Oops ANZ Has To Fix The Boat Anchors

I was very criical of the Air New Zealand boat anchors - aka the new Skycouch seats

It seems I might have been just a tad prescient about them.

Responding to criticism that the leg room sucked - they have decided to take out one row of the new Skycouches and then give a little more leg room in there.

I pointed out earlier that the seats didn't look at all comfortable - even the delightful Mary Kirby had to drape her long legs out into the aisle. Yes - you have to click on the older article to see her picture to see what I mean.

It seems that the airline thinks that a "tall person" was anyone higher than say a Sheep according to ABTN's Alex McWhirter someone taller than 5 foot 7 inches. And that these people had trouble getting in and out of the seat.

The airline was quite sanguine about it, forgetting that the majority of passengers who fly on the airline are more likely to be Homo Sapiens rather than the Bovine genus that most airlines think we passengers belong to.

The airline said In a prepared statement,“Air New Zealand’s innovative new B777-300ER interiors have been receiving excellent feedback since they were launched eight weeks ago on April 1. As innovation requires constant improvement we have actively asked for feedback from customers on every flight.

"Some of the feedback has been around the amount of leg room for tall people in some of the premium economy Spaceseats. Therefore Air New Zealand will be removing one row of premium economy seating from the aircraft to provide passengers with up to six inches more legroom."

I wonder what a typical Maori or Tonga based passenger would have to say about that.

Of course now is an even bigger problem, as Alex concludes in his article "But removing a single row will cost ANZ over 10 per cent of premium economy capacity. So will the carrier have to raise fares to compensate for the revenue shortfall? Only time will tell."

Of course one of the earliest criticisms from the trade was the price being charged - now they will likely have to charge even more.

Hmmm can you imagine there must be some red faces in Fanshawe Street.

This is rather sad because I think there is tremendous opportunity to do a better job in coach for the masses (and yes I am one - I fly Y/M class on more flights than I do in F or C).

Cheers