Review of Cathay Pacific flight Chitose → Hong Kong in Economy

I really apologise for the time it took for me to upload this trip report! I have been busy with school and exams but they're finally done and I can get these out!
I don't have too many pictures for this review (as it's already my fourth time reviewing Cathay's 777-300 regionals), but I hope it's still an enjoyable read!

After a nice 7-day trip in Sapporo, it was time to head back to Hong Kong. I'm flying Cathay Pacific on my way back, on the 777-300 regional. Having been on these planes a lot of times in the past, it wasn't the most exciting flight I've had in a while, but I still decided to make a review about that to complete my trip.

the airport experience

We took the train from JR Sapporo station to New Chitose Airport. It was a quick 40-minute ride on the "Rapid Airport" train on the Chitose Line, which runs every 12 minutes. Contrary to other large Japanese airports, there was only 1 rail company (JR Hokkaido) offering service to the airport. As you can see from the departures board, there aren't many flights out of CTS internationally, with most flights heading to either Hong Kong, Taipei or Seoul.

We arrived at CTS with around 2 hours to spare and we decided to check-in for our flight early and go for a walk in the domestic terminal. Just like many other Japanese airports, the international section is often dead and empty, while the Japanese save the best for themselves and put all the shops and stores in the domestic terminal. Make sure to spare some time to visit the domestic terminal in any Japanese airport you go through!

There was a surprisingly large number of counters available at CTS. Of course, that was probably since CX had 2 flights departing at 4pm and 5pm respectively, both on a 777-300 regional, for HK in the evening. The HKG<>CTS market is the busiest during the winter months with up to 3 daily flights offered by HX & CX, while the summer period sees only around 8-10 weekly flights on the 2 carriers.
Honestly, being able to fill up nearly 900 seats on both flights is quite crazy…and that's only made possible due to how much us HKers love Japan xD

The lounge experience

Security was quick and efficient. I then moved to the Royal Lounge airside, where I decided to have some lunch with my dad. We got access as my dad was a CX gold member.

The food selection was nothing to write home about as it was a third-party contracted lounge (I'm aware that this is the only lounge available in the international terminal!). It was clean and quite quiet at that time though, which made it a nice place to stay for a while.

My dad and I got some ramen, curry and other Japanese snacks. The curry here is actually a broth, which is a very popular dish in Hokkaido called Soup Curry!

Boarding was soon announced and we made our way to gate 70 to board.

A Scoot 787-9 was parked next to us, ready to operate a CTS-TPE-SIN service tonight. It's worth noting that there are a lot more airlines flying between Taipei & Japan than what you'd expect, with airlines like Air Asia, Batik Air etc. all trying to capture demand from the Taiwan-Japan market on their fifth freedom flights!

We boarded B-HNU, a 21.5 year-old (at that time) ex-Emirates 777-300 (non-ER). This plane has the highest capacity out of the entire CX fleet at 438, and is commonly sent to Japanese and other destinations within Asia with strong demand.

The flight experience

Economy was laid out in a 3-4-3 configuration.

CX has opted to install a modified version of the recaro CL3710 seat on their 777s, which were more than comfortable for a 5 hour flight.

Good legroom, as expected (FYI my height is around 178cm).

There was also a storage compartment, though I'm not sure whether the milk (?) the last passenger spilled had been cleaned properly…

The CNY special magazine!

There was also a 9-inch TV at every seat. These weren't the highest quality as they were actually reused when CX reconfigured the entire fleet of 777s. The ERs got their fancy new 12-inch TVs, while the regionals got theirs handed down from the old ones on the ER.

I was surprised to find Oppenheimer on CX's IFE!

Boarding was complete and the captain announced a 5 hour 13 minute flight down to Hong Kong. FA Ivan came to greet us, thanked my dad for being a CX gold member and also offered us bottles of water. A very nice touch as per the regulations, FAs aren't required to greet CX gold/Oneworld sapphire members anymore. He also kneeled down to talk to us, which I thought was another nice gesture.

We then taxiied to the runway for takeoff. Spot 2 special planes from this image!

We then took off at around 5:30pm.

I started watching Oppenheimer (so did my other family members), but I did not find the movie nice…could just be me not being interested in History though.

The meal was soon served. Alongside with the peanuts, I opted for the chicken with rice. It was served alongside a chicken salad, some fruit, a bun and of course our favourite – Haagen Dazs ice cream.

The salad was…kind of disgusting and tasteless… I had thought CX would serve soba noodles on this flight (just like other Japanese flights), and I wonder why they didn't load it on board today?

Here's the main course. I do recognise their efforts in trying to make the meal feel more Japanese, but it tasted like what I would've been able to find in a local restaurant. Nevertheless, it wasn't bad and I did finish the entire thing.

It was nice to see how friendly and engaging the FA serving us, Rachel, was. She was energetic and engaged in small talk with everyone she served, which was really nice! (Almost made me feel like being on Qantas again!)

I then continued to watch more movies. Did you know that CX now has original Disney+ shows & movies onboard? They recently won the award for the best in-flight entertainment in the world, and I believe they truly deserve that!

I moved on to watch "Turning Red", a Disney cartoon. We also hit some turbulence, though it was nothing too bad.

It was quite an uneventful flight and we soon landed at HKG.

Back to reality :( Side note, these 777s have REALLY low quality belly cams!

We soon parked at the gate at around 21:05, 10 minutes later than scheduled.

An interesting thing here - I raised the request for a cockpit visit, and the Taiwanese FA denied it bluntly without asking the pilots at all, saying that "Cathay has never allowed it since 911 happened". Hmm...? I do not recall any policy like that being enforced on Cathay at all…
When I approached the in-flight service manager, she told me to wait a while and that she would help me ask the pilots, so I waited in the galley while she was bidding farewell to the passengers. When that particular FA saw me again, she FORCED me off the plane. The ISM saw it and asked whether that FA checked with the pilots, to which she said "yes". (Meanwhile, the door of the cockpit remained shut while she was in the back of the plane busy working). I found how that FA handled the situation to be quite rude and was also confused as to why she used such a lame request to deny my cockpit visit…

Anyways, the bags of our flight were out in no time and we made our way back home on the airport express.

Bonus : Click here display hide

Hokkaido is quite different from your usual Japan, with lots of natural sights! Here's a photo from Noboribetsu (登別) which is famous for its onsens.

We also visited the Otaru Canal, 小樽運河

And would you look at how much snow there was!