Air New Zealand's Skynest sleeping pods will soon be available.
No product created more buzz at the Trenz tourism conference in Christchurch than Air New Zealand’s new Skynest offering.
NZ Herald aviation editor Grant Bradley was in attendance at the annual exhibition of travel and tourism providers, and he tells The Front Page podcast that Air New Zealand’s sleeping pods became the big talking point of the conference.
“They’ve got a demonstration model [there], and there’s a lot of interest from overseas buyers,” says Bradley.
“These people are important because they want to know the products available for tourists coming into this country. The feedback has been pretty positive.”
The Skynest is a sleeping pod of six bunk-style beds that economy passengers can hire on a flight at a cost of about $400-$500 for a four-hour session.
This concept is particularly appealing at a time when flights are becoming longer, with the introduction of a range of new long-haul flights.
The most impressive of these is the Auckland to New York route launched by Air New Zealand in 2022.
But Air New Zealand faces enormous competition in this space, with Qantas also launching flights on the same route from June this year to claim a share of that market.
Bradley says that these long-haul flights ultimately come down to customer demand and technology improvements in aviation.
“Passengers enjoy non-stop flights, where they don’t have to stay over at airports. And aircraft technology is improving to such a point that these are way more viable than they’ve been in the past.”
Bradley says that despite the gloomy economic outlook, the travel industry remains buoyant, with many still engaging in the trend of “revenge travel” sparked by the shuttered borders of the Covid era.
“We’re looking at airline capacity coming back very strongly. Domestically, we’re back to pre-Covid levels, and internationally, we’re sitting at around 91 per cent – and that means a lot of people moving around the country and into the country.”
And while concerns are growing about the economic strain on the horizon, the travel industry remains optimistic demand will stay strong.
“I asked Air New Zealand chief executive Greg Foran that, and he said no market is showing any weakness at the moment,” says Bradley.
“Travel has always been seen as very discretionary, but since we’ve come out of the pandemic, that law of economics just doesn’t seem to be applying at the moment. There is a sense that the big surge in revenge travel will come to an end at some point, but here in New Zealand, the outlook is pretty good.”
So, what other changes are coming to international travel? Could we soon see new snacks on domestic flights? And is there any hope of prices coming down at some point?
Listen to the full episode of The Front Page podcast to hear Bradley elaborate on these issues and more.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am.
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The airline sold its last slots at Heathrow in 2020.