Review – Cathay Pacific Airbus A35K Manila – Hong Kong Business Class

This was a trip I had to make because I had business to take care of in Manila, so I had flown in to Manila with Cebu Pacific, and for the return flight I used my Qmiles (from Qatar Airways) to book a flight with Cathay Pacific from Manila to Hong Kong.

Booking the flight was not the easiest thing in the world. Qatar Airways partner redemption is no automatic online, so you have to fill in a form with your requested redemption, and then you will get an email back within a couple of days telling you if it is available or not. For this booking I asked for a flight leaving around 7pm, but I put in the notes that I could also take any later flight if there was no availability on the requested flight. I then received the following email from Qmiles:

I did as requested within 2 minutes of receiving this email, and a couple of hours later I got another email from Privilege club informing me that there were no seats available. I emailed them and asked what had happened, explaining that I had did what they requested before the time limit in the email, and I got another email back telling me that the ticket was now available, and I needed to go back online to complete the booking. Weird.

• Date of flight: May 23, 2019
• Price: 30.000 Qmiles and USD45.60
• Scheduled time of departure: 20:20 21:00
• Scheduled time of arrival: 22:45 23:00
• Aircraft type: Airbus A35K (Airbus A350-1000)
• Seat: 21K

On May23rd at 18:34 in the afternoon I got an email from Cathay Pacific telling me that the flight had been re-scheduled, and new departure time was 21:00. At this time I was already in the Cathay Business Class lounge, so it was a bit late to let me know, but at least I could stay in the lounge 40 minutes longer than planned.

At 20:30 I headed to the gate, which was quite a long walk from the lounge, and at 20:40 just as I arrived at the gate boarding started. I was one of the first to board, together with the rest of the business class passengers, and I quickly found my seat. This was my first time flying Cathay Pacific A359 business class. The business class on this plane is quite large, 46 seats all in one cabin. My seat was a window seat on the right, 3rd row from the rear of the cabin.

The seats are so-called reverse herringbone seats, meaning the setup is in a 1-2-1 configuration, and the 2 seats in the middle have their feet close together, but are aligned away from each other, giving each seat quite a lot of privacy.

I found my seat to be very spacious, and there was a nice big pillow waiting for me, but not blanket, which makes sense as this was only a bit more than a 2 hour flight.

There was a large screen that folded out of the wall in front of me.

Between the seat and the window there were a shelf where I could keep my Kindle and any drinks/snacks that got served, and a spacious storage compartment below that fit my shoulder bag nicely.

When you closed the storage compartment it becomes a part of the bed when you lay the seat down flat.

Next to the shelf there was another compartment where you could find the headphones, and also plugs for charging your electronic devices.

Then next to the seat there was a remote for the tv, very simple and self explanatory seat controls, and a personal reading light.

Between the seat and the aisle there was another small storage compartment with the safety briefing card, and a couple of magazines.

The armrest between the seat and the aisle had a setup that I had never seen before. The armrest itself could be lowered and raised, making it flat together with the bed when the seat was flat. but the area between the seat and the armrest there was a button, and this piece could also fold out all the way to the seat in front, making the bed a lot wider when laying flat. Also, when the armrest was raised up, you could find a storage space for a bottle of water. All very smart!

The legroom in the seat was awesome

There was also a screen next to the headrest, giving you a lot of privacy in your seat from the one sitting on the other side of the aisle.

After having explored all of my seat, I was finally offered a welcome drink and a hot tower. I decided to try the Taittinger brut reserve champagne, as this was a new one for me, and it was really light and refreshing.

While waiting for the pushback to start, I had a look through the inflight entertainment system, which had a very good selection of movies, tv series and games. Also, the screen seemed to be of high quality and was very clear.

Cathay also offered wifi throughout the flight, but I didn’t try it out, as I found it quite expensive.

We left the gate around 9 pm as expected, and as we approached the holding point we overtook another Cathay A359.

We departed off runway 24, and soon after we were airborne I was offered another glass of champagne, and I was given the menu for the flight. I was impressed to see that there was a full meal service on such a short flight. The menu read as follows:

Overall quite an impressive selection, and I wish I would have been on a longer flight so I could have tried out some more of the drinks, but I guess that will be for the future, if flying ever resumes again….

The food was served on a tray with the starter and dessert on it, and then I got to choose which one of the main courses I wanted.

I decided I wanted to try the lamb dish, and had a glass of red wine with it.

The meal was surprisingly large, and really delicious – one of the best main courses I can remember having on a plane ever.

After I had finished my main course we were almost in Hong Kong already, so I only had time for a quick glass of champagne again, before we started our descent. Arriving into Hong Kong was uneventful as always, and we arrived just one the (new) scheduled time. A short taxi to the stand and immigration cleared in a matter of minutes, and I was back home in less than 60 minutes from touchdown!