Before we start…
Starting from this report, I’ll adopt a new format for many of my reports going forward, in which I combine two or sometimes three flights into a single report. For such clubbed reports, I’ll briefly post the combined flight information for all flights first, even before the introduction — namely the airline(s), date(s), routes, aircraft and overall duration — and then, for each individual flight in the report, I’ll post the flight-specific details like the seat number and takeoff/touchdown times.
Travelling Bonus: The (closed for the day) restaurant at the Thai Airways headquarters building.
So far each individual flight of mine has had its own report, but now I realise that a flight need not have a dedicated report if its journey can be better expressed when clubbed with another related flight. Sometimes two flights can appear in the main section of the report, and other times one of them — if it’s too short or insignificant — can be put in the Travelling Bonus at the end.
The flights: Brief information
Flights: Cathay Pacific Airways CX714 and CX755
Date: Tuesday, 6 August 2024
Route: Singapore Changi (WSSS/SIN) via Hong Kong–Chek Lap Kok (VHHH/HKG) to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (VTBS/BKK)
Aircraft: B-LRT and B-LRP, Airbus A350-900s
Overall duration: 11 hours 45 minutes across both flights; 1:55am SGT (UTC +8) to 12:45pm Indochina Time (UTC +7)
Notes:
• First-ever instance of my taking three flights on a single day, with the third flight of the day being Thai Airways’ evening TG325 from Bangkok to Bengaluru. Unfortunately, both this and the return TG326 on 11 August (Sunday) were operated once again by the infamous, ancient 777-200ER — specifically HS-TJW, which I’d already flown in June 2022, on both legs.
• These were my third and fourth flights on Cathay Pacific, the first two being on 27 December 2023 — from Bengaluru to Hong Kong on the A350 and onwards to Hanoi on the A321neo — with a big layover at HKG including the Sky Bridge, Intervals Bar and Chase Sapphire Lounge.
In March 2025 alone I’ll be flying CX four more times: twice between Singapore and Bangkok on the CX630/619 route on the 8–9 March weekend — before it’s scrapped at the end of the month — and then, at the end of March for the Hari Raya Puasa (Eid-al-Fitr) weekend, the early-morning A321neo (CX730) from Kuala Lumpur and the late-night A330-300 (CX617) to Bangkok in Business Class!
Introduction: A trip of Thai-jinks, highs and lows
For February and March 2025, I’ll recount my escapades in the month of August 2024, which involve plenty of Bangkok and Thai Airways — for both good reasons and bad. It had been nearly 6 months since I last visited Bengaluru, India, in February 2024 — going on a cramped, bad Air India A320neo to Delhi, then a surprisingly good Air India Express A320; returning on the brand-new Air India A350 to Mumbai followed by a rare catering slip-up by Singapore Airlines. So visiting family at BLR was part of the purpose, and hence I booked TG325/326 between Bangkok and Bengaluru… but things (once again) didn’t turn out as I’d hoped for, which I’ll come to in a bit (spoiler!).
On this trip I wanted to spend a few hours in Bangkok on Tuesday, 6 August, reaching before noon. The reason was to visit the Royal Orchid dining experience at the Thai Airways headquarters in Bangkok, but there was one major catch: it’s open only on weekdays and closes at 2pm. Also, I wanted to fly Cathay Pacific for a change, having had a great experience with them in December 2023. Specifically, I wanted to seek out the A330 on the CX755 leg from Hong Kong to Bangkok, and in any case the nonstop CX712 service from SIN to BKK operated during the afternoon, which would be too late to make it to the TG HQ. (I’ll be flying that fifth-freedom sector — now numbered CX630 and 619 — for the Women’s Day weekend in March 2025, weeks before it is discontinued on 30 March.)
As such, I chose an out-of-the-way routing, in line with my penchant for crazy adventures: the late-night CX714* from Singapore to Hong Kong, and CX755 to the Thai capital after a few hours’ layover, in the hope of making it to the Royal Orchid dining experience. However, CX755 sadly had to throw a spanner in the works: not only was it not the A330 that I’d been hoping for, but thanks to a big technical snag affecting my A350, I would not depart HKG until well past 11 in the morning. It goes without saying that by the time I reached the TG building on 89 Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, the restaurant had closed for the day… but at least there was a huge Thai gift shop next door to make up for it! 😅
Needless to say, at least I prevented the entire Bangkok detour from going to waste, and bought a number of treats and goodies before returning to Suvarnabhumi Airport, where I spent some time in the Oman Air Lounge (thanks to Priority Pass) before boarding the evening TG325 to Bengaluru. This was my first-ever time flying three flights in a single day, and I was determined not to let it go to waste — never mind the CX755 delay or even the old TG 777-200ER, my bête noire, lying in wait for me at the end!
*This was my second time flying a ‘Flight 714’ — as enshrined in the name of the Tintin book — with the first being the largely disappointing SQ714, also with Bangkok as my destination, in December 2022.
The annual rendezvous with the horrid old TG 777-200ER continues… (in spoiler)
It meant that I’d have to wait until later in August to fly a TG A350 from Singapore — I booked a single Saturday night in Bangkok (to take care of my OCD!) — and until late November to fly the TG A350 from Bengaluru. Only on 26 November was I able to break the ‘TG326 jinx’, and get my first TG A350 flying from Indian shores. Go figure all three of those flights (SIN–BKK on 24/8; BLR–BKK and BKK–SIN on 26/11) were operated by the same A350, HS-THN! As someone who likes to fly non-repeating registrations, that was a bit of a bummer… but it beats flying the blasted old 777-200ER any day. As a result, both HS-TJW and HS-THN now feature three times in my flight log, which no other specific aircraft does.
This time, for my upcoming report, I will not be as hard on the Thai Airways 777-200ER in general; instead, I will look at my misery from a darkly comic, masochistic lens. I do hope that this was my final time flying the old hag HS-TJW and her ilk!
In 2025, the airline plans to retire two out of its five 777-200ERs, while taking on secondhand A330-300s and 787-9s, aside from its order of 787s and A321neos.[/s
[route link=/en/report/71415/cathay-pacific-714755-singapore-sin-bangkok-bkk/ label=now]CX714, CX755 | Singapore to Hong Kong to Bangkok | 6 August 2024 | A350-900s B-LRT, B-LRP[/route]
[route link=undefined label=futur]TG325 | Bangkok to Bengaluru | 6 August 2024 | 777-200ER HS-TJW Part 1[/route]
[route link=undefined label=futur]TG326, TG403 | Bengaluru to Bangkok to Singapore | 11 August 2024 | 777-200ER HS-TJW Part 2; 777-300ER HS-TKU[/route]
[route link=undefined label=futur]TG404, SQ705 | Singapore to Bangkok and back | 24/25 August 2024 | A350-900s HS-THN and 9V-SHS[/route]
poiler]
A promise (TG A350) unfulfilled… and a rare gem (Changi T4) unearthed
Monday, 5 August, afternoon. Outside my office building in Novena, central Singapore, there is a prominent outdoor display that shows ads for the ‘smooth-as-silk’ Thai Airways service. Having been ‘jilted’ twice before by the atrocious old 777-200ER, I had specifically hoped for this trip to give me a TG A350 or two and break the jinx.
Instead TG decided to play the waiting game even more, by sending HS-TJW on both my flights between BKK and BLR… and the connecting BKK–SIN flight was also not an A350, though at least it was the less-ancient 777-300ER. Sorry, isn’t this supposed to be a Cathay Pacific report? I get so carried away and worked up when ranting about the Thai Airways 777-200ER. Anyway!
https://static.flight-report.com/media/photos/13817/1737306338VJAR/img_108.jpg
That aside, IndiGo, the biggest airline that India has ever seen, had just become an 18-year-old adult the previous day (4 August) and was preparing to launch its first business-class(-lite) product, entitled IndiGoStretch. This was launched on 14 November 2024, two days after the Vistara brand was sunset for good and folded into Air India.
Besides, when my family asked for my schedule, I’d thrown them off the trail a bit — by fibbing to them that I’d be taking the nonstop CX712 to Bangkok, instead of going via Hong Kong. Little did I know that the whole point of adding a diversion to HKG, to reach BKK earlier, would backfire spectacularly!
https://static.flight-report.com/media/photos/13817/1737306338VJAR/img_117.jpg
Night. With bag and baggage packed, I headed out for the 15-minute ride to Changi at 11 o’clock. To my surprise, a BMW 2 Series Active Tourer turned up: certainly a welcome change of pace from the standard Toyota Prius, Honda Vezel or Hyundai Ioniq, which are dime-a-dozen as Grab/Gojek cars in Singapore.
As with most drivers I’ve seen in Singapore, this was a friendly chap. When he started to go round in circles trying to search for the exit from my condo complex, he joked, ‘So big complex ah, never develop eh, got confuse you know?’ in that standard Singlish accent. On the radio was Shalala Lala by Vengaboys. (For some reason I always thought it was released in 1996, but no, it’s 2000, when I too was ‘released’ into this world.)
All too soon he’d pulled up to the driveway of Terminal 4… and let me mention here that this was my first time ever departing from Terminal 4. I’d arrived here in the past, on AirAsia and Jetstar, but this was my first departure. And what a treat was lying in store for me!
https://static.flight-report.com/media/photos/13817/1737306338VJAR/img_126.jpg
The underrated, gorgeous ‘low-cost’ Terminal 4
It’s the smallest, the most remote, has mostly low-cost service with the fewest full-service carriers — but write off Changi Terminal 4 at your own peril. It’s too bad that Terminal 4’s only major full-service carriers are Cathay Pacific and Korean Air, not counting Mainland Chinese airlines like Hainan and Juneyao, or I honestly would’ve known about this glamorous, glimmering place that much sooner. I rave about Terminal 2’s revamped architecture, but T4 really was the first to put it into action, in 2017.
Anyway, I headed to the Cathay automated check-in and bag-drop kiosks and effortlessly put through my luggage, even getting a physical baggage tag for the same. With Singapore’s 59th National Day round the corner on 9 August, a big 59 symbol — nearly resembling ‘sg’, the country’s two-letter code (but looking more like ‘S9’ instead) — had been placed at the far end of the counters, along with the year’s theme: ‘Together, as One United People’.
As a matter of fact, Terminal 1 — or Terminal One(world), as I like to nickname it — is far and away my least favourite of Changi’s four terminals, but it’s still leagues above the monstrosity that is BKK. With other Southeast Asian airports I only tend to encounter one of them: Terminal 1 at KLIA, Terminal 3 at Jakarta’s Soekarno–Hatta — and, of course, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi has just the one ugly terminal (not counting the new SAT-1 concourse, which actually looks nice!).
https://static.flight-report.com/media/photos/13817/1737306338VJAR/img_135.jpg
I passed by the check-ins for Jetstar Asia (code: 3K) — the smallest of the three Singapore-based carriers and the only one not owned by SIA Group — which had only recently shifted to T4, after spending nearly two decades at T1 alongside its parent Qantas.*
It was nearly midnight at this point, and most eateries had naturally closed, save for a lone Burger King on the mezzanine floor. It was there that I went, and proceeded to buy a Rendang Spicy Chicken King value meal, something that Burger King Singapore brings around annually for the National Day period in early August. The crunch was delicious, the garlic-and-herb bites tangy, and hence started my first three-flight day ever — filled with both lows (the CX755 delay, another TG 772ER) and highs (a pair of CX A350s, the Thai Airways gift shop and the Oman Air Lounge BKK)!
*Jetstar Asia moved to Terminal 4 in March 2023 after settling an acrimonious spat with Changi Airport Group. With its small fleet of 10-odd A320ceos, it fits right in with other LCCs at T4 — but for the fact that it relies heavily on connections from its parent Qantas, which like most other Oneworld airlines is based at T1. (Jetstar Australia (code: JQ) serves Changi as well, and both Jetstars moved to T4 simultaneously.)
Since T4 is physically isolated and laborious to get to from the other three terminals — only buses, no Skytrain — it was only very begrudgingly that 3K accepted CAG’s decision to shift base to T4. Other LCCs at T4, like AirAsia, VietJetAir, Cebu Pacific and Jeju Air, are all purely independent low-cost carriers with no codeshares whatsoever.
It goes without saying that Changi Terminal 4 is jaw-droppingly spectacular, with only T2 one-upping its splendorous beauty, and is well worth the extra taxes and fees you incur when flying out of the world’s best non-Qatari airport.
Here, unlike the other three terminals with their at-gate security, you go through a central security check, immediately followed by a duty-free maze à la Bengaluru’s brilliant T2. Then starts the actual retail expedition, replete with (mostly closed at this Cinderella hour) eateries and convenience stores.
I did take a moment to take in the ‘Steel in Bloom’ structure, the kind of thing that’s child’s play for Changi where most Western airports struggle to beautify their ambiences!
Eventually I reached the row of Peranakan shophouses at the far end of the corridor, with a lone Texas Chicken — or should that be ‘Lone Star’ Texas Chicken? 😛 — in the vicinity. A small right turn later came the start of the G gates, with a Cebu Pacific jet boarding at G12, and I proceeded further left from there.
I have a phobia of high ceilings in general, but I must say I’ll make an exception for Changi T4: these are high ceilings I actually love! Compared to Terminal 3’s mostly high-ceilinged affair, the high ceilings at Changi T4 are similar to those at BLR T2, in that they’re as wide and broad as they are high, and hence feel much roomier.
At the very end lay G18 to G21, the four widebody-capable gates, which is where Cathay Pacific and Korean Air conduct all their Changi operations. B-LRT, my A350 for the night, had just arrived as CX715 and was waiting for passengers to board as the arriving ones deplaned.
Meanwhile the Paris Olympics were showing on Mediacorp Channel 5 — one of two English-language channels run by the Singaporean pubcaster, alongside CNA (short for Channel NewsAsia). An Italian female gymnast was in ecstasy after managing to secure a medal, the emotion writ large on her face.
With B-LRT having just arrived, I had a look at my Apple Wallet boarding passes for the continued journey to Bangkok — without knowing how much of an ironic twist the displayed boarding time would turn out to be!
Before long, boarding for the second ‘Flight 714’ — a nod to Tintin — in my travelling journey commenced, as KE646 next door was preparing to close its gates. This was a more or less peaceful, uneventful flight, compared to the storm-of-sorts that would be brewing eight hours later!
Flight 1: Boarding and departure
Cathay Pacific Airways CX714 | Tuesday, 6 August 2024 | Singapore (SIN) to Hong Kong (HKG).
Aircraft: B-LRT, Airbus A350-900
Age: 6 years 11 months at the time (built: 8 September 2017, delivered: 29 September 2017)
Seat: 66K (starboard side, window)
Boarding: 1:20am SGT/HKT (UTC +8)
Departure: 1:55am SGT/HKT
Arrival: 5:15am SGT/HKT
Duration: 3 hours 20 minutes
Notes:
• Third flight on CX and second on its A350, after CX624 from Bengaluru to Hong Kong on 27 December 2023, operated by B-LRB. This remains the only Oneworld airline on which I’ve flown the A350 so far, given that Malaysia Airlines does not operate its A350s on regional flights — though I plan to fly the JAL domestic A350 in the not-too-distant future (fingers crossed!).
A dark green cabin sets the midnight tone… and a new safety video adds some flavour
Cathay Pacific’s signature woody green colour welcomed me once again as it had done a few months before at Bengaluru, at a similar late-night hour. This time around, however, I didn’t feel the thrill of setting foot on an unfamiliar airline — as was the case at BLR — but rather the sense of calm and seasoned luxury that you come to associate with one of the world’s top airlines, and certainly my favourite when it comes to branding and typography. Once again it was a meandering river, sans any brushwing logo or Oneworld blue circle, that beckoned me to my evergreen seat pick: 66K.
Justin Watson, the captain, sounded decidedly Australian (or Kiwi?), and he delivered a very detailed welcome speech, stating that once the last few bags came aboard we could get on our way. The flying time, he stated, was 3 hours 24 minutes: oddly specific!
Iris, the cabin manager from Hong Kong — sounding like a sweet oldish lady — then put in her welcome for ‘our Oneworld flight to Hong Kong’, a codeshare with American Airlines, MIAT Mongolian Airlines (!!!) and Qatar Airways.
Again I was welcomed onboard by the Cathay magazine at my seat, always a delight when flying an airline that symbolises the — greatly diminished, but never dying — spirit of Hong Kong. Cathay Pacific is an incredibly westernised, anglicised brand, and its magazine is no different; it’s pitch-perfect and flawless.
In other words, the polar opposite of the other major East Asian airline with green as its main colour, also globally lauded and feted: EVA Air and its very amateurish-looking (IMHO) enVoyage magazine! Indeed, Taiwan’s Star Alliance member doesn’t have anything resembling a brand (BRand?) at all, which is such a shame and totally at odds with its superb onboard product.
The IFE is no less perfect, and while its official name remains StudioCX, this is no longer used in the inflight screens. (Oneworld partner Malaysia Airlines — whose brand is just as westernised and flawless as Cathay’s — has a similar-sounding name, MHstudio, for its streaming IFE.)
As before, the single biggest draw of the CX A350, to me, was the tail camera — something that you’ll never get on Singapore Airlines, and that I’ve also enjoyed on Thai Airways’s A350 and even Air India’s new A350, not to mention the Emirates A380 a few weeks before. Never mind the Disney+, certainly not on this redeye sector!
And now Cathay Pacific’s new safety video was screened, bringing to life the vibrancy of Hong Kong that no amount of protests, pandemics or Putonghua can vanquish. The city’s unique British-meets-Chinese legacy is brought to the fore, and it’s such a vast improvement over the previous video, which had animated illustrations superimposed on real-life surroundings!
While it continues the popular safety-video-set-in-tourist-hotspot theme that SQ had started seven years before with its own tranquil, sophisticated video, CX’s video is much more lively, down-to-earth and, should I say, bilingual. English audio comes with Cantonese subtitles and vice-versa, in contrast to, say, Thai Arways where the Thai and English audio portions match with their subtitle tracks.
It’s interesting that this was released so soon after Emirates’ no-nonsense safety video — as I’d flown to and from Dubai the previous month — which sheds these theatrics for a simple, straightforward but also engaging and clear demonstration of vital safety features.
Another thing that I did love about this video was that there was an instruction at the end to, ‘finally, and just as importantly, enjoy the journey’: I wouldn’t expect any less from an airline as polished and poised as Cathay Pacific.
The one thing that I found remiss was that there wasn’t the tell-tale blue circle at the end… which was a good thing, since that logo is a pet peeve of mine. In my opinion, Oneworld airlines tend to be much prouder of highlighting their alliance logo than Star or, even more, SkyTeam* — to the extent that Oneworld airlines always put the alliance logo at the top of their websites, typically next to the airline logo, whereas the ‘A Star Alliance Member’ is always at the very bottom of any member’s webpage.
*In fact, I think the whole Air France–KLM group is hell-bent on scrubbing the alliance logo from publicity materials!
All that aside, we soon pulled past the KE 777-300ER and hit the runway, and I found it funny that my Cathay Pacific A350 was following a yellow Cebu Pacific A320neo on the way to takeoff.
There were a few longhaul takeoffs: SQ366 to Rome — operated by the one-in-10,000th special 9V-SMF (which I’ve flown) — and SQ478 to Johannesburg and Cape Town, with CX749, also to JNB, being airborne at the same time. (I like that Flightradar24 trick: typing ‘BLR’ gives you both my current Indian base, Bengaluru, and most of Cathay Pacific’s A350-900s.)
At around two at night (or in the morning?), B-LRT whooshed to the far end of the runway — as I continued to track her progress on the tail camera — and sailed into the sky above the ships of Singapore, leaving behind Asia’s financial and economic capital and headed to the same city, long ago known as ‘Asia’s World City’, which lost that crown!
A basic modicum of service on this late-night sector
Soon after takeoff, Iris, in that sweet grandmotherly voice of hers, made a long two-minute announcement covering all manner of onboard events and enhancements. From the seatbelt sign and turbulence, to the Wi-Fi service, to making a donation, to a special 50% cash discount (?!?) on select home-delivered Cathay Shop products, to SMS and data roaming, to live sports (including the 2024 Paris Olympics)… and even inviting Business passengers to enjoy a complimentary Wi-Fi trial on this flight — her announcement monologue had it all!
I, on my part, perused through the Cathay magazine for a fair bit, never mind the darkened cabin, and was especially intrigued by all the cool merchandise. I mean, a model A350-1000, a beach towel and umbrella, an A321neo LEGO-like play set, a pack of teddy bears — SIGN ME UP!!! (Full resolution here.)
Well, I have half a mind to visit the luxurious Cathay Shop at Cityplaza when I visit Hong Kong… but later that day I’d be doing essentially the same thing for Thai Airways, whose own gift shop is significantly less luxurious but no less exhaustive when it comes to the vast range of goodies offered.
It’s always a treat to open the map on this dark-themed version of the StudioCX IFE, with A321neos and other A350s having a light-themed IFE instead — and both are many miles above KrisWorld on SQ, as good as that is. Much like Oneworld partner Finnair on its A350s and A330s, Cathay Pacific has a ‘service timeline’ of sorts showing the flow of food and entertainment… but I didn’t get to see it on this flight (possibly due to its late-night nature), though the subsequent one did.
Phyllis was the flight attendant serving my part of the cabin, and she rolled out a small snack box containing what she described as a chicken sandwich, cut fruits and a chocolate cupcake. While the sandwich had a bit of a salty pickled taste, it was fairly decent, and the other foods would more than suffice for this redeye. In addition, there was a packet of macadamia shortbread in the box, and this was so sinfully decadent that I wouldn’t need to eat anything else!
A bottle of Bon Aqua water was handed out by a young Western guy with neck-length curled-up hair, and meanwhile a little girl with pink glasses at the seat behind me (67K) merrily kicked away at my seat while still half-asleep.
With the late-night dining done, I ventured a little into the StudioCX system, which is by far among the best IFE systems that I’ve ever experienced in terms of both entertainment selection and user interface design. Yes, it beats even Oryx One, the ‘award-winning’ IFE of alliance partner Qatar Airways, as I briefly experienced on a 45-minute hop from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City in November 2024. And, most importantly to me: there were so many Indian movies! Not that I’d be watching them today… (Full resolution here.)
I could not help but dig a little into the nooks and crannies of the IFE, from the connection information — it looked all the more Finnair-like with the little dots — to the feedback survey to what I looked forward to the most (other than the tail camera): destination overviews. Truth be told, you’ll be hard-pressed to find another East Asian airline, including SQ, that tailors its moving-map experience so much. Too bad these were only confined to megacities like Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Bangkok (full-res images) and not holiday destinations like Denpasar or small cities like Colombo.
Never a bad time to land at Hong Kong…
Shortly before descent, Captain Watson made a pre-landing announcement that was just as polished as the welcome. Now was the time to be bedazzled by the sheer luminosity of the night lights surrounding the City of the Fragrant Harbour, which honestly is not too different from Singapore — except there aren’t as many ships in the sea!
B-LRT kissed the Chek Lap Kok runway at a quarter past five in the morning, and glided past a bunch of HK Express A320/1neos and Greater Bay 737-800s, before brush(wing)ing past dozens of green-tailed company aircraft.
The one interesting addition to the scene that I could spot was an Air New Zealand 787-9. Curiously enough, Cathay Pacific partners with this Star Alliance member in the Oceania region rather than its Oneworld partner Qantas — and, indeed, Qantas gets along very poorly with many (if not most) other Oneworld airlines, above all its arch-nemesis Qatar Airways.
As those around me disembarked, ready for their onward connections, I took a better look at that impeccable magazine — especially its fleet details, the film selection and the little ending pages that care. (Full resolution here.)
By the time I got up from the sea of sombre green seats, barely any passengers were left on board — I typically like to leave last! Bidding farewell to Iris, I said, ‘Landing at Hong Kong, even on a late-night flight, is such a pleasant experience!’ Unlike SQ714 in December 2022, where the catering was a letdown, this ‘Flight 714’ had almost nothing to complain about: efficient, friendly, relaxing.
Indeed, this leg had gone off without a hitch, which is much more than could be said about the next one to BKK, with its big delay… or the one after that, the wretched 777-200ER later that evening.
Now HKG is a legitimately impressive-looking airport when it comes to the sprawling departure gates… but not so much with these arrival corridors, which look positively industrial, if not outright Suvarnabhumi-like gloomy and ugly. Look at airports like Mumbai T2, Jakarta T3 (domestic and international) and Denpasar, which make their arrivals halls so much pleasurable and packed with heritage and culture.
Most airports I’ve been through (again, with the exception of Bangkok) provide fast, free and fuss-free Wi-Fi, and fortunately HKG was no exception at all. At this early-morning hour, most of the arrivals were either North American flights in the CX8xx series or cargo aircraft from airlines like Kalitta Air, AeroLogic, Maersk Air and Atlas Air… in addition to Air Hong Kong, the local DHL affiliate.
Speaking of Maersk Air Cargo, the Danish freighter operator operates mostly 20-, 30- and even 40-year-old 767s and 777s… but OY-MAC, the 777 that landed some hours back, was just over a month old!
Anyway, I proceeded to the transfer counters, and I must appreciate the swift, military-like efficiency with which the HKG staff conducted their security checks. No small personal electronics needed to be removed from the bags — what a relief…
As the sun broke over this mystical city, a crossroads of West and East, I proceeded up to the departure level and took in the sheer vastness of everything. I’d done the same during the broad light of day a few months before, in December 2023, and it’s clear that this airport was built for grandeur and scale.
All the world’s alliances, all the world’s planes / Could they make Hong Kong great again?
This is a reference to none other than Humpty Dumpty, the children’s rhyme. In fact, this would be my first time seeing all three alliances’ special liveries at once — it’s normally hard for me to catch even one! (Unless of course you’re talking about that epic KLM flight to Denpasar, on a 777 in the SkyTeam livery…)
This being a Oneworld hub airport, it was only but natural that the representative from the blue-circle group be the local flag carrier. But the representatives from the other two alliances both had ‘China’ in their name, something that Oneworld has so far resisted including.
First off was a Japan Airlines 787-8 (JA823J) painted in the Expo 2025 Osaka special colours, which I’d meet up close during takeoff. Behind that stood an Air China A320 (B-6383) in Star Alliance livery, and in the foreground was a China Southern A321. On the other side were a Cathay 777-300ER (B-KQM) with the Oneworld titles — minus the blue circle — and, further down, a China Airlines A330-300 (B-18311) painted in the SkyTeam colours. If this isn’t avgeek heaven, what is?
These were the Flightradar24 details of all the aircraft that I described above, plus an SQ A350 (I’ve flown ‘SHE’ before) which was resting after arriving as SQ898 the previous evening.
I strolled around the oh-so-spacious gates with their abundant charging and watering facilities, and eventually decided to park my bags by a windowside seat: there were far too many of them available at this early hour. Whatever few people were there were mostly sleeping on the chairs, though of course it wasn’t all that comfortable!
I had my fill of all these special-liveried planes, plus an Air Canada 787-9 — another Star Alliance member that partners with Cathay Pacific — and then decided to snooze myself for an hour or so.
As another Oneworld-liveried 777-300ER (B-KPD) touched down, I set the alarm to what else but 7:55!
By the time I woke up, an A350 was standing at the gate where CX755 to Bangkok would board. Bummer! I sure had hoped for an A330-300, but I wouldn’t say no to another round of tail cameras — this time in broad daylight. If only I knew how this aircraft, B-LRP, would ruin my well-laid Thai Airways restaurant plans… but then again you should never curse an A350 as you do the TG 777-200ER.
Note also VT-TVJ, the tenth and last Vistara A321neo, standing in the distance after arriving from Delhi. (After the Vistara brand was retired in November 2024, this and all other ex-Vistara aircraft fly with an ‘Operated by Air India’ sticker at the back as well as at the entry door — but the rest of the Vistara livery remains unchanged for the time being.)
I got up and walked around the stores in the vicinity, though most of them weren’t eateries; for that I’d need to go down a level to satiate my breakfast needs.
As proof of just how much HKG as a global hub has bounced back, the surrounding aircraft were at opposite extremes: a cheerful Cebu Pacific A320neo alongside a globe-striding giant United 777-300ER.
A cute but expensive ‘sando’ combo before boarding
I headed to the escalator, which had a prominent McDonald’s sign, and went to the food court one level below. It was packed with people lining up for their morning fix, and the shop that caught my fancy the most was called Between, with its cutesy cartoon characters and merchandise.
The items were quite expensive — a ‘sando’ for HK$58 (≈US$7.50), an iced chocolate drink for HK$48 (≈US$6) — but given the winding line at the McD, I thought it best to get it done with here. Besides, who wouldn’t want their sandwich wrapper to be a bit more interesting, not to mention more adorable, than a plain plastic throwaway packet?
Returning to the departure gates, CX504 to Taipei and CX717 to Bangkok and Singapore* were boarding in short order. I returned to my gate, 29, where CX755 would shortly commence its own boarding procedure, and continued to munch on my ‘CN Ichigo Sando’ with an imprinted cartoon dog.
Interestingly, those seated beside me were a Spanish-speaking group, but it was naturally hard to figure out (based on accent) whether they came from Argentina, Andalucía or Acapulco.
*With the start of the winter schedule on 27 October 2024, CX717 (HKG–BKK-SIN–HKG) was renumbered as CX619 and is operated by the A330-300 instead of the A350. Meanwhile, CX712 (HKG–SIN–BKK–HKG) became CX630, but is still operated by the A350. However, both routes will be discontinued on 29 March 2025 as the next summer schedule starts — and that’s why I’ll be flying CX630 and CX619 to and from BKK on the weekend of 8–9 March.
Besides CX and its LCC subsidiary HK Express, there were a handful of other planes of interest to me, of which I’ve labelled the departing ones below. Especially interesting was the 787-10 from Taiwan — with a shade of brighter green and a touch of orange — which had parked itself amongst the sedate dark greens of the hometown giant at HKG.
Both may be among the world’s top airlines, but there’s very little in common between EVA Air and Cathay other than the green colour. Honestly, the two could not be more diametrically opposed as far as marketing and branding is concerned, with CX being absolutely phenomenally perfect and BR having next to nothing at all. Indeed, BR is much more closely aligned with Air China and Shenzhen Airlines, its Star Alliance partners from Mainland China, in terms of its absolute lack of marketing — even though its service and product are among the world’s best, which Mainland Chinese airlines are not.
In a bit more detail: CX is, to me, one of the finest examples of luxurious westernised branding in aviation — shockingly for a Chinese-speaking airline — and it’s even better than SQ in many cases. But BR doesn’t even try to market itself at all, Hello Kitty aside, and its award-winning service sadly flies under the radar more often than not.
At least Starlux makes its stratospheric (pun intended) aspirations clear, but you’d never know from EVA’s lack of BRanding that it, and Taiwan as a whole, is such an aviation powerhouse … as blogs like One Mile at a Time gladly, and repeatedly, attest to.
Meanwhile a small child stared at the EVA Air 787 (above), and gleefully waved his tiny hand at a departing Greater Bay Airlines jet, squealing ‘G’day! G’day!’ as the local low-cost carrier’s 737 sailed towards Osaka. The selfsame little boy then looked up at the expansive ceilings, all while his brother, who was not much older than him, sat obediently and kept a watch on their mother as she stood.
I love it when little children like them appreciate the joy of flying! 🥰
Before long, boarding for CX755 was announced, and there were a significant number of Westerners (other than the Hispanics beside me) who were lining up to board. On the surface this flight looked innocuous enough, but in retrospect I really should have booked the much more ‘boring’ CX717 with its guaranteed copy-paste A350, and not this sometimes-A330-operated leg which ended up backfiring on me thanks to what would happen next.
On any other day this reach-Bangkok-before-noon-via-HKG plan would have worked, but not on 6 August 2024! 😓
Flight 2 (CX755, HKG–BKK): Boarding and departure, I mean, delays…
Cathay Pacific Airways CX755 | Tuesday, 6 August 2024 | Hong Kong (HKG) to Bangkok (BKK).
Aircraft: B-LRP, Airbus A350-900
Age: 7 years 3 months at the time (built: 5 May 2017, delivered: 1 June 2017)
Seat: 71K (starboard side, window)
Boarding: 9:10am HKT, UTC +8 (8:10am Indochina Time (ICT), UTC +7)
Departure: 11:20am HKT (10:20am ICT)
Arrival: 12:40pm ICT (1:40pm HKT)
Duration: 2 hours 20 minutes
Notes:
• Fourth flight on CX and third on its A350, after CX624 from Bengaluru to Hong Kong on 27 December 2023 and the preceding flight, CX714. First time boarding a Cathay Pacific flight during the morning; my A321neo flight to Hanoi in December 2023 departed shortly before sunset.
• This is the first time I have experienced a significant mechanical issue on a flight, leading to a big delay of over an hour!
All seemed well so far, until…
With both of my previous CX A350 flights — CX624 from Bengaluru and now CX714 from Singapore — having boarded in the dead of night, it sure felt nice to see the sedate Cathay brushwing in the light of day. None of the seats, oddly enough, showed the meandering river and seat number as passengers boarded. I made my way to 71K, being a stickler for right-hand window seats, and it didn’t take long for the plane to fill up and the safety video to be screened.
This time around, the IFE showed a timeline of sorts that acted as a guide — similar to Finnair as I’ve mentioned above — to the Wi-Fi, breakfast, entertainment and touchdown time. Well, it wouldn’t be long before all that would be upended… (Full resolution here.)
For now, though, the A350 pulled out of the gate and started taxiing, while I (of course) watched the action in crisp detail on the tail camera.
We passed by several exciting planes, including the China Airlines A330 in SkyTeam livery, and fellow Taiwanese airline Starlux which had sent ‘only’ an A321neo. It’s a sad sign of the times when EVA and China Airlines are now sending some narrowbodies to HKG, and Starlux only the A321neo — and this on TPE–HKG, the world’s busiest international route for many years, which once boasted of 747s and 777s packed to the brim…
Meanwhile another A330 and A321neo came into view — both belonging to Filipino low-cost carrier Cebu Pacific — with the A330-900neo taking off as 5J273 to Manila and the A321neo adding a burst of yellow and blue sunshine to this predominantly green (thanks to both Cathay and the surrounding hills) airport.
It wouldn’t be long before the bubble was burst. The (British?) captain came on the PA and announced a technical snag that would require, at the minimum, half an hour for the technicians to fix. I prematurely — and rightly — wrote off my Thai Airways restaurant dream as a failure, and I felt especially bummed since the restaurant was only open on weekdays and closed so early in the afternoon.
I’d gone out of my way to reach Bangkok before noon on a weekday — all for everything to be ruined by a plane delay?! Ugh, first-world problems…
Now I was forced to content myself with other exotic planes out the window as we returned to the gate, such as the Air Canada 787-9 and Vistara A321neo that I’ve talked about earlier — in addition to a China Airlines 737-800 that was going to take off as CI934 to Kaohsiung (KHH) and was moving around on the runway.
This aside, Air China had sent a second Star Alliance-liveried plane — an A321 as compared to the A320 further up — that provided a striking contrast to the Cathay 777 in Oneworld colours, especially as Air China has a stake in CX.
By half-past ten we were well and truly back at the gate, as the tail camera shows, and the passengers were getting bored with the delay. My seatmate even searched for other Cathay flights to Bangkok on her iPhone SE (which is now an extinct species, now that the iPhone 16e has been launched in February 2025!).
I must commend the captain, however, for providing timely updates every 15 or so minutes regarding the status of the technical snag. While a minor fix that wouldn’t require a huge delay, the seatbelt signs had been turned off (as he said) so that passengers could use the lavatories. The cabin crew came round and handed out green paper cups of water, with their shade of turquoise providing a bright contrast to the muted green fabric and contours of the seats.
Bored stiff, I took a trip to the rear lavatory and talked with Dabby, one of the cabin crew, about the delay. She reiterated that the captain, technicians and cabin crew were all doing their best, given the situation. At some point the StudioCX IFE system was restarted, and it was only now that the meandering river and the seat number came on the screen, which they hadn’t earlier.
Long overdue, but at least we can take off now…
At 10:45 the lead cabin crew came on the PA. ‘Due to a technical problem our departure is now delayed by… (long 10-second pause) …by 30 minutes. We will keep you updated with our schedule. Thank you for your patience.’ Arrrggghhhhh!!!
It was positively humiliating for me to be stuck in Hong Kong like this, especially when I’d told my parents a different schedule. Yet I didn’t show it. Well, at least I got to fly two A350s… with tail cameras… to an airport as beautiful as HKG… in broad daylight… ‘Thank your lucky stars, you ungrateful wretch,’ I mock-rebuked myself.
Soon enough, it was finally all-systems-go from the captain, and we were ready to depart over 2 hours after the scheduled time. It was only at 11:10 that we made it to the runway, with the Starlux A321neo taxiing behind us as JX232.
At this point JA823J, the 787-8 in the Expo 2025 Osaka livery — operating as JL736 to Tokyo Narita, which was also running late (though not as bad as mine) — came up right behind us, and what a beauty she was! Most JAL planes are devoid of any colour for most of the fuselage, so those that do have a special livery stand out all the more.
Another interesting special-liveried plane that was coming behind us was Thai AirAsia’s A320 HS-BBH, in the ’Now Everyone Can Fly Responsibly Livery’ livery, with English on the left side and Thai on the right.
At long, long, long last, B-LRP whizzed to the runway at 11:20 and soared into the glorious skies of Hong Kong. Too bad I was in a frazzled state of mind instead of simply being able to enjoy the spectacular daytime views of Lantau Island and then Victoria Harbour…
Some paid Wi-Fi is better than none
With the short-ish nature of the flight — the captain said we were trying to gain speed, cutting the 3-hour flight to 2h20m — there wasn’t that much to watch on the IFE besides the tail camera. I decided to splurge a little for the Wi-Fi, with a US$10 1-hour pass, as I’d done on the flight from Bengaluru several months before.
While doing so, I was intrigued by all the items on sale from the Wi-Fi portal — from a UNICEF donation, to destination-branded towels, to merchandise and play sets… I’d seen them all in the magazine on the previous leg, but I didn’t expect them to show up in the portal.
Shortly, the breakfast service was rolled out by a flight attendant named Karina. I wish I could add something more about her personality, but unfortunately I can’t, other than that her pace of service was brisk, efficient — a bit more than Phyllis on the previous leg — and yet very polite with all the ‘Would you like the ___ or the ___, sir?’ you might expect from an Asian airline. I might add here that all female cabin crew on both flights were Hongkongers, as were all male ones on this sector, but the captains were Aussie then, British now.
Typical Western breakfast items: chicken sausages, a round drum-shaped omelette, a bread roll and butter, cut fruits, yoghurt, a refreshing tissue, metal cutlery, a cup of orange juice. In short, the works; nothing too over-the-top or unexpected, given that I hadn’t taken the Asian choice.
It was only an hour into the flight, with the breakfast done, that I actually shelled out the US$9.95 for the Telekom-powered Wi-Fi. Immediately I did what I always do on an SQ flight, where Wi-Fi is free for all (but blanks out over Indian airspace): switch to Flightradar24. Despite the two-hour-late departure, the A350 was doing very well to make up for lost time and would reach BKK ‘only’ an hour late… but what did it matter!
Meanwhile, on the family WhatsApp group, I continued pretending that I’d be flying CX712 straight to Bangkok — which my mom erroneously referred to as BGK when asking for the departing and arriving times. I also bluffed that my phone battery was low and that I’d need to charge it… which was simply an excuse for not sending messages!
Bangkok it is, then — you can never get too far from Thailand
At 12:30 Thai time, a bit over two hours after departure, CX755 finally approached the fields surounding the eastern side of the Thai capital, with the marvellous tail-camera views keeping me company. I know only too well how the approach into Suvarnabhumi is like, but enjoying a tail-camera view — whether on TG’s A350 or CX’s — is something special.
With all the grace in the world, B-LRP finally skimmed over the Thai Airways 747, A380 and old-777 graveyard and came to a smooth landing at this most overrated, overconnected of airports in Southeast Asia. Suvarnabhumi may look impressive and imposing from outside, but inside it’s a dreary mess of grey.
As my family tracked my so-called progress, I looked up the meaning of ‘man proposes, God disposes’ and the estimated travel time to 89 Vibhavadi Rangsit Road: 38 km and as many minutes.
One of the few advantages that BKK has is the sheer mind-boggling diversity of airlines, many of which you won’t find at Changi — like Air Arabia and Aeroflot. This, especially, was when many Mainland Chinese aircraft had landed, including Sichuan, China Southern, China Eastern (also an A350), Xiamen and Hainan.
As long as you’re on the runway, BKK is very beautiful indeed… all the more so with all the gorgeous Thai Airways aircraft all around. Another violet-tailed aircraft, a 737 of Mainland Chinese cargo airline JD Airlines, had also just landed, and indeed its livery is remarkably similar to TG’s.
We drew close to an Air Arabia A321neo (A6-ATF) that had flown all the way from Sharjah as G9823. What an uncomfortable (if cheap) six hours that must be! There were also 777-300ERs from EVA Air and Philippine Airlines, the latter with its JAL-like ‘plane’ white livery with very little colour apart from the tail.
With a deep sigh of relief, I got up and tried to edge my way out as quickly as possible, thanking Karina and the rest of the cabin crew for handling the delay with equanimity and poise. I didn’t have much time to take in the familiar ugliness of BKK, as I’d be heading straight to baggage claim.
As ugly as Suvarnabhumi’s architecture is, it nevertheless does a better job than both Changi and HKG (I can’t believe I’m saying this!) at adorning the walls with art and paintings. With the terrible BKK Wi-Fi thankfully not needed thanks to my prepaid roaming data, I power-walked my way to immigration and baggage claim… only for the belt to stop midway and beep, just when I was desperate to get the hell out of the place.
It was only at 1:20ish, after watching countless bags sail by (one with an Air Astana ribbon — another airline that doesn’t serve Changi), that I could dash to the Grab taxi counters. It was a tense, if not agonising, wait for the Toyota to trundle up, as I sweated profusely in the Bangkok summer heat while the guy at the booth kept on calling car numbers in English instead of Thai.
As my Cathay Pacific adventure had ended, another one in the Thai capital was only just starting. I desperately asked the taxi guy via Google Translate — Thailand, in my experience, has abominable English skills — to tear off hell-for-leather to 89 Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, so I could salvage whatever I could of the day.
On the way out from Suvarnabhumi, I assured my parents that my purported ‘flight’ — operated by B-LQH, the last A350 delivered to Hong Kong’s flag carrier — would have Wi-Fi, but only for WhatsApping.
I just managed to catch a yellow Sky Angkor Airlines A320 (XU-725) that had landed as ZA674 from Phnom Penh, and that’s also operated a bit for Myanmar Airways International. That’s Bangkok for you: crazy planes, crazy sights, crazy traffic, but with an allure that continues to attract millions — especially Indians — year in, year out.
