Alex McWhirter looks back at yesterday’s travel. This month, it's 1980 and the Philippine Airline Skybed
Philippine Airlines (PAL) can claim to be the instigator of fully-flat beds on its B747s many years before its rivals.
The first class passengers of 1980 qualified for none of today’s swanky lie-flat convertible seating and suites. So with its new fleet of B747-200s, PAL devised an idea to provide each person with a seat downstairs and a separate bunk bed upstairs.
PAL’s 14 first class passengers would sit in conventional seats of that era on the lower deck, where they would be wined and dined. They could then head upstairs to the B747’s top deck to sleep it off.
What was clever was that PAL’s beds, equipped with seat belts, were certified for take-offs and landings, so passengers could sleep through the entire flight (from Manila) to Europe or the US should they so wish.
This was especially important for those heading to or from Europe because flights took up to 18 hours. (In 1980 they were multi-stop affairs and most airlines could not overfly the Soviet Union.)
Why didn’t the concept succeed? Although desirable in practice, it was uneconomical at a time when fares were falling and business class was in its ascent.
It meant the old airline adage that “space is the most precious commodity on any plane” was as true then as it remains today.