[Anonymous]

[NiceTravelAdventures]

I recently got to do a back-to-back comparison of Cathay Pacific’s longhaul business seats (its older herringbone style & its new more open seats), and have made not one, but two video trip reports to share with you. If you do like the videos, please feel free to click the ‘thumbs up’ button on YouTube – this provides feedback to me that someone likes it, and also helps improve YouTube’s video suggestions.

Cathay Pacific 747

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZgqGxyq3DY&hd=1

Cathay fly a single 747 to and from Heathrow each day, and as they’re slated to leave the fleet (due to their high fuel consumption) the business seat is not being replaced with the new seat.

This herringbone seat has been widely criticised by its customers – who have taken to calling it “the coffin”. It’s true to say to it’s very private – there’s solid walls between each seat – but it’s not as claustrophobic as British Airways’ new A380 / 787 middle seats, which don’t even face on to an aisle.

The seats are also criticised as being too narrow, and whilst they’re not as wide as some carriers they felt the same to me as other herringbone seats as seen on Jet and Virgin Atlantic.

In my view, if you’re a solo traveller these seats are very good – you are well cut off from everyone else. If you’re with anyone else though, do avoid these seats – you are better off with either the new business seats or a carrier with high density J seating (like British Airways).

Cathay Pacific 777-300ER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5BpEn68zR8&hd=1

The future of airline fleets is now determined by fuel economy – and as such, the 777-300ER (along with the 787 and A380) are very popular around the world. The plane might not look like much from the outside, but it’s got some of the world’s best business class seats inside.
These are nigh-on identical to American Airline’s seats, and fix the problems reported with Cathay’s previous generation – they still offer great privacy, but it’s no longer impossible to see your travel partner. If you’ve got small kids, you’re still too far away to control them easily – you’re better off with a high density business class airline.

The food and service is great on both planes – food is served from a trolley so you can see what you’re choosing, and not everything has been cooked in the same dish (so rice isn’t dry or overcooked).
In flight entertainment is good, with a decent selection of movies and noise-cancelling headphones.

In summary, Cathay is beating BA on the London – Hong Kong route in every aspect regardless of which plane you pick – unless (and it’s a big “unless”!) you’re with small kids; Cathay’s seats are so far apart from each other it’s impractical to reach them easily.

[GregoryKohll]

Thanks for the very informative reviews. Video is a great medium for showing the product.

[dutchyankee]

@NiceTravelAdventures – 04/10/2013 03:39 GMT

Your videos are always a pleasure to watch and really do showcase the true experience brilliantly, so thank you very much for sharing these. They are great.

Just one point of reference, on your video review of the 777 return flight at 1:00 minute to 1:04 minutes you write the 777 our home for the next 13 hours, but the aircraft in the shot is actually a CX A330.

Minor issue, and not one that takes anything away from your brilliant review!

[IanFromHKG]

Superb review – thank you!

I would only add that for a parent with a single child, choosing the middle pair of seats might be the option. Both slide forward about a foot to enable direct conversation/monitoring. You can see this in the first picture paragraph at this link:
http://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_HK/travel-information/inflight/travel-classes/business-class/new-business-class.html

Thanks again – my only other criticism of your reviews is that they are too compelling – I have to ration myself!!

[pdtraveller]

Even with kids the CX seat( which AA copied not the other way around) is still far and away a better product. Having direct aisle access trumps everything else and with it parents are better able to deal with needs of kids .

The issue is the inconsistency of product across both CX and AA fleets. Once that is ironed out then it is a sure fire winner.

[IanFromHKG]

I agree the inconsistency will be an issue for a while on the long-haul CX fleet. However, at least you can tell exactly what you are going to get (last-minute aircraft replacements excepted) – ALL long-haul A330s and B777s are new business, ALL A340s and B747s are old business (and will not be retrofitted as they are to be retired), and for UK-based travellers this means four out of the five daily flights feature new business

AA, in fairness, are right at the start of a massive fleet replacement programme – so the inconsistency will be with them for a while. However, I can attest to the fact that it is highly worthwhile trying to get onto the new planes. I still haven’t done my review, but when I do it will contain much praise

[NiceTravelAdventures]

Thanks all. dutchyankee – are you suggesting I can’t tell the difference between an Airbus and a Boeing despite the fact they are both single deckers, twin aisled, twin engined and quite long? – What sort of idiot do you think I am? 🙂

Have now fixed the text – thanks for the correction!

[Author]

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