Review – Cathay Pacific Airbus A333, business class, Hong Kong to Bangkok, January 2025.

This was part of a 6 days trip I made to Bangkok in January 2025 to visit my parents, who would be flying on to Bangkok the next day. I booked this flight a couple of days in advance, and paid 28.000 Asia Miles for it, plus a small amount (around 500 HKD I believe?) in taxes. I was happy to see that the flight had a 1-2-1 reverse herring bone set-up, which meant lie-flat seats, and not the regional business class that Cathay offers on many flights.

Before heading to my flight, I had spent a couple of hours at the Pier Business Class Lounge, which you can read a review of here.

I arrived at gate 40 just as boarding was starting, and being in business class I was invited to board first. I had selected seat 15A, and upon entering the plane a friendly flight attendant pointed me in the direction of my seat.

Cathay currently has a variation of layouts in their airplanes, and I was lucky enough to have booked myself on a flight that has the proper lie-flat business class seats, in a 1-2-1 confguration. The seat is by the window, and faces sideways away from the aisle, and has a decent amount of privacy. The seat itself offers a lot of space, and is adustable in several directions, with easy to understand and operate controls.

The controls are located just next to the seat, with also your own charger outlet, audio jacks, light contol and so on.

There is also an entertainment contoller, which you can use to control the tv, if it is too far away from you to use the touch screen function.

Next to this set-up there is a small compartment which contains the headphones.

As I was busy taking those picture, the cabin crew came around, offering refreshments and a wet towel, which I happily accepted. As I had had a few glasses of champagne in the lounge, I thought it was a good idea to continue ennjoying just that 😀

I was also given the menu for the flight, so I could start thinking about what I wanted to eat. More about that later, as I was still busy exploring my seat-area.

Between the seat and the wall there as some storage space, and also a tray-table that folded out nicely during dinner service (or if you wanted to use it any other time, for that matter.)

There was also a decent sized tv that folded out in front of me form the wall, and lots og leg-space and space to store my shoes.

Next to the tv there was a small thingy to hang your jacket on, I wonder if anyone ever uses that….

Below the coat hanger there was also a small compartment with the safety card briefing-thingy, and some reading material. You could also store your book or whatever there if you’d want to.

Between the seat and the aisle there is also an armrest, which you can either keep flat with the seat, or extend upwards to use as a proper armrest. This makes getting in and out of the seat much easier for bulkier people 😀

Now it was time to explore the menu, which I found quite decent for this 2.5 hours long flight.

As I was busy trying to decide what I wanted to have for lunch after departure, the crew offered me a re-fill of my champagne, which I of course accepted 🙂

I was also given a bottel of Evian water, I wondering if they were trying to hint at something….

It was worth nothting though,that there are no individual air-nozzles on these planes, which I find kind of disappointing. You do have lots of light options though.

The cabin itself is quite pleasant, but nothing spectacular. Nice for relaxing though.

It is also nice being by the window and having 3 windows for yourself, so you get to choose if the blinds are closed or open. I love keeping them open and just watching the world float past as I enjoy some bubbles…

As we taxied out, it was time to browse the inflight entertainment to see if there was anything worth watching after departure. The inflight entertainment system had a good selection of everything, and should do nicely even on long flights.

The screen was a touchscreen, but not the greatest quality, so I preferred to use the handheld controller to select what I wanted to watch instead.

There was also a good selection of entertainment for kids, and also a lot of games that could be played.

There was also a good selection of music to listen to, if you just wanted to relax.

They even had a separate category for woke entertainment for those who wanted to watch that.

We were now ready to depart, so I had to sit upright and behafe for a little while. Runway 25 was in use in Hong Kong today, and this was my first time taking off from runway 25C with a parrallel departure taking off from the south runway at the same time. The other aircraft still apoeared to be pretty far away, so not nearly as exciting as I imagined it would be. We did have some great views of Lantau Island on departure though 😀

Shortly after departure lunch was served, and unsurprisingly I asked for the red wine braised beef with rosted mushrooms, which was delicious.

I thought I’d had enough champagne for a little while, so changed to red wine with my lunch, and that was also more suitablet to the dish. It was also served with fresh garlic bread. Yummmy!

To top it all off, after lunch I was offered some ice cream, and who can say no to that?

After lunch I settled in with another glass of champage, while I watched a movie, and before long we were on approach to Bangkok, where we had some great views coming in from the north-east.

Before long we were on the ground, and after a fairly long walk from the gate to immigration I soon found myself in a taxi, heading to the Royal Orchid Sheraton Riverside Hotel Bangkok, which you can read the review of here.

Like what you have read so far? Check out my other flight reviews here, and my hotel reviews here.