Hennessy

Your post brings me to the unavoidable question: What happens if the sleeper section on a flight is not full, because not everybody paid the additional fee and someone from a regular Y seat gets a spot on a free bunk bed? Any access control? Everybody sneaking in for a look, for a free bed, for a walk, etc. => you won't get any sleep.

Hennessy

In the shelter there is no separation at all between two mats/beds. At least this is not the case according to one of the pictures. What about the lockers for the valuable items like in the shelter? So everybody brings their lock, some will misplace their key and in the end have a big problem during deboarding...

THD

That all depends on the design of the sleeping section. Put a curtain in and problem solved. It is not like you have much "wandering" from economy to business and vice versa at the moment. If they are going to put it at the back of the plane and have self service, they will ahve to move the FA stations anyway and if the FA stations are at the back of the sitting Y section, it would be quite effective at stopping wandering into the sleeper section.

Having done JNB-FRA and SIN-FRA in Y, I would go for a sleeper. Particurlarly since I sometimes am bound by the "no business class" policy. I think this is a wonderful idea ^^ The devil is just in the details.

DownUnderFlyer

Just wait until your company comes up with a "no sleeper" policy.....

fradoc

As I said above: bunk poachers from C "Would you please go back to your PrivateBed". The question is if they would allow any onboard upsells (or at least at the gate).
Anyways, on vera

flysurfer

Well, since it's like E+ with a fixed $ amount anyway (200 EUR or $), I'm sure there will be upsells anytime on a space available basis. There might even be op-ups if standard Y is oversold, which means it will be more difficult to get an op-up to real C, with the sleeper seats acting as a buffer.

1995hoo

Your second concern shouldn't be much of a worry. I've slept in the upper bunk on Amtrak's Auto Train and there was a sort of harness-like thing on the side away from the wall. It buckles to the ceiling sort of like a five-point racing seatbelt. YOU don't wear it; rather, it provides a protective obstacle to prevent you from falling out. It must work pretty well because if it didn't, you know that in the litigious USA they would have been forced to find another design. It would just have to be adapted for air usage by going on both sides of the bunk.

Your first paragraph is a bigger question. Some people have said that you're "not supposed" to get up if you're in this section. Fine, but what if you have to hit the toilet? You can't very well ask everyone to hold it for the duration of the flight.

I'm not sure I would ever want to fly in this arrangement simply for the reason others have noted—if you find that you can't sleep, you're in for a miserable trip. With current fold-flat arrangements such as those in use on BA or VS, if you can't sleep or don't wish to sleep, you don't have to and it won't bother anyone else (unless someone gets annoyed at your reading light or IFE, but that's their problem). You're free to put your seat up into the "seat" position instead of down into the "bed" position and it doesn't interfere with anyone else. You cannot do this on LH's proposed arrangement. In fairness, anyone who chooses to fly this way presumably knows this when he books (although no doubt there will be morons who get confused or who don't read the information), so I wouldn't be too sympathetic to complaints, but I definitely see this being the sort of "either you love it or hate it, no middle ground" type of product.

IsleSeat

can I downgrade from paid C to this bunk bed? At least it is 180 degrees! And I bring my wine from the front.

alex0683de

Absolutely. Just look at the answers we've had on this thread so far.

NW52

Thanks to whiskey_sk for sharing this with us. Great that an airline finally not just thinks about it, but also does some marketing evaluation. This is a first step to make dreams happen. It still needs lot of work to get there.

Kudos to the marketing folks to move forward: I love it and I would pay for it! One of the next exercises is to figure out how this could work between US and Europe - what schedules are possible to best support it and how to route those aircraft to keep them up in a most profitable way. Otherwise I will never get to experience this.

fradoc

Yup, good point here. However, I assume LH calculates the number of berths in a way that overselling the sleeper section is more likely than the other way around.

Mandafly

I for one love this idea, as I had a similar thought - although with only two layers, not three - during a recent flight from Europe to the US when I was phenomenally uncomfortable trying to sleep in an E seat.

From that picture, they'd have to be 2 very slender people. I was thinking that the middle section would be too narrow and claustrophobic for me, and I'm not very big and usually not claustrophobic! But I love couchettes on trains, especially the top. I've even seen couchettes on night buses in Asia - they have two layers, and you can either sort of sit up in a kind of W shape with the far right arm of the W gone, or recline to 180 degrees. It's not completely flat when you recline, but gravity is doing the right things for it to be a comfy sleep. This was the idea I had for airplanes too, but completely flat is probably better.

About getting up, I think it would be good to have a row or two of open seats in the back of this cabin, so folks can sit up and read for a bit if they want, or if they can't sleep. Probably too much unpaid space though. I'm sure we'd be allowed to climb down to go to the toilet, as on trains.

FelixB

LH could also offer Single as Double (or even Triple ). Now this makes it really interesting for big families wanting to go on vacation. Pay 1000€ and share your bed with two others.

otr271

They will also be introducing a new frequent flier level below the Frequent Traveller, called the Miles High Club, sporting a pink membership card and bearing advantages such as getting to pick your partner first..

searchsnap

The mile high club is going to get very exciting once this is implemented! No more visits to the toilets, be prepared for squeals, moans & guttural sounds in sensurround!!!!