved to New Zealand from Scotland in 2001, has already complained to Qantas about having to fly to Sydney first if he wants to fly in a sleeper bed to the US.

He told the Weekend Herald last week that he was finding it difficult to get international music acts to come to New Zealand from the US, as there was no airline offering proper sleepers on aircraft coming here.

Clumpas said the latest advertising, was "insensitive at best, and downright ignorant and patronising at worst".

He said the move to direct first-class passengers through Sydney was a sign that the two airlines, if allowed to form an alliance, would start using Australia as a hub, with New Zealand passengers having to go there first.