Today I flew Hong Kong Airlines’ A321 economy class from Hong Kong to Danang. On one hand, this wasn’t a particularly exciting intra-European economy flight – it felt closer to an intra-Europe experience than some of the other economy flights I’ve had intra-Asia. On the other hand, I figured I’d report back with my first impressions, given that it was my first time flying Hong Kong Airlines economy class ever, and they’ve also bounced back from a particularly difficult period during the pandemic.
Well, how did it go? I suppose that this wasn’t the best flight to check them out – the plane had no WiFi or IFE, and since the flight time was under two hours, there was only a very simple snack service, as opposed to a full meal. However, this felt a lot more polished and thought out than my business class flight on the airline in 2023. I’m happy to see Hong Kong Airlines back on their feet, and am looking forward to flying them on a longer route soon.
Hong Kong Airlines’ Standard Slimline A321 Seats
Hong Kong Airlines has very bog-standard seats on their A321s. While their A320s and A330s feature bright red seats, these are a much more muted grey. I believe these are Recaro BL3520 seats, extremely similar to what you’d get on Lufthansa or Eurowings.
Hong Kong Airlines A321 Economy Class
These seats have small seat pockets, and there’s no in-seat power of any sort. Legroom also isn’t great. However, I did take note that the tray table felt very sturdy, both in the standard seats as well as the exit row I swapped to (I assigned my mother this seat, though she ended up insisting that I take it).
Hong Kong Airlines A321 Economy Class Tray Table
It would’ve been nice if these seats had at least USB power ports, though I didn’t mind too much on this short flight.
Hong Kong Airlines’ Simple Ultra-Shorthaul Catering (and Nice Branding)
Earlier this year, Hong Kong Airlines introduced new catering throughout their cabins. While I wasn’t sure what to expect, I knew that we’d get the ultra-shorthaul version of their catering, which would just be a snack of sorts.
We were handed out a goodie bag with some packaged cake, crackers, and a water bottle. Would I have wanted a hot meal instead, or even a hot snack? Yeah, probably. The cake and crackers were alright, but this wasn’t the most inspiring snack ever (and was only marginally more substantial than what you’d get on an airline like British Airways in economy intra-Europe).
However, I was energised by the little branding touches. I liked the way the goodie bag was designed, and I also appreciated the little cockpit design on the antiseptic towelette. These are tiny things, though I noticed and appreciated them.
Hong Kong Airlines A321 Economy Class Snack Bag and Towelette
Even though the actual meal service itself was extremely rudimentary, I was happy to see the effort put into the branding.
Hong Kong Airlines’ Economy Class Ground Experience
In terms of the ground experience, Hong Kong Airlines provided a fairly smooth ground experience at Hong Kong Airport. The airport itself is easy to navigate through, and there were separate check-in desks for flights bound for Vietnam, since e-visa checks are needed.
Hong Kong Airlines Check-In at Hong Kong Airport
Hong Kong Airlines flights tend to depart from the Midfield Concourse (gates 201-230), so leave a bit more time before your flight to get to the gate. Our all-economy flight was boarded in three zones – rows 51-68 were boarded first (alongside Hong Kong Airlines frequent flyers), followed by rows 42-51, followed by rows 31-41. Despite the fact that boarding didn’t start anywhere near the scheduled boarding time (which was 50 minutes before our scheduled departure time – a bit of an overkill for an A321 in my opinion), and that the actual queue to get on ended up being very long, I found boarding to be orderly.
Hong Kong Airlines Boarding Gate
However, I still can’t get over how bad the airline’s IT is, both on their website and mobile app. Selecting a seat for our family of four (on the same reservation) required entering all four full ticket numbers (or selecting and paying for all four seats separately), and the app wouldn’t allow any reservation modifications with just the booking reference. The interface itself was also clunky, and required a reCAPTCHA far more often than I would’ve liked.
Conclusion: Hong Kong Airlines’ A321 Economy Class
I thought that my first flight on Hong Kong Airlines’ A321 was smooth and straightforward. I was particularly pleased to see that this was quite a put-together experience with some fun branding elements, which contrasted the “shell of an airline” experience that I had when I last flew them.
Ultimately you won’t get a very exciting experience when flying Hong Kong Airlines’ economy class on an ultra-shorthaul flight, though you won’t go wrong. I’d say that the A330s are marginally better, as they feature seats with in-seat power, IFE, and adjustable headrests.
Have you flown Hong Kong Airlines before? How was your experience?
