a room with couches and a coffee table

Review: Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong

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Note

This lounge has been permanently closed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

My last stop was The Bridge, which I saw as one of the better lounges at Hong Kong Airport before this visit. I’ve touched base with this lounge once, but I wanted to see if the lounge was any different from my last visit in 2015. I wanted to hop on the APM, but it was really crowded, so I ended up walking.

I caught a Korean Air 747-8 on the way, which I was scheduled to be on from Seoul to Hong Kong.

a blue airplane and a plane at an airport
Korean Air Boeing 747-8 Hong Kong Airport

I made it past gate 35, the “fork area” of the airport, where the airport forks into gates 41-60 and gates 61-80. The Bridge was dead on in front of me. It wasn’t the first time I’ve taken the walk, but I don’t remember being in as much of a hurry as I was anytime before this…

a black box with a logo on it in a glass building
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong Entrance

Keep in mind that The Bridge is a oneworld business class lounge, so apart from status, you can get in the lounge with business class on basically any oneworld carrier.

The entrance to the lounge seems pretty cheap to me, but the nice finishes of the lounge returned to me once I turned left towards The Bistro and the Coffee Loft.

a sculpture in a room
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong Entrance

I actually wasn’t really adjusted to what I remembered from the lounge, especially with the chaos at The Wing and how tired I was (in case you don’t want to read my rather brief review, The Wing to me is like Rylan to Gary Barlow). I was actually really taken aback by how “homey” The Bridge was – I remembered it as modern, but didn’t remember it to look as stunning. I think it was the combination of a lack of people and the sheer amount of lounges I visited in the middle, including The Pier, what I see as Cathay Pacific’s best lounge.

Once upon turning left were some areas with couches and more seating varieties.

a room with couches and chairs
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong Seating

a room with chairs and a table
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong Seating

The left side of the lounge features The Bistro, which is one of the two main dining areas in the lounge. The area was completely deserted at the time, and featured table seating and bench seating.

a room with tables and chairs
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong The Bistro

a table and chairs in a room
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong The Bistro

The food spread was rather extensive and looked good, though I didn’t have a chance to try it out given that my flight was already boarding.

a buffet with food on the counter
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong The Bistro Food Spread

a counter with glasses and a shelf with glasses on it
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong The Bistro Food Spread

a counter with food on it
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong The Bistro Food Spread

I walked further to The Coffee Loft, which was also deserted. Personally, I’d spend some time here – while I don’t drink coffee, I do like other beverages such as hot chocolate, and they also have smoothies on order, which I really like. Too bad I didn’t have more time to roam around.

a room with chairs and tables
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong The Coffee Loft

The actual seating was comprised of benches by the side (again, not too sure what the use of that is, given that you can’t really put coffee there comfortably, or do any sort of work), and chairs that you also find at The Wing, which are surprisingly comfortably padded.

a long row of chairs and tables in a room
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong The Coffee Loft

While there are also tarmac views, the blinds were closed, and I didn’t want to destroy anyone’s OCD by opening them, so I didn’t take any tarmac pictures. There are good tarmac views from the lounge, though, but no runway views.

a room with tables and chairs
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong The Coffee Loft

Behind The Coffee Loft is a business center, which features some desks with printers by the side, some with iMacs and some without. Personally, I think that’s a great setup, as you can take your own equipment and have a comfortable place to work, but if you don’t, there are still iMacs on offer.

a desk with desks and chairs
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong Business Center

While I didn’t manage to photograph the shower rooms during my visit this time, they’re really nice – here’s a picture I took during my last visit.

a bathroom with a shower and a sink
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong Shower Room

I then moved over to the other side of the lounge, as time was running out. This side featured The Long Bar and The Bakery.

I really like the shelves – they give the feel of a really modern, designer house, without being particularly “in the way” and also providing privacy between sections.

a group of people in a room
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong Seating

There certainly wasn’t a lack of seating variety either. Apart from the armchairs photographed above, they also had Solus chairs, bench seating…

a green and white chair
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong Solus Chair

a long couch in a room
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong Bench Seating

…as well as the really comfortable L-shaped sofas I remember sitting in with my entire family last time. Ahhh!

a couch with yellow pillows
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong Sofas

a room with a couch and a television
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong Sofas

Unfortunately, The Bakery was really crowded this time round, surprisingly, so I couldn’t really take a good picture. I managed to take a (really blurry) picture of The Bakery last time, so I’ll just repost it here.

a room with tables and chairs
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong The Bakery

The food spread was better than I remembered it to be – all the food looked fresher and less “sloppy” – but still didn’t seem very good. For what it’s worth, there are decent noodles here, though there isn’t a dedicated Noodle Bar.

a kitchen with pots and pans
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong The Bakery Food Spread

a buffet table with food on it
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong The Bakery Food Spread

a buffet with food on shelves
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong The Bakery Food Spread

Finally, in addition to everything else, there’s a Long Bar, which serves alcoholic drinks, as well as some really nice mocktails that I didn’t have a chance to try out this time.

people standing in a line at a buffet
Cathay Pacific The Bridge Lounge Hong Kong Long Bar

At this point in time, I thought it was a good idea to head to the gate, where I caught up with my family and friends heading over from The Pier. I had a good view of a few planes as I walked to the gate, including an El Al 777 and an Air India 787.

an airplane on the tarmac
El Al Boeing 777-200 Hong Kong Airport

an airplane at an airport
Air India Boeing 787-8 Hong Kong Airport

Soon we got to our aircraft, which was a 21-year-old 777-200 taking us to Taipei.

a luggage cart in a terminal
Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-200 Hong Kong Airport

The actual flight was run-of-the-mill, so I won’t be reviewing it. If you want to see how flying from Hong Kong to Taipei on a 777-200 is like, here’s a review of the exact same route that I flew last June.

The flight was nice, though, and featured regional business class seats in a 2-3-2 configuration. Unfortunately, my friends forgot to reserve their seats, so by giving them the window seat I got a lot of work done in the three seats I had to myself at the bulkhead. I’m actually not sure which option I’d like more…

a row of seats in an airplane
Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-200 Business Class

Another thing about the flight were the mooncakes that were passed out to us, which was a special touch. They tasted pretty good (though I don’t like egg yolk).

a round pastry with a design on it
Cathay Pacific Business Class Mooncakes

Bottom Line

Cathay Pacific’s The Bridge actually grew on me during this visit more than any other lounge I visited on the day. I thought that it was nicely designed with understated luxury, ambient, and didn’t seem overcrowded at all.

I still far prefer The Pier and The Qantas Lounge to The Bridge, purely because of size, food offerings (the food offering at this lounge wasn’t actually that good), service and decoration. That said, the lounge still beats all of the Star Alliance options that Hong Kong Airport offers, so I wouldn’t hesitate to spend some time here if I had a load of time to spend in transit at Hong Kong Airport.

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