What to do with empty economy seats....?

Todays increase in airline usage - coupled with higher oil prices and increasing costs - has put a premium on airline occupancy. Recent airline earnings declarations have shown varied seat occupancy rates over the last 12 months. But one thing is for sure: The Holy Grail of airlines is to have every seat occupied on every flight. In reality this seldom happens. Some airlines (you know who you are) manage to fill these seats by offering 'free tickets' (which are then loaded up with additional charges and surcharges for everything from choosing your seat to breathing fresh air (Ok, I jest about the air, but it could happen!))

Air New Zealand on the other hand have gone a different route. They are apparently commissioning a new B777-300ER layout which has the possibility of 'seat beds'. The principle is straight forward. If you buy a ticket and the seat next to you is unused you can convert it into a bed. In economy class. Obviously you will be charged for this, but considering that ANZ had a recent trial where you could purchase an empty seat on a trans-pacific flight for an additional $75, this doesn't seem too bad a deal.

I think this is a brilliant idea. Instead of using traditional airline thinking which is saying 'I must pack as many cattle, sorry, passengers, into a plane as possible to maximise revenue' they are looking at this and saying 'We realise 100% occupancy is not possible on our routes so how can we maximise the revenue from the empty seats?". This solution is neat because it increases income, has a marginal overhead (An empty seat does not need feeding and needs no extra fuel to carry the occupant and baggage to the destination), and more importantly it gives the passenger something he or she would not normally get - an economy class bed. The question (As posed by this article from Flightblogger) is "Can Air New Zealand make more money from an 'empty' seat than from one that is occupied?"

To quote another post I saw on this

If Air New Zealand can pull this off, they'll be the first airline to offer lie-flat beds in coach, hopefully starting a trend that other airlines are eager to copy.

I wait with anticipation..

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