Flight Review: CX162 SYD-HKG

Flight: Cathay Pacific CX 162 Sydney to Hong Kong

Metal: Boeing 777-300ER

Seat: 21K / Business

Cost: 60K Alaska Miles (for SYD-HKG-YYZ [Toronto] itinerary with stop-over in HKG).

Real Cost: Depends on how cheaply you can get Alaska miles…. but we’ll save that for another day.

Boarding –

Ehh, this is one long line 

I thought as I walked past the single que of people tediously waiting and proceeded to immediately board via the left isle, and within seconds after being shown to my seat a pre-departure Beveridge arrived which frankly couldn’t have come sooner after just making the arduous trecktrek from the Qantas International Business lounge to gate 25.

So, we’re off to a great start.

But then a few disappointments –

• Expecting to peruse the menue pre-departure instead all I got handed was junk-mail.

• I wanted to get swiftly into my PJs only to find there are none. So I turned to the amenity kit to investigate, but there WASN’T ONE! until I took delivery some few minutes later. Phew, crisis averted. And with this arrived the very best par of flight socks I’ve ever got… they might have even made it off the plane had I not so many Cloud Nines and forgotten about them.

Seat – 21K Front right mini cabin and easily the best seat in the house. CX use Reverse Herringbone seating which in my opinion is the way to go. This means isle seats face inwards with console toward the center and window seats face out with console between you and the window; for this setup I always choose a right hand seat so the console and surface area are on my right.

Magnificent amount of space, at 6”2’ with the seat fully reset my feet could hardly reach the ottoman, and the footwell is even big enough for an economy passenger sub-let if you needed to recoup a few dollars.

But then a few disappointments –

• The seats, whilst amazingly spacious are too low for the tray table and the left arm rest is almost useless.
• I’ve seen bigger TVs and IFE was abysmal. With the exception of Egypt Airs offering this could be one of the poorest Business class IFE offering I’ve ever had suffer through.
• I w also extremely unimpressed with the 6:31min of Ads I had to wait through before I movie started also.
• The control panel console also doesn’t reach the window and so you’re at constant risk of turbulence sending things down to row 24 or (gulp), worse still even further.

This actually did cause somewhat of a precarious situation after a few more Cloud Nines when things did admittedly did get a little ordinary.

Service and Flight – The fasten-seatbelt sign stayed on waaaaay too long; which made for a particularly tense situation considering what I’d just spent the last three hours airside doing so when it was off I was up post-hast.

Bathroom

If your picking flights based on the Bathroom read someone elses review; but I will say (gentleman) it’s big enough to hurt your head as you fall forward into the A-frame brace position, but otherwise its just a bathroom.

Post Departure Beveridge

This took waaaaaay to long to arrive, when it did I must say it was very well presented and after suffering the indignity of self-service in the absence of a Qantas lounge tendered bar I was delighted to finally have a cocktail in hand, and the CX signature Cloud Nine did not disappoint.

Meals

Good. Didn’t take any photos tho I was too busy eating.

In Flight Bar

NO!

Service

Terrific.

• They didn’t mind me changing drinks with each course (hey, I have a system and it works), and had no issues with me putting the drinks aside as new ones arrived (however in doing this one must be considerate of the express path to row 24 down by the window).
• They didn’t try to water down my Scotch with ice cubes (even after I specifically asked for mine to be poured 20minutes before service so as to achieve cabin temperature – yes looking at you VA).
• They were more than accomodating to take my order and then serve each course somewhat after everyone else (hey, I like to eat slow and enjoy my food).
• They were just, overall pretty darn good and couldn’t have cared less about the somewhat ordinary situation that ultimately did arise…..

Unordinary ?

As part of a SYD-HKG-YYZ itinerary this is a great use of 60K Alaska miles even without factoring in the HKG stop-over. This is absolutely outstanding value, a great use of points nd a great way to get from East coast Australia to West Coast Canada.

But Unordinary?, no not really.

The seat was terrific, and the service terrific, but I just can’t get over having to spend eight hours slogging it out with my pants on and no PJs.

So would you choose CX162 to get you to HKG from SYD? Leave a comment and tell me what you think?

And did you also see the irony in all that? Are you sure, look again. I’d love to know if it is ironic. Do you think?