Review of Cathay Pacific flight Hong Kong → Osaka in Business

Introduction

Haven’t been to Japan during summer time. As learnt that during the early summer time there would be colorful hydrangea blossom around Japan, bringing a slightly more colorful view of early summer in Japan, despite the cloudy and rainy days in early summer of Japan, I therefore planned for this Japan trip. It may be a nice choice to visit this country, as it may be considered as the low season of Japan, and hence everywhere is not that crowded compared with red leaves / sakura blossom season. 

Ok, back to the flight. Having worried that it would take a lot of time to pass through the immigration at the airport in Japan, I picked an overnight flight traveling to Japan this time.

heading to the airport

After work on that day, I decided to take the train to the airport from Hong Kong Island. It is bad that the in-town check in is still not yet available, perhaps due to the shortage of manpower. I cannot get my luggage checked in before my work on that day. Taking those pieces of luggage to go to work seems a little bit inconvenient. Instead, I would need to find a locker space at some shopping malls. Unlike Japan, lockers are not a common facility in train stations / shopping malls in Hong Kong, and hence it took some time before I could find one at Elements, which is a shopping mall near Kowloon Station of Airport Express. 

The Airport Express looks clean and smart after the renovation.

I have got enough miles this time, and hence i exchanged for a business class seat to Japan for this flight. The check in process is smooth. The queue is not long and I could get my boarding pass within 5 minutes, after I reached the counter. As it is still too early and so there was no gate information printed on the boarding pass. 

Clearing the immigration process at the Hong Kong Airport, I immediately picked a lounge to enter. This time I still picked the Pier business class lounge, which is around gate 65, as told by the attendant that it seems it is the lounge having the longest opening hours, and it seems is the largest lounge among those opened lounges. 

lounge experience

The attendant greeted me politely while I approached the lounge. Not having dinner and so I decided to pick on those Wuntun noodles, chinese dim sums and fried noodles at the lounge. I don’t know, the western choices of food seem a little bit less attractive to me. It may be nice if they would add more choices of food at the lounge. And it was always nice to enjoy a cup of Cathay’s signature drink - Cathay Delight, at the lounge.  

It was my first time to try the shower facilities at this lounge. The amount of amenity is alright, and the shower counter is quite clean. But i guess that it is a little bit difficult to control the shower, like the temperature and the water level. It would be nicer to have some clearer instructions on the use of the shower facilities. 

Still a long time to kill before the departure of the flight, I decided to pick a corner at the lounge to have a short nap. There is also a quiet corner at the lounge but seems that the visitors were somehow a little bit not considerate and used that corner to pack their own belongings or have a small chat. The bed is somehow a little bit hard, and the angle of the head of the beds cannot be adjusted.  

As it was about time to get on the plane, I decided to get around the terminal a little bit. Seems that they are adding more and more facilities in the terminal. I would really want to try on the 24 hour convenience store at the terminal. It claims it uses modern technology such that there is no need to have a shop keeper at the store but still visitors can buy things there. But…surprising that this convenience store is closed.  

Okay, anyway, it is time to get on the plane.  Today they used gate 36, which is not far away from the Pier Business Lounge.

flight experience

Luckily that they did not change the model of the flight, which seems quite a common experience for CX travelers. This time, as listed at the previous booking, an A350-900 takes me from Hong Kong to Osaka Kansai Airport. It is my first time to try on this kind of aircraft for Cathay Pacific.

Here is some other information of the aircraft: 
B-LQC, an Airbus A350-900 
delivered: Aug 2021
Age: 2.0 Years

The seat is wider compared with the one I took last time, on an B777-ER. The interesting feature that I would pick for an A350 would be that there are two cameras installed, one at the tail and one near the bottom of the aircraft. The quality of the cameras is not bad though, and it would be very nice to enjoy the view of the aircrafts.

The entertainment system of Cathay’s flight is somehow very nice, with a clean interface and a wide range of movies, TV programmes, and songs. The remote and the screen are interactive, and I did not experience some lagging after clicking certain buttons on them.   

I picked a glass of champagne for my welcome drink.   

It is about for departure!



To my surprise, there was still a late night meal for this flight, even though it departed at midnight. As read through previous reports that people could only get bread rolls / tarts and fruit boxes and a drink like lemon tea in cartons, for this short red-eye flight. Maybe it is for economy class though, anyway. I picked the following: 

To Start: Seasonal Fresh Fruit
Mains: Steamed chicken with matsutake mushrooms - jade melon mixed vegetables and steamed jasmine rice
Dessert: Fresh mango tart

 
There are two pieces of garlic bread which do not include in the following picture. But somehow I thought that the rice was a little bit hard, and the vegetables seemed tasteless. It may be better to add some moisture to the rice while reheating at the aircraft. The dessert and alright and the fruit afterwards was refreshing.  

After a rush to finish the meal, I decided to have a short nap on the flight. This is what a business class seat worths for a red-eye flight, even though this time I was traveling on a short haul flight - a flat lying seat.  

The attendant dimmed the light of the cabin after the meal service. And so I could comfortably enjoy a solid short nap in the cabin.  

A quick toilet tour. The most interesting thing in the toilet is that there is an window at the toilet!


Time runs fast and it is about time to land at the Kansai International Airport. Although we cannot see the sunrise on the aircraft, the sky gradually turned brighter and brighter and the scenery started to amuse me. The clouds kept gathering around the mountain tops / valleys in Japan during the sunrise time and added some interesting elements to the scenery that we can see through the windows of the cabins. The engine of the aircraft was dyed yellow under the sunrise light.   

The picture viewed from the camera right before the landing. 

And after the landing, it takes a little bit of time to pass through the immigration, as not all the counters are open for the immigration. Still I think that the queueing time is acceptable. I guess it takes around 15 - 20 minutes to pass through the immigration counters and the customs. It does not take a long time for me to get my luggages back. So I guess the service at Kansai International Airport is still efficient.