Hong Kong-based Greater Bay Airlines is introducing a premium cabin onboard their 737 MAX 9s, which seems to match a “low-cost carrier premium cabin” position met by other carriers such as Scoot, Air Premia, etc.. This will debut on December 17, 2025 by flying between Hong Kong and Sapporo Chitose.
Greater Bay Airlines Introduces Premium Class On 737 MAX
Greater Bay Airlines is introducing a Premium cabin onboard their 737 MAX aircraft. While the cabin shares many similarities to what you’d otherwise find in a business class cabin within Asia, the product is being marketed as Premium – the legroom matches premium economy rather than business class (40″ pitch), there are a few perks missing including lounge access, and the inflight soft product isn’t designed to match business class quality.
The seat itself looks familiar – it’s the Safran Z600 model, which you’ll find onboard United, Malaysia Airlines, Breeze Airways, etc.. Each seat features a legrest (though no footrest) and some in-seat storage, and from the mockup photo below, it seems like the airline is planning to put two rows (eight seats) onboard each aircraft.
Greater Bay Airlines 737 MAX Premium Class
Here’s what the promotional banner on their website looks like:
Here is what the new product will offer:
- Cradle-style seats with 20″ width and 40″ pitch
- A free main meal (there’s no indication whether this is just from the buy-on-board menu, though I’d assume it would be), a free flow of red/white wine and non-alcoholic beverages, and “premium” ice cream
- 110V power port and USB outlet (unclear from photo whether this is a USB-A or USB-C outlet)
- Priority baggage, check-in and boarding
- Two 20 kg check-in bags included in the base fare – though the carry-on allowance is still 7 kg (!)
Greater Bay Airlines’ current food offering – very good and showing local flair, though not super premium (and also HK$68/£6.50 to purchase)
Where will Greater Bay Airlines’ Premium class fly?
Greater Bay Airlines has only announced one destination to be operated by their 737 MAX 9s, and this will be to Sapporo Chitose. This will inaugurate along with Greater Bay Airlines’ flights to Sapporo, which will start on December 17, 2025.
Pricing is on the high side at the moment, especially on this popular route – even during the low-season, prices run from HK$8,117 (£775) one-way.
The cheapest way to try it is if you book Premium in one direction and economy on the other, though even then it’s still a roundtrip fare of HK$7,860 (£751). While a better value than flying one-way, pricing is still on the very high side here, in my opinion – it’s more similar to what we’re seeing other airlines charge for business class, as opposed to premium economy.
Unfortunately you can’t even manipulate the origin in order to bring the fare down, as the booking system simply doesn’t show the Premium fare if it’s not available throughout the journey.
To be fair to Greater Bay Airlines, Cathay Pacific also charges quite high fares for their premium economy product between Hong Kong and Sapporo, so perhaps Sapporo is just an extremely high-yield destination.
I do need to position to Japan early next year, though I can’t justify spending this amount on Greater Bay Airlines’ Premium, unfortunately – while in line with the competition on the route, the current pricing for their Premium product is quite far off what I’d be willing to pay for such a flight, unfortunately.
What is Greater Bay Airlines’ current product like?
I reviewed Greater Bay Airlines mid-2024, and found them to be slightly higher-caliber than Hong Kong’s ultra low-cost carrier, HK Express, I found the crew to be friendlier, the airline was less strict about the 7 kg carry-on requirement, complimentary water was providied, and seats had USB-A power ports. Greater Bay Airlines is also in the process of getting regulatory approval for inflight WiFi, which is exciting (this will be complimentary to passengers in Premium).
Greater Bay Airlines 737 Cabin
In other words, HK Express felt more like Ryanair/easyJet caliber, and Greater Bay Airlines felt more like TUI/Norwegian/Jet2 caliber. Pricing does run slightly higher than HK Express, though, so that would make sense generally.
My biggest gripe with the airline was their IT, as their website was slow, unresponsive, and it was difficult to do simple things such as select a seat in their “Manage My Booking” section. From my experience making dummy bookings for their Premium cabin on their website today, that hasn’t changed.
Does the new Premium cabin make sense?
Greater Bay Airlines’ new Premium cabin is a first for Hong Kong – HK Express doesn’t have a premium cabin, and Cathay Pacific’s premium economy isn’t quite the same product. In fact, there are no low-cost carriers in mainland China that currently feature a premium cabin.
I wonder whether it’s very ambitious for Greater Bay Airlines to charge the same as Cathay Pacific premium economy on one of their highest-yield routes. They don’t have nearly the same amount of route connectivity, there aren’t any frequent flyer or loyalty perks, and the product itself will lag behind a bit with the lack of a set-up inflight soft product and IFE. I reckon that we’ll see prices of this premium cabin brought down substantially in the coming years, as it continues to be rolled out to new (and presumably less high-yield) routes.
Cathay Pacific’s premium economy may not have free inflight WiFi, but it offers connecting traffic, loyalty and frequent flyer perks, better brand recognition, better IT, inflight entertainment, etc.
Meanwhile, Greater Bay Airlines competes with products such as Batik Air Malaysia, Scoot (perhaps AirAsia as well, though they have a flat bed), as well as South Korea’s Air Premia and T’Way Air.
Perhaps I’m comparing apples to oranges here, though generally low-cost airline premium cabins are priced way lower than the competition. For example, an Air Premia 2h 30m flight from Seoul to Tokyo costs £73 in their premium cabin.
Even Scoot’s 7h 10m flight from Tokyo to Singapore is less than 35% of what Greater Bay Airlines wants to charge for their Hong Kong to Sapporo flight.
So yeah, I’m skeptical that pricing will stay where it is in the long run, and I reckon the product won’t be around for very long if this is the minimum pricing Greater Bay Airlines needs to charge to make a premium cabin viable.
Conclusion
Greater Bay Airlines is introducing a Premium cabin, with a premium economy style seat, included catering, priority services, and complimentary WiFi. The new seat will launch to Sapporo in December this year, and while pricing very much runs on the high side at the moment, I’m hoping to see the pricing go down on some lower-yield routes.
Are you excited that Greater Bay Airlines is introducing a premium cabin?
