Flight Information
Airline: Cathay Pacific (CX)
Flight Number: CX410 (CPA410)
Route: HKG - ICN
Aircraft: Boeing 777-367
Registration: B-HNG
Seat: 62K
STD (ATD): 0920L (0944L)
STA (ATA): 1355L (1346L)
Flight Time: 03:02
To give a brief recap of my journey from the beginning, I ended up in HK after originally planning on flying on Air China's 747 on the domestic Beijing to Shanghai route. I chose Korean Air's GMP-PEK route on their new A321neo as it was financially responsible and interesting in itself. I missed on the 747 due to a late equipment swap, and flew on their A350s instead. Now, I find myself in HK after Cathay had a very cheap offer available from Shanghai to Seoul via HK.
What was originally 23 hours ended up being about 20 hours, but I still had a nice time keeping myself busy trying to visit all of the musts at Hong Kong. As an enthusiast, of course the checkerboard was a must. I also visited the peak via a trail which led all the way up to Lugard road. My thinking there was that as I had the whole night before my morning flight the next day and I didn't have any accommodation booked, why not just bite my time and energy and just go for it? The slopes were pretty steep especially before the actual trail part on actual asphalt roads, which took me by surprise.
After getting on line 15 back to base, I went to this bus terminus to catch my ride, line N11, back to the airport.
As it wasn't long after the Chinese New Year, the busses with the LED signages were still celebrating the new year.
15 minutes past 1am in the morning, my ride to the airport started its run.
There were about 6 people including myself going all the way to the airport. I boarded first to get the front seats, but it didn't matter as I was too tired to check out the scenery of pitch dark Hong Kong.
I feel like I've missed a couple of stops, as I got off at the very last stop, which was located on the arrivals floor. No matter, as I just climbed up back to the departures. There, I was greeted with a lot of passengers spending the night. All throughout this journey as I had lots of morning flights, I noticed that the number of people willing to spend the night at the airport trying to get some indecent sleep on those hard benches were actually not insignificant at all.
Looks like those decorations are actual live plants. It must be pretty inefficient from a manager's point of view to put this much effort into something which would be hardly noticed.
As I had gotten my boarding pass to Seoul from Shanghai when I was checking in, I just went through to airside, which I hoped would be a bit more pleasant when it came to passenger density.
As it was nearly 3 in the morning, no immigration desk was open. However, there was a small crew-only passage which passengers could also use. So, thankfully I was able to go airside and not fight for a bench space landside against all those other people.
Airside, this huge FIDS greets you to this megaport that is HKG. Interestingly, they don't show the assigned gates even if it is pretty useless at this very early hour. So I just found a nice spot not far away.
Very empty compared to the departures hall. The 24-hour McDonald's seemed to be bringing in lots of passengers.
After about a bit over 3 hours of on-and-off sleeping, I woke up and visited the infamous sky bridge, which was actually pretty underwhelming, in my opinion. As it was early morning, about 6:30ish, there wasn't much traffic and the windows were too prone to reflections. If I had a bit more energy left, I might've appreciated the spot better. But in the moment I didn't care for it much and literally just took this only picture.
View of the terminal with Cathay spamming.
Interesting to note the catering truck in picture 2 still has the old CI applied.
I was amazed just how many 777s there were, ER or non-ER. As one of the world's biggest A350 operators, I was expecting to see a lot more A350s. Unfortunately the retro livery A350 departed to Adelaide about 6 hours prior. I was seriously weighing up whether returning early or not leaving at all just to get a snap of B-LRJ, but I went against it as I knew I wouldn't be satisfied with the end product due to the night lighting reflections.
My flight today, CX410, would be departing from gate 49, which was unfortunately located on the very far end of the terminal.
My ride for today, B-HNG. As the sun was directly pointing at us, it was very hard to get a nice picture once again. I swear the weather wasn't this dark. I just tried to get rid of all the reflections by getting the exposure way down.
HKG recently, just a few years ago, got some revamps which made things very high tech.
Would you believe if I told you all those people are trying to go through the same door?
I boarded the plane about 15 minutes after the chaos that was the picture above. I must say, as an A350 bias, the nose of the 777 and the streamlined forehead really feels like it's eager for flight.
As I was on the late side of boarding, the L1 door had already been closed and detached. You can see where the fuselage met the airbridge. Hundreds of flights do that to an aircraft.
Checking the VDGS itself is really interesting and can provide some info that is pretty hard to get as a normal passenger. There was no way we were pushing in 8 minutes.
This is the view from seat 62K. Right next to the flaps, which is ideal in my books. As you can see, the wing is not like a 77W.
As I settled into my seat for this three hour flight, I immediately noticed the difference in legroom between the forward section and the standard seats. To give you a better understanding, in the standard area, an average-sized man would fit right in, with not much extra room to spare. However, in the forward cabin, I was able to maneuver past the aisle seat passenger without her ever getting up.
We taxied quite a bit to runway 07C for our takeoff. Cathay also seems to get their flaps down during taxi and not straight after start up, which I thought was standard procedure worldwide until I noticed JAL seemed to also deploy flaps when taxiing.
View of the cabin from my seat. It definitely looks cramped compared to the forward section on my last flight. The flight today would be about 80% full, with 349 out of 438 seats being occupied.
We took off from runway 07C to cloudy skies with the terminal under the wings. The spool up definitely is very hard to hear compared to my previous flight as I am sitting behind the wings.
About 4 minutes after takeoff, with the flaps all retracted, I started to see the main reason I selected the right side window seat.
If the winds are favorable and your plane departs facing the north, which I observed to be most of the time, and is heading somewhere east, the departure course leads you to get a overhead view of the core of Hong Kong.
Plus the old Kai Tak site which has been modified to become a residential area
We turn left to head east towards Korea. As you can see, as this is the non-ER version, the raked wingtips are absent and so is the wing flex that comes with it.
About an hour after takeoff, we were served breakfast. I went with the dim sum, as opposed to the omelet. Honestly, I saw pictures of this meal online on reviews and thought it was pretty lacking in portions. However, with everything else combined, it was a pretty filling meal all in all. Everything tasted great and I love the regional touch airlines bring with their meals. One thing I'll nitpick on is the fact that as it's considered a breakfast, there is no Haagen-Dazs ice cream served with the meal.
We were about halfway through the flight when the meal service ended and the crew came to collect the trays.
The seatback pocket contents include a safety card and a magazine, in the 80th anniversary theme.
The crew never turned off the lights, even if it was a daytime flight. Korean Air, for example, turns off the light and asks every passenger to close the window shades in order for the passengers to get some rest. They even announce it over the PA.
Cathay's entertainment is plentiful in Asian carrier's standards. Plenty of things to melt your time. They also provide little city descriptions to most of their destinations.
This is a sight which will be gone in the immediate future, though I don't even know if the airline has a solid retirement plan for these jets, due to just how many they own and how involved this fleet is in Cathay's network.
After browsing the entertainment system for a bit, we started to descend.
And of course, we get a nice view of Seongnam and a bit of Seoul in the background.
Flaps down on approach, we are greeted by the Incheon Bridge. Judging by the proximity of the bridge to our plane, it's possible to infer that we'll be using 33R for our landing. At ICN, the landings are done using either runway 34L or 33R. Traffic inbound from the west say, Europe, utilizing Y644 via REBIT, will for certain land on 34L, unless it's cargo which will use 33R that is closer to the cargo terminal by quite a lot, if the traffic allows for the switch. Traffic from the east, like Japan, inbound via Y685 and GUKDO, will land on 33R, no questions asked unless it has to switch with the cargo plane inbound from the west. Therefore, traffic coming in from the south have no guarantee and is decided plane by plane dependent on the traffic situation. Looks like there were a lot of traffic inbound on 34L which made us go to 33R.
We landed very smoothly, considering the winds were no joke with lots of aileron action taking place.
We made our way to gate 40, Cathay's favorite.
Last look at my seat, which was pretty cramped all round. The 3-4-3 layout takes out all the fun and I think the legroom is also below par compared to the competitors in Asia. Honestly it does not feel like 32 inches of pitch. I'm guessing just the cramped nature of this cabin with the layout made it seem much worse than it really was.
Looks like the whole crew just turns back to HKG.
A look at B-HNG with some nice pictures, which I haven't managed from HKG.
Everything from getting off to getting landside took about 20 minutes. However, that's because I held a Korean passport and went through the nationals line. If you are a foreigner visiting, it probably will take a bit longer, as the line for immigration seemed to be quite long. Brace yourselves!
