A Business-Class Seat That Lets Flyers Sleep From Takeoff to Landing

Airlines have been churning out new luxuries for years to get business travelers to pay big bucks for seats in the front of the plane. Those seats can go for as much as 10 times the price of a ticket in the increasingly cramped economy cabin. Etihad Airways offers business-class passengers in 40 cities chauffeured car service to and from flights. Emirates’ double-decker Airbus A380s boast a stand-up bar where premium-class flyers can mingle. Singapore Airlines lets business-class customers order their dinner in advance from a menu of more than 60 dishes devised by its panel of top chefs. But David Killingback, a managing director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Singapore, says that for him the deciding factor would be something far simpler: the ability to get a good night’s sleep during the almost eight-hour overnight flight from Singapore to Melbourne.

“I don’t care if they serve dog food or chateaubriand for dinner,” says Killingback, who has flown the route as many as four times in a single week. “I want to be able to get to sleep as quickly as possible without disturbance and wake at the last possible minute.”