Hello from Hong Kong! I’m fresh off a flight from London to Hong Kong in Cathay Pacific’s new Aria Suite, which is how they’ve branded their new business class seat. After introducing this product in 2023, Cathay Pacific started flying the Aria Suite last year, and currently flies it to a variety of destinations including Sydney, Melbourne, London, Vancouver, and Beijing. I booked this flight using 88,000 Asia Miles and HK$3,502 (£334) in taxes, as award space on this route isn’t too difficult to come by during off-peak season.
In a way this flight felt a bit full-circle, as I actually first wrote about the Aria Suite from a gate at Heathrow’s Terminal 3 (this was before flying Cathay Pacific’s older premium economy to Hong Kong, on a plane that actually now sports the new cabin interiors).
I’ll have a full review soon (where I’ll detail more of the soft product), though thought I’d share my first impressions of the new seat. I’ve got plans to fly both Cathay Pacific’s new premium economy and economy on this flight in the future as well.
Cathay Pacific’s 777 Aria Suite cabin is stunning
Cathay Pacific’s Aria Suite is a beautiful product located onboard their 777s. These are reverse herringbone business class seats with the addition of a door, and is a heavily modified version of Collins Aerospace’s Super Diamond seat.
I really like the cabin finishes, and the design of the cabin is elegant, much more so than on any of the airline’s longhaul business class seats. I like the understated colour tones, as well as the lamps and light fixtures at every seat (including the seat numbers).
Cathay Pacific 777 Aria Suite Business Class Cabin
While Cathay has long had impeccable design in their lounges, I feel like this is the first time I’ve seen Cathay Pacific properly design an elegant cabin onboard a longhaul plane. Their older fleet very much was only focused on practicality – the sea green upholstery with bright red finishes didn’t scream luxurious, and the cabin ambience was pretty much carried by the mood lighting.
Cathay Pacific’s 777 Aria Suite cabin has great privacy and tech
There were a few things that stood out to me at the seat. Firstly, the seat walls are very high, and even with the door open I couldn’t see anyone else from my seat. With the door closed, I could only sense foot traffic when there were people walking directly past my seat (which didn’t happen very often, since I selected the last seat at the back of the mini-cabin). This made the experience feel extremely private and undisturbed.
Cathay Pacific 777 Aria Suite Business Class Seat
Secondly, the seat’s tech felt extremely well kitted-out. For example, there were thoughtful seat control presets for watching a movie, relaxing, eating, working, and sleeping, which controlled not just the seats but also the brightness of the various seat lamps. I felt that this was a very well-executed touch, and found myself using many of the features (so they weren’t just gimmicks). That’s on top of an intuitive touchscreen seat control panel to the left.
Cathay Pacific 777 Aria Suite Business Class Seat Controls
In terms of in-seat power, there’s a USB-A, two USB-C and a 110V power port as well. This complements the fact that all business class passengers get free WiFi (which wasn’t lightning quick on my flight, though was definitely usable). There’s also a wireless charging port, though we’ll get to that later.
Cathay Pacific 777 Aria Suite Business Class In-Seat Power
That’s also in addition to the entertainment system, which has Bluetooth audio connection capabilities.
The Aria Suite is spacious enough, though not as much so as their A350 seat
The Aria Suite is quite spacious both when sat down and in bed mode, and I never had any issues with where to put my legs. Much like on their other longhaul fleet, the armrest next to the seat acts as a hidden bed extension. I felt like there was a competitive, though not impressive amount of space.
Cathay Pacific 777 Aria Suite Business Class Bed
That being said, their A350 was designed to have one of the largest sleeping surfaces on any airline, and I felt like there wasn’t much of an effort to replicate that here.
Cathay Pacific A350 Business Class Bed
The Aria Suite has an underwhelming amount of storage
One of the biggest areas I felt like the Aria Suite fell down was storage. The seat tries to accommodate for some level of storage for small items, though I couldn’t help but feel like it was just so much more poorly thought out than on their older fleet. There wasn’t even a literature pocket fit for a laptop, so I had to store it in the overhead bin (much less a small bag or backpack).
Jason reminded me of one of the first business class promotional videos I’ve watched, which had then-general manager Alex McGowan say “passengers want to unload all their bits and pieces, and that’s exactly what we’ve done here”. The design team either missed the memo a bit when designing this seat, or didn’t correctly plan what the average business traveller would bring onboard (surely that would include at least a laptop).
The side table slides forward to reveal a small storage compartment, there’s a separate small storage compartment by the knees, and there’s the headphone compartment by the side console as well. That’s about it in the way of storage – you can’t even put your bag in the footwell during takeoff and landing.
Cathay Pacific 777 Aria Suite Business Class Storage
This is such a far cry from how storage is designed on the A350, which I feel like has some of the best laid out storage of any business class seat I’ve flown.
Cathay Pacific’s poorly thought out Aria Suite wireless charging pad
Here’s a small, but frustrating point. Cathay Pacific went out of its way to add wireless charging pads to every seat. They then proceeded to add tiny marks to where the wireless charging pad is located on the side console table, and even then it’s almost impossible to use.
Can you see the wireless charging marks in this zoomed-in photo?
Either airlines should have a MagSafe wireless charger that can very easily connect to a phone or wireless charging device, or it just shouldn’t exist, in my opinion. I feel like this wireless charging pad could have been sacrificed for quite a bit of extra storage.
The Aria Suite’s functionality design is definitely more tech-based than focused on easy passenger experience wins
While I generally feel like the seat is quite functionally and thoughtfully designed, I think there were a couple of easy passenger experience wins that were missed with this seat. For example, I missed the ability to easily move an open tray table upwards or swivel it so I could get out of my seat, or have any form of shoe storage. These are all small details, though I feel like the “thoughtful design” just wasn’t as ergonomics-focused as previous iterations of Cathay Pacific’s business class seat have been.
Cathay Pacific 777 Aria Suite Business Class Tray Table
How can you fly Cathay Pacific’s new Aria Suite?
Cathay Pacific’s Aria Suite is currently consistently operating the following routes:
- between Hong Kong and London – CX255/CX250
- between Hong Kong and Melbourne – CX163/CX178
- between Hong Kong and Sydney – CX101/CX100
- between Hong Kong and Vancouver – CX888/CX865
- between Hong Kong and Beijing – CX334/CX335
Additionally, the airline’s Tokyo Haneda and Sapporo routes are either slated to be operated by the Aria Suite in the near future, or already have regular Aria Suite service a few times per week.
Cathay Pacific is generally quite good at keeping the above scheduled routes operated by Aria Suite-equipped aircraft. However, other routes within the network may sometimes either also get irregularly serviced by aircraft featuring the Aria Suite (such as Taipei and Delhi), or an equipment swap may occur.
Conclusion: My take on Cathay Pacific’s Aria Suite
Cathay Pacific’s Aria Suite is a very good hard product, and I’d definitely seek it out at least once if I had the chance. I do have a slight gut feeling that the “thoughtful design” that Cathay Pacific strives for was heavily tech and privacy-driven this time round (probably based on the “cool” industry trend and customer feedback), and as a result they dropped the ball on a couple of general passenger ergonomics elements. These are things to be aware of when booking your next Aria Suite flight, though it’s still a very good product that I’d fly again in a heartbeat.
Have you flown Cathay Pacific’s Aria Suite before?