18th December 2009.
My morning began at four o’clock when I prepared for my journey to New York City via Hong Kong, flying Cathay Pacific. After a rather pleasant journey in a taxi with an Iraqi driver, discussing the benefits of living and being an Australian after receiving citizenship here ten years ago, I arrived at the International Airport Terminal in Sydney. The morning was still quiet, the skies dark, the check-in counters empty.
I had checked into my flight the day before, printing off my boarding passes for both flight segments, so joined the rather short line (two groups of two people) before me in the baggage drop for online check-in. Two counters opened up with two gentlemen to start the check-in procedures. The group that ended up on the counter before me were actually not online checked-in and I could see the slight irate expression of the staff as he proceeded to check them through and tag their luggage.
For me, it was rather straight forward, pleasantries exchanged, luggage placed onto the conveyor belt, which weighed in beautifully at 22.9kg, just short 0.1kg of the 23kg limit. The gentleman was quick, efficient, and wrote on my boarding pass the gate, the boarding time, and stamped the tickets that my documents had been checked properly. Then I was merrily off on my way through customs and to the boarding gate.
I had a minor wait at the boarding gate, but on my way through, I checked the departures boards and saw that there had been a gate change from gate thirty-three to twenty-four. It wasn’t much of a problem since the divergence point between the two gates was still in front of me, and I didn’t have to backtrack. Once I got to the gate, I took a seat to wait for boarding with about an hour to go.
With about ten minutes to go, there was an announcement of the speakers requesting that I make myself known to the customer service desk at the gate, and so I did, not really sure what was the problem. The lady behind the desk asked to see my boarding pass, and told me that she had a slight seat change for me, and that it was much better than the one I had. I was handed a boarding pass with the words “Business Class” across the top. I was rather surprised, and thanked her profusely for the new seat.
Now, getting down to business, Business Class, that is. We boarded first, fairly standard for First Class and Business Class flight passengers. This flight (CX110) was on an Airbus A330, and did not carry First Class seating. My seat was 19K, on the right hand side of the plane, with my seat orientated at forty-five degrees towards the center of the cabin. Sitting down in the seat, you could feel immediately that it was a whole new level to Economy Class that I have flown previously with Cathay Pacific on the same flight schedule.
The seats are cubicles in their own, with dividers that reached about my eye height when I sat up straight. Why you would do that is beyond me because it feels natural to just “relax” into the seat and the slight recline of the back-rest. To my right is a large widescreen LCD panel, controller for the panel, electric socket to power devices, a light boom, and push-button controls for the seat. The seat controls allows the back-rest to drop to a sleeping position, a movable lumbar support (up/down forwards and back), and a leg-rest that can be raised and lowered. Standard buttons for light and assistance also are part of the panel.
In front of the seat is a raised foot-rest with a small space underneath to stow things like your shoes. For me, I had a pair of steel-cap boots (being an engineer), and they kind of didn’t quite fit. I had to flip one upside down and squish it in, but during take-off, they vibrated their way out of the space.
The tray is stored vertically underneath the LCD panel, and is a two part flip-out arrangement that can be moved up and down. The LCD panel is meant to be latched into the cubicle wall but my much loved unit didn’t latch properly and jolted itself loose and swivelled slightly out during the bump take-off. In retrospect, I think the take-off was rather bumpy due to the tarmac, and us being over the front wheel, and not to do with the actual plane or pilot skill. The acceleration sensation was also a different experience, being sideways instead of front on as normal in Economy. But I digress.
The only complaint I have in regards to the tray table is that it feels really flimsy, more so than how the rugged “can take all sorts of abuse” trays used in Economy feel. Perhaps it is also an age issue since its ratchet mechanism was also a bit sloppy and loose in its movement and locking. It probably has seen a lot of pulling out and putting back in.
Moving along into the service side of things. Since my flight was an 8:35am departure, breakfast and lunch are included in the flight. Breakfast was serving in a multiple step process. A simple but clean looking, and rather chilled tray of utensils, fruit, a small pat of butter, and stone salt and pepper stone shakers was laid before me, with my name being used at every greeting, being checked on a list attached to the serving tray. Courtesy was standard with a smiling face with every interaction. A cold plate of fruit started the meal with juice (I took apple, orange was the other choice) and also a fruit smoothie, I had a slice of orange, red grapefruit, a wedge of melon and a strawberry on my plate, while tea and coffee was offered to me in a stone mug. Another member of staff passed through offering different breads to go with my fruit, which was then followed by another staff offering cereal and yogurt. With a short break to eat and digest the starting course, the main part of breakfast came along.
A choice of eggs hollandaise, spinach, bacon and tomato or dim sum noodles was presented to me, I went with the eggs. The menu staid that there was also congee with prawn and fish fillet but it wasn’t on the cart, but I saw a staff take it from the galley for someone else, which I suspect was because congee has to be prepared prior to serving, as it isn’t something that is served well as a reheated pre-cooked item. The meal was reasonable, but the eggs were a little over-cooked as the yolks were a bit harder than I think they could have been.
The clearing was pretty quick and efficient also, with them whisking away from me my tray, leaving behind my glass of water. Had I still had some tea or coffee in my mug, I am sure that they would have left it with me to finish.
At this point, there is a break in the service, as we are left to our own devices and entertainment. For me, the difference in entertainment options is staggering. In the Economy Class Studio CX system, there is a wide range of programs and movies, games and so forth, but in Business class, it seems to run off a different system, as the booklet listing the programs had specific boxed programming in blue, that was only available in the “widescreen systems”, i.e. Business of First Class. If you believed it without counting, it claimed over 100 choices. I would believe it since I didn’t feel like counting. I started to watch the movie “The Hurt Locker” about a group of bomb demolitions soldiers in Afghanistan (I think) and their experiences, based off journal entries of a journalist that travelled with a real life group of bomb specialists during the war. At this point, we’re only an hour and forty minutes into the total flight time. So far, the experience has been very pleasant. For someone who was expecting to be in the so called “cattle class” seating, it has been very pleasant indeed.
After a few hours of chilling out in the reasonably comfort of the chair in a dimmed cabin, the cabin lighting was brought back up into full lighting through a few colour changes of blue through the oranges and intensity. Not long after, the process for lunch began. Once again the service was exceptional. The tablecloths out, settings, the table settings put down. The lunch was pretty nice also, a salad with French dressing, and I chose a lamb dish that was reasonable. I had some French red wine also to go with my lunch. Then came cheese with fruit, port, followed with lemon and lime flan cake which was very nice. At the moment, the journey is nearly over with less than one hour to go in the flight time.
In picking out a conclusion for this review, I would like to say, it has been a real pleasure. I don’t know what the price difference is for a Business Class seat from an Economy Class seat, but if you have the money to spend for some very good service, I would say to definitely give Cathay Pacific some consideration. The space is plentiful, the food is plentiful (I am feeling very full from the two meals provided) and the entertainment is the same high standard to be expected. The staffs were also very friendly with lots of smiles, with constant patrol up and down the aisles to provide service when required.
My only other experience in a Business Class flight was many years ago in 2000 when I also received a bump upgrade on a journey from Vancouver to Tokyo with Japan Airlines. In contrast to the JAL experience, Cathay Pacific does not have self-serve facilities, preferring to provide a full-service service to their customers. The seating arrangements in the Cathay Pacific cabin is also more efficient as the JAL space was more conventional and not compact, which while providing better atmosphere in the cabin, means that the passenger to fuel ratio on flights (and their own profit margin) is more expensive to run with less passenger numbers in the same space.
In some other observational remarks, while having fully powered and motorised seat changing abilities with the previously described control panel, the amount of motor weight and hydraulics required (since it moved my 81kg around with ease) means for the number of seats with this mechanism, it is a lot of extra weight to be carrying. I don’t know if we would get the same quality of service if you replaced it with something else, but it would certainly increase the fuel efficiency of the flight service at least.... It does make me wonder about how “green” their service is.
All in all, it has been a fantastic flight segment for me, an experience to keep in mind for the future when I either have sufficient Asia-Miles points (their frequent flyer scheme) or when my salary permits trips at this level. As much as I really don’t like to give numbers, I know that a lot of people like to have numbers, so I will give some tentative numbers as part of my final conclusions. For comfort, decor, space, I will give a 4/5, for the quality of the food, drinks and meals provided I would say a 3.5/5, and for the service, which I found exceptional, a 4.5/5. It would certainly be possible to do better I think, how that might be is hard to describe, but I think it might be found in the First Class services. So, with this, I finish my experience on this flight, I hope this review has been of some entertainment and interest to you the reader. Thank you for reading.
My morning began at four o’clock when I prepared for my journey to New York City via Hong Kong, flying Cathay Pacific. After a rather pleasant journey in a taxi with an Iraqi driver, discussing the benefits of living and being an Australian after receiving citizenship here ten years ago, I arrived at the International Airport Terminal in Sydney. The morning was still quiet, the skies dark, the check-in counters empty.
I had checked into my flight the day before, printing off my boarding passes for both flight segments, so joined the rather short line (two groups of two people) before me in the baggage drop for online check-in. Two counters opened up with two gentlemen to start the check-in procedures. The group that ended up on the counter before me were actually not online checked-in and I could see the slight irate expression of the staff as he proceeded to check them through and tag their luggage.
For me, it was rather straight forward, pleasantries exchanged, luggage placed onto the conveyor belt, which weighed in beautifully at 22.9kg, just short 0.1kg of the 23kg limit. The gentleman was quick, efficient, and wrote on my boarding pass the gate, the boarding time, and stamped the tickets that my documents had been checked properly. Then I was merrily off on my way through customs and to the boarding gate.
I had a minor wait at the boarding gate, but on my way through, I checked the departures boards and saw that there had been a gate change from gate thirty-three to twenty-four. It wasn’t much of a problem since the divergence point between the two gates was still in front of me, and I didn’t have to backtrack. Once I got to the gate, I took a seat to wait for boarding with about an hour to go.
With about ten minutes to go, there was an announcement of the speakers requesting that I make myself known to the customer service desk at the gate, and so I did, not really sure what was the problem. The lady behind the desk asked to see my boarding pass, and told me that she had a slight seat change for me, and that it was much better than the one I had. I was handed a boarding pass with the words “Business Class” across the top. I was rather surprised, and thanked her profusely for the new seat.
Now, getting down to business, Business Class, that is. We boarded first, fairly standard for First Class and Business Class flight passengers. This flight (CX110) was on an Airbus A330, and did not carry First Class seating. My seat was 19K, on the right hand side of the plane, with my seat orientated at forty-five degrees towards the center of the cabin. Sitting down in the seat, you could feel immediately that it was a whole new level to Economy Class that I have flown previously with Cathay Pacific on the same flight schedule.
The seats are cubicles in their own, with dividers that reached about my eye height when I sat up straight. Why you would do that is beyond me because it feels natural to just “relax” into the seat and the slight recline of the back-rest. To my right is a large widescreen LCD panel, controller for the panel, electric socket to power devices, a light boom, and push-button controls for the seat. The seat controls allows the back-rest to drop to a sleeping position, a movable lumbar support (up/down forwards and back), and a leg-rest that can be raised and lowered. Standard buttons for light and assistance also are part of the panel.
In front of the seat is a raised foot-rest with a small space underneath to stow things like your shoes. For me, I had a pair of steel-cap boots (being an engineer), and they kind of didn’t quite fit. I had to flip one upside down and squish it in, but during take-off, they vibrated their way out of the space.
The tray is stored vertically underneath the LCD panel, and is a two part flip-out arrangement that can be moved up and down. The LCD panel is meant to be latched into the cubicle wall but my much loved unit didn’t latch properly and jolted itself loose and swivelled slightly out during the bump take-off. In retrospect, I think the take-off was rather bumpy due to the tarmac, and us being over the front wheel, and not to do with the actual plane or pilot skill. The acceleration sensation was also a different experience, being sideways instead of front on as normal in Economy. But I digress.
The only complaint I have in regards to the tray table is that it feels really flimsy, more so than how the rugged “can take all sorts of abuse” trays used in Economy feel. Perhaps it is also an age issue since its ratchet mechanism was also a bit sloppy and loose in its movement and locking. It probably has seen a lot of pulling out and putting back in.
Moving along into the service side of things. Since my flight was an 8:35am departure, breakfast and lunch are included in the flight. Breakfast was serving in a multiple step process. A simple but clean looking, and rather chilled tray of utensils, fruit, a small pat of butter, and stone salt and pepper stone shakers was laid before me, with my name being used at every greeting, being checked on a list attached to the serving tray. Courtesy was standard with a smiling face with every interaction. A cold plate of fruit started the meal with juice (I took apple, orange was the other choice) and also a fruit smoothie, I had a slice of orange, red grapefruit, a wedge of melon and a strawberry on my plate, while tea and coffee was offered to me in a stone mug. Another member of staff passed through offering different breads to go with my fruit, which was then followed by another staff offering cereal and yogurt. With a short break to eat and digest the starting course, the main part of breakfast came along.
A choice of eggs hollandaise, spinach, bacon and tomato or dim sum noodles was presented to me, I went with the eggs. The menu staid that there was also congee with prawn and fish fillet but it wasn’t on the cart, but I saw a staff take it from the galley for someone else, which I suspect was because congee has to be prepared prior to serving, as it isn’t something that is served well as a reheated pre-cooked item. The meal was reasonable, but the eggs were a little over-cooked as the yolks were a bit harder than I think they could have been.
The clearing was pretty quick and efficient also, with them whisking away from me my tray, leaving behind my glass of water. Had I still had some tea or coffee in my mug, I am sure that they would have left it with me to finish.
At this point, there is a break in the service, as we are left to our own devices and entertainment. For me, the difference in entertainment options is staggering. In the Economy Class Studio CX system, there is a wide range of programs and movies, games and so forth, but in Business class, it seems to run off a different system, as the booklet listing the programs had specific boxed programming in blue, that was only available in the “widescreen systems”, i.e. Business of First Class. If you believed it without counting, it claimed over 100 choices. I would believe it since I didn’t feel like counting. I started to watch the movie “The Hurt Locker” about a group of bomb demolitions soldiers in Afghanistan (I think) and their experiences, based off journal entries of a journalist that travelled with a real life group of bomb specialists during the war. At this point, we’re only an hour and forty minutes into the total flight time. So far, the experience has been very pleasant. For someone who was expecting to be in the so called “cattle class” seating, it has been very pleasant indeed.
After a few hours of chilling out in the reasonably comfort of the chair in a dimmed cabin, the cabin lighting was brought back up into full lighting through a few colour changes of blue through the oranges and intensity. Not long after, the process for lunch began. Once again the service was exceptional. The tablecloths out, settings, the table settings put down. The lunch was pretty nice also, a salad with French dressing, and I chose a lamb dish that was reasonable. I had some French red wine also to go with my lunch. Then came cheese with fruit, port, followed with lemon and lime flan cake which was very nice. At the moment, the journey is nearly over with less than one hour to go in the flight time.
In picking out a conclusion for this review, I would like to say, it has been a real pleasure. I don’t know what the price difference is for a Business Class seat from an Economy Class seat, but if you have the money to spend for some very good service, I would say to definitely give Cathay Pacific some consideration. The space is plentiful, the food is plentiful (I am feeling very full from the two meals provided) and the entertainment is the same high standard to be expected. The staffs were also very friendly with lots of smiles, with constant patrol up and down the aisles to provide service when required.
My only other experience in a Business Class flight was many years ago in 2000 when I also received a bump upgrade on a journey from Vancouver to Tokyo with Japan Airlines. In contrast to the JAL experience, Cathay Pacific does not have self-serve facilities, preferring to provide a full-service service to their customers. The seating arrangements in the Cathay Pacific cabin is also more efficient as the JAL space was more conventional and not compact, which while providing better atmosphere in the cabin, means that the passenger to fuel ratio on flights (and their own profit margin) is more expensive to run with less passenger numbers in the same space.
In some other observational remarks, while having fully powered and motorised seat changing abilities with the previously described control panel, the amount of motor weight and hydraulics required (since it moved my 81kg around with ease) means for the number of seats with this mechanism, it is a lot of extra weight to be carrying. I don’t know if we would get the same quality of service if you replaced it with something else, but it would certainly increase the fuel efficiency of the flight service at least.... It does make me wonder about how “green” their service is.
All in all, it has been a fantastic flight segment for me, an experience to keep in mind for the future when I either have sufficient Asia-Miles points (their frequent flyer scheme) or when my salary permits trips at this level. As much as I really don’t like to give numbers, I know that a lot of people like to have numbers, so I will give some tentative numbers as part of my final conclusions. For comfort, decor, space, I will give a 4/5, for the quality of the food, drinks and meals provided I would say a 3.5/5, and for the service, which I found exceptional, a 4.5/5. It would certainly be possible to do better I think, how that might be is hard to describe, but I think it might be found in the First Class services. So, with this, I finish my experience on this flight, I hope this review has been of some entertainment and interest to you the reader. Thank you for reading.
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