Cathay Pacific B777-300 Regional (773) Business

The new regional business class seats are NOT comfortable at all. Can’t rest comfortably. No privacy. Miss the flat beds. I was always looking forward to be on a cx flight. now it is like being on a US flight!

Pds1205, what route did you fly? That’s kind of surprising, as I remember flying HKG-CEB on 333 past September and the flight did have flat beds – it was great for a 3hr flight.

When I said regional, I meant services other than long-haul. CX doesn’t distinguish between short-haul and mid-haul, they are just regional and long-haul. I am not sure what the cut-off is – I think it is somewhere in the 5-hour range, although it is not at all uncommon for CX to roster long-haul aircraft on regional routes (either because of peak demand, or to keep aircraft in the air, or for whatever other reason).

All the long-haul CX aircraft have fully-flat beds in business class. On the A340 and B747 (all of which are going to be retired, which is why they haven’t been retrofitted) these are the old herringbone seats, often derided as “coffins” because they were rather narrow and high-sided – albeit still quite comfortable. On the A330 and B777 fleet which now make up the bulk of the long-haul fleet, these are the much-lauded new reverse herringbone seats.

CX’s regional aircraft also have two types of seat – old regional. and new regional. The old fleet is all being retrofitted – I am not sure how that is progressing, but CX tend to be pretty rapid in their retrofits so I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority now have the new seats. You can read about the different seats at http://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_HK/travel-information/inflight/travel-classes.html

KA historically have had their own seats, quite different from those on Cathay. They are aligning these somewhat by introducing the same new regional business class seat, but since KA is almost exclusively a regional airline (it does offer a couple of longer routes, such as Bangalore, but these are the exception) it doesn’t have fully-flat beds in business (ie no equivalent of the CX long-haul business). Having said that, they are also replacing their old angled-lieflat first class seats with the CX long-haul business class seat. So there will be increasing similarity in business class – KA business will be the same as CX regional business – but a marked difference in first class. However, KA still has a large portion of the fleet that hasn’t been retrofitted – which means old-fashioned armchair-style business class seats with no PTV. The other obvious difference is that most of KA’s fleet is narrowbody, while CX is exclusively widebody. You can read about KA’s seating at http://www.dragonair.com/ka/en_HK/travel-information/inflight/aircraft-interior.html

Service standards on KA definitely aren’t up to CX standards, by and large, although are stil likely to be better than on most European regional services.

When flying out of HKG, KA may direct you to the G16 lounge. Avoid this at all costs (it’s crap) unless you like hawker-stall-style Chinese food, and use one of the CX lounges instead (which are you perfectly entitled to do whether you have lounge access by virtue of cabin flown or oneworld status)

I hope that’s helpful. but if you have any other questions do let me know