the (changed) Road to tokyo
In February 2024, my mother signed me and my sister up for a 2-week EF Abroad program to Tokyo, where I would join a group of people my age to learn the local language, and generally explore the city, I had already done this back in 2023 in Brisbane. The original plan by EF was to book a JL flight from Jakarta to Tokyo-Narita, meaning I got a chance to fly on the Boeing 767-300, my 3rd time on this plane, so I was very excited.
Fast forward to May 2024, and the EF Team updated our flight path. The bad news is I wouldn't get to fly JL's 767, but the good news is I would get to fly CX after 8 years of not flying them. So the new plan is to fly to HKG, then get on a connecting flight to HND.
Cathay pacific and me, a history
Cathay Pacific has a very special place in my memories. When I was still a baby, my family took me on my first international flight to Hong Kong and that flight was on a Cathay Pacific A330-300 in 2007. My dad is a frequent flier of Cathay Pacific and still travels with CX every year for business and always on Business Class, he was also a former member of CX's Marco Polo frequent flier program. My next CX flight was in 2011 when we flew on CX's 777-300 to Hong Kong for a stay at HK Disneyland and back again on CX's A330-300.
The last time I flew on Cathay was in 2016, with my entire extended family we went for a 4 day vacation in Hong Kong. I remembered seeing a Cathay Pacific 747-400 take off, unbeknownst that was the last time I would see that plane as it retired in October 2016. I flew on a CX A340-300 back to Jakarta, my last flight on an A340 as they were retired from the CX fleet in 2017.
Suffice it to say, I have had quite a fondness for Cathay Pacific. Now, 8 years after my last flight with CX I am keen to see how much CX has changed since last I flew them.
At cgk
I arrived at the airport at around 5am in the morning, since we had to wait for my other friends
The departure board for that morning, my flight is way at the bottom
The Check-In counters of Japan's 2 aviation giants, ANA and Japan Airlines
After everyone gathered, we all headed to the Cathay Pacific check in
My ticket, with no window seat :(
After bidding goodbye to our parents, me and my group went to the brand new entrance for Immigration, which was very pretty
A Garuda Indonesia A330
It was time for the long walk towards the gate, since almost all Long-haul flights out of CGK uses the gates near the end of the terminal
Went to a nearby Periplus to nab this months copy of Airliner World magazine
At the gate
We arrived at the gate about 1 hour before departure, so I decided to do a bit of spotting
XiamenAir 737-800 and China Southern A321-200
ANA 787-8
Boarding
Soon it was time for boarding, however the CX staff soon anounced a delay of around 30 minutes
After the delay, we finally started boarding
A Garuda Indonesia 777-300ER, possibly for Hajj flights
A snapshot of our plane, B-LBJ, an A330-300 delivered to Cathay in 2015
Inside B-LBJ
My seat, 62D, with a surprisingly good legroom
Though the entertainment system was small and its selection of movies and tv shows was rather limited
I asked one of my friends in the window seat to snap this pic
Cathay Pacific sadly discontinued their Discovery magazine, but replaced them with the new Cathay magazine
The inflight safety video
Cruising
I don't have any photos of the take off, but it went rather smoothly
The seat besides me was empty, very nice
Before meal service, the Cathay cabin crew provided a cup of water
The meal: Omelette, mushrooms, sausage, hasbrown, a croisssant and apple juice
Spent the next couple hours just listening the music
decent
The captain soon announced that the plane was beginning its decent
Some (poor) photos of the decent
landing
Soon our plane landed, but had to take a long taxi due to RWY 07L/25R was under construction
Parked next to this Cathay Pacific A350-900
Passing the Business Class area while disembarking
Final shots of the plane.
Hi there, coairmag76! Thanks for this detailed report. I see that one of your photos is not loading correctly, the one under "It was time for the long walk towards the gate, since almost all Long-haul flights out of CGK uses the gates near the end of the terminal." If you also have this problem, this might be caused by the image file having a space in its name. In fact, I think it's named "photo img_1848." If you delete the space between "photo" and "img" and upload the image again, the photo should load correctly.
Cheers! :)
Duly noted and fixed