Overall, my experience with Cathay Pacific was good. There are some highlights and some odd downsides. The cabin is comfortable, although not in the greatest of layouts. The food is very good, and the staff is friendly and courteous, although service can sometimes feel a bit rushed. The IFE is really bad on their older 777 models, although it’s been improved on newer planes. They offer plenty of options on board for both food and drinks, all of them of great quality.

The departure time for the London-bound flight, combined with Cathay’s stingy food stock on board, certainly was a downside. While the food on offer is good, some points need to be deducted for the low supply during the westbound flight.

Route LHR-HKG/HKG-LHR
Flight CX254/CX239
Cabin Business Class
Equipment Boeing 777-300ER / Airbus A350-900
Seat 12A/21K

Since I flew the same cabin in both directions, the review is a mix of both my flights. Unless otherwise noted, the review describes primarily my experience on the LHR-HKG flight.

How I Booked This Flight

Since I had to travel on short notice, I purchased this flight as a revenue ticket. After comparing several options, Cathay came out as cheaper than most other alternatives. One good thing they offer is a mix of cabins to connect in Europe. As anyone who has flown business class within Europe can attest, the difference between business and economy is often negligible, so saving a bit of money by flying economy for a short flight is a good deal. In this case, it saved a great deal of money since the connection would have been about $1000 more expensive if I had flown business class.

About $1000 for a 2 hour flight, no thanks

Transit in London (Cathay Pacific Business Lounge)

I had heard good things about the food in the Qantas lounge at Heathrow’s Terminal 3; however, unfortunately, they closed at 8 pm, which was just as I was arriving at Heathrow. Instead, I went to the Cathay Pacific Business Lounge, which was quite a good one. The interior is very understated and elegant; they offer a full-service bar with a variety of cocktails and hot food made to order, of course, focusing on Chinese dishes. I opted for the dim sum and bao, the dim sum was quite forgettable, similar to what you’d find frozen in an Asian supermarket, but the bao was delicious. The cocktails were tasty, and the bartender seemed to make them with great care.

Cathay Pacific Business Lounge at LHR

With the Qantas lounge closing and another two hours before my flight’s departure, I was expecting the lounge to be quite busy. Surprisingly, however, there were still a number of seats available, although the best window seats were all taken.

The lounge features a dining area, including some smaller tables, as well as a more loungy area with sofas, comfortable chairs, and some work desks; for longer layovers, there is also a shower available.

Boarding

While waiting in the lounge, one of the most mind-blowing things happened. The assigned gate was the furthest gate from the lounge, and I was just getting ready to start leaving when there was an announcement saying, “As you might see, the departure board says ‘Go to gate,’ but please be informed that we are not yet boarding our premium passengers, we expect boarding to begin in about 25 minutes. Please remain in the lounge”. This is such a small thing, but it has always rubbed me the wrong way. With most airlines, you have no idea when boarding is about to begin, and it gets too early to the gate. You have to wait for a long time, get there too late, and boarding has already started, and you might get stuck last in the queue.

Seat and Cabin

The seats are arranged in a 1-2-1 reverse herringbone configuration. I’ve never been a big fan of this setup since it gives the worst of both being far from the window and close to the aisle. Additionally, since your back faces slightly towards the aisle, it feels like you have very little privacy, although when I looked around, this was more imagined than real.

Seating on the Boeing 777-300ER

The seats themselves are beginning to look a bit dated; in my case, the aircraft was about nine years old, but in spite of this, the cabin was quite worn. The seat was comfortable, although the padding was thin. I also found the seat to be quite narrow. Even though I’m a fairly skinny guy myself, I struggled to move around, especially with the seat reclined. It’s not great if you’re of a slightly wider stature. The new upgraded seat can not come soon enough!

However, the seat does have a lot of storage space, with a large cupboard for headphones or a water bottle and a side table. The seats on row 12 also have an extra space behind them that can be used as a shelf during the flight.

The cabin overall is nicely designed though, with understated colors. I can recommend trying to get one of the front 2 rows on the 777 (Row 11 or 12) as these are in a small separate cabin right behind first class which gives a bit more privacy and is slightly quieter.

I’d recommend picking a seat in the front part of the cabin. While the rear mini-cabin might seem like a cozy choice, this part sees a lot of traffic from premium economy passengers to the business class toilets, all with the crew’s blessing. If you’re a light sleeper, this won’t be very pleasant. Additionally, the rear galley on the A350 doesn’t seem to be staffed consistently, and the crew call button doesn’t seem to reach the front galley, meaning that if you want any additional drinks, you have to walk up to the front galley. The crew seems equally surprised each time I did so.

Bathroom

The bathrooms are standard for a business class cabin, a bit on the small side but on the other hand there were 4 of them close to the front ensuring there were no queues even shortly after take-off and before landing. There are no extra amenities in the bathrooms such as toothbrushes or mouthwash. They do however use some quite strong room fragrances which I appreciated and is not something I’ve noticed on any other airline.

IFE and WIFI

This category simultaneously represented the worst and the best part of the flight. The IFE is terrible to be perfectly frank. You’d better enjoy the word “Loading” because you’ll see a lot of it. The system is slow and unresponsive, reminding me of car infotainment systems from 15 years ago. Additionally, since the screen is the type that swings out in front of you, it’s not held in place, making the touch screen’s responsiveness even worse. The remote is slightly better, but only by a little. The selection of movies and TV shows is quite good, though, with many new releases and classics.

Endless loading...

The return leg of the trip however was using the A350-900 which has a significantly improved IFE which is much more responsive. It also features one of the greatest views I’ve ever seen, the combination of the front camera and instruments meaning it almost feels like looking out the cockpit window. I also appreciate the Wi-Fi icon which shows if Wi-Fi is available or not in every view.

Cockpit view from the IFE

The Wi-Fi on the other hand was some of the fastest and most reliable I’ve experienced on a long haul flight. It was free for business class passengers and I was able to work and upload images without any issue throughout almost the entire flight. Absolutely stellar and more airlines should take note, especially when it comes to including it for free.

Amenity Kit

The Amenity Kit comes in a nice leather bag, a very muted and understated design much like other parts of the Cathay branding. It contains the usual things one would expect: toothbrush, toothpaste, etc. It is, however, missing socks! While I understand the environmental reasons for not including them, they are, after all, primarily one-time use; Ithey could havehave taken the opportunity to be the first airline to provide slightly higher quality socks that can actually be reused.

The menu was extensive, featuring a selection of both Western and Chinese dishes, a three-course meal for dinner, and a breakfast menu. The wine selection is decent, with two options for red and white wines and champagne, as one would expect. The beer selection is also unusually good, with two craft beers from Gweilo Beer, a small craft brewery in Hong Kong. SAS famously has its collaboration with Mikkeller, but sadly, it has been scaled back in recent years, so Cathay now offers the best beer selection in the sky.

During flight, a few snacks are offered. However, it’s quite a small selection compared to, for example, SAS Business Class. This isn’t a problem on a nighttime flight like LHR-HKG, where most people will probably spend much of the flight sleeping. However,, in the opposite direction,, flights to London depart in the morning, serving a brunch shortly after take-off with the second meal served 2 hours before landing, or 12 hours later! That’s quite a long time to survive on chips and cookies, which became quite clear as the snacks cabinet was almost empty about 6 hours into the flight. While there are a few on-demand meals on offer, make sure to grab these early since Cathay seems very stingy with the amount loaded, and by the time I wanted to have dinner, the only thing left on offer was instant noodles, perhaps not the type of meal one would expect in business class. If you’re flying this route, try to get to the dinner early!

Meal 1 (Dinner)

The meal service was very high class over all, even featuring a small amuse bouche reminding me of First Class service. All food was excellent in its taste, my only complaint would be that the service was incredibly slow, it took almost 2 hours after take-off until the first dish was served, and with a 10 pm departure this meant a very late dinner. Additionally the crew felt like they were very rushed each time they came by, which I guess is understandable when trying to serve a full cabin so late.

The food itself was absolutely delicious though, and with everything being served on individual plates as opposed to a prepared tray this further added to the feeling of a high class restaurant. The pavlova dessert was a particular highlight, light and fluffy with a nice crunch from the meringue and went really well with the fruit.

Meal 2 (Breakfast)

The breakfast was also very good; I opted for the feta cheese omelet, which honestly was delicious, one of the best omelets I’ve had on a plane. The fruit was fresh as well. However, the bread was a bit stale, and the croissant was served without jam. They may have forgotten to serve it as the breakfast service again felt rushed. It was, ,also strange to have breakfast at about 5 pm local time, but that was entirely on me as there were other options available.

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