Flight check: Auckland to Los Angeles on Air NZ

Air New Zealand's Boeing 787-9 Economy class Skycouch. Photo / Supplied

Winston Aldworth tries out Air NZ's Skycouch on a hop across the Pacific.

The plane: A Boeing 777-300. And the Skycouch product is rolling out on Air New Zealand's Dreamliner 787-9s as well.

Class: Economy. Aboard the 777-300s, the outside rows of the middle of the plane can be converted from standard Economy seats to Skycouch. (So, for plane nerds, that's seats A, B and C and, on the other side of the plane, seats H, J and K - all in rows 37-46).

I travelled to Los Angeles with my four-year-old daughter, Zoe. The two of us shared the Skycouch.

It was Zoe's first international trip (to Disneyland. I know. Father of the Year, right?), so it was important to me that she could get as good a sleep as possible. As for me, with a neck rest, a good sleeping pill and a couple of glasses of red, I sleep fine.

Price: Air New Zealand flies up to three times daily to Los Angeles from Auckland, with one-way Economy fares starting from $975 (including taxes).

With the Economy Skycouch, you pay the individual fares for the passengers travelling and then pay an add on, for example $200 in total if three passengers are travelling together. So the final price is going to be determined by demand both for standard Economy seats and for Skycouch itself. So it's pretty variable.

On time: Good as gold.

My seat: First of all, here's what it's not: The Skycouch isn't a king-size bed, soaring through the air with space to spare and room to stretch out. What it is, is a full row of three Economy-class seats with leg rests that fold up to make a bed.

If you've sat in these seats (or pretty much any Economy class seats, for that matter), then you'll know that the base of the seat (where your backside goes) isn't huge. You're basically taking that amount of space and adding the bit between the edge of the seat and the seatback in front of you and cobbling together a bed space. Run a rule against that space and it's about 74cm wide.

With the armrest against the wall raised, the total length of the Skycouch is a pretty snug 1.55m.

So, ideal for jockeys and little girls (sorry, Zoe, big girls) going to Disneyland for the first time. Of course, an average-sized adult who sticks their legs out straight is going to be poking them out into the aisle. Which is understandable. So, you tuck your knees up and get used to a bit of spooning. That's how it got it's nickname: cuddle class.

So space is tight, but Skycouch achieves the holy grail of creating a lie-flat bed in Economy class. Just be aware of the dimensions (which are all laid out for you on the Air New Zealand website) and don't kid yourself that you're in Business class.

Inevitably, when the seatback in front of you comes back, it's going to crib some of the space above your Skycouch (though I'm pretty sure the Skycouch seats recline a little less than other seats).

I snuggled in next to Zoe for a bit and it worked fine, but for most of our journey I put the leg rest down on the aisle seat and settled in there myself. This seems to be a popular Skycouch technique (see: Fellow passengers). You can set the leg rests individually and they come up to anything between zero and 90 degrees.

Fellow passengers: I saw a big bloke sleeping alone on Skycouch. I chatted to a Mormon retiree couple and saw a pair of 20-somethings sharing one. Families of three were working it to best effect. The dad-on-the-aisle position seems to be de rigueur.

I even saw a family of four (Mum, Dad and two kids under two) using it. But the mum and dad were tiny.

How full? Chocker. A popular route.

Entertainment: I watched a couple of movies, but mostly I sat and gawped, gormlessly at my daughter sleeping. God, she's amazing.

The service: Good as gold.

Food and drink: Red wine for Dad. Icecream for the kid. Job done.

The toilets: Someone wore a pull-up. And, if you're in a window seat, that's quite a convenient idea, when you think about it ... just saying.

Luggage: Larry the Lamb was with us on the way over. He got relegated to the hold on the way back and some fish that Zoe won at Legoland joined us up top.

The airport experience: Had a sneak peak at Air New Zealand's new Star Alliance Lounge at LAX, which puts the old Koru Lounge to shame.

Would I fly this again? Absolutely. It does exactly what it says on the packet.

The writer travelled courtesy of Air New Zealand.