Recently Italian seat manufacturer Geven revealed its design for the Piuma Sofa which converts three or four economy seats into a lie-flat bed for two in about 30 seconds. 
According to Geven, “The sofa creates no extra thickness to seat pans, does not alter seat comfort, does not add to or pose any obstruction to routine cleaning and adds no great amount of extra weight. In fact, Geven is confident that the patented Piuma Sofà design is optimised with respect to weight giving the product a strong and lasting intrinsic advantage over the competition.”
Conde Nast Traveler reports that these “Sky Couches” can already be found on Air New Zealand’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 777 wide body jets, and at $150, are about half the price of an upgrade to premium economy. It also said that South African Airways and Air AsiaX, have already signed letters of intent to purchase the so-called Piuma Sofas.
To see the bed in action, you can view the video produced by Geven:
Bottom Line:
This seems like a win for both airlines and flyers. Airlines would see additional revenue on unsold economy seats, and flyers could actually get a good night’s sleep in economy on long haul flying.
Is this a product that would be worth a $150 or $200 upgrade fee?
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I could be tempted to try this. My big concern would be the pillow comfort.
It’s a very comfortable idea, but I don’t get how this could work. Economy class of most long haul flights I’ve flown (ever) have always been packed. I doubt airlines would forego selling 2 or 3 seats at full price just for someone to ‘upgrade’ by $150/$200 (if I’ve understood correctly). Presumably these beds are also only suitable for one person or a couple – or two people who know each other well enough to spoon?!
They made assumption that there’s just only 85% fullness on the planes through over the year, so unsold seats could be converted into beds for additional revenue 😉
Not so bad idea at all. Think it’s better idea than to upgrade to Y+.