As part of my trip to Australia, I recently flew from London to Hong Kong in Cathay Pacific’s A350-900 economy class. Cathay Pacific has an extremely well-renowned economy class – it has won multiple awards as the world’s best economy class product. I’d say that overall, the flight itself was good – the seat was comfortable to sit and sleep in, the pillow and blanket were good, the inflight entertainment was easy to use and featured an excellent selection (although slightly higher latency than I was expecting), and WiFi was generally good.
I’ve generally been quite impressed by Cathay Pacific’s design ethos, especially in economy. They were one of the first airlines to introduce a proper storage compartment in economy class, and I’ve always found Cathay Pacific’s economy class seats to be well-designed. The airline’s A330 seat was what brought me to like the airline’s design as a whole, though I’ve come to enjoy the way their 777 and A350-1000 seats are designed as well.
Sadly, on this flight on the Cathay Pacific A350-900, I didn’t get the same impression. There’s clearly some level of thoughtfulness in the way the seat was designed, though overall I think they dropped the ball on some of the design features, and wouldn’t call it an industry-leading seat. That’s especially disappointing since the A350-900 is the workhorse of Cathay Pacific’s longhaul fleet, operating most of the airline’s longest flights (the airline owns 30 of these jets, and they fly on routes such as the 16-hour route to New York).
I’m sharing my first impressions of the full flight in this post (not just the seat), and expect a full review in the coming weeks.
Cathay Pacific’s A350 Economy Class Seat: Comfortable and Well-Padded
To Cathay Pacific’s credit, I find their A350 seat to be really comfortable. The seat felt well-padded and supportive, and even after many hours of flying in the seat, I still felt comfortable and my back to be well-supported. (If this photo looks familiar, I was in a later boarding group on this flight, so pinched the below photo from a previous review of my flight from Singapore to Hong Kong).
Cathay Pacific A350 Economy Class Cabin
Recline is generous, though there’s a cradle effect, so you don’t recline too much into the person behind you. Also – I think that the fold-out headrests are a genius idea. As shown in the below photo, the headrests actually fold outward so you can rest your head on a cradle-style band inside. I found this to be genuinely comfortable, and a great alternative to leaning on the window (though I had a window seat and was next to J, so would’ve been fine either way). The headrests are also capable of folding inwards like traditional adjustable headrests.
I do wish the headrests could be folded out even more, as most of your head goes on the headrest “wing” itself as opposed to the cradle material, unless you have a very small head. However, I wish more economy seats would have this feature, as Cathay Pacific is the only airline I know of that does.
Cathay Pacific A350 Economy Class Recline and Headrest
In terms of power, there aren’t any USB-C ports here, though there is a 110V power port at each seat – not just shared, as is the norm in economy. WiFi is affordable and works well, and the entertainment system was large and high-definition, despite having a slight latency (it also took a while to boot up on our aircraft).
Cathay Pacific A350 Economy Class Entertainment Screen
So if your priority is watching movies, resting, or sleeping, Cathay Pacific’s A350 economy class does the trick.
Cathay Pacific’s A350 Economy Class Storage Compartment: Unusable Unless You’re Sleeping
Cathay Pacific’s A350 economy class seats feature a storage compartment. On first glance, this is quite cleverly designed. This fold-out nook has a netted compartment, a cupholder, and also doubles as a tablet holder. Great, right?
Cathay Pacific A350 Economy Class Storage Compartment
The issue with the compartment is that you can’t close it when there’s something inside, so it’s meant to be kept open when you want to use it for storage. However, the tray table is right underneath it, and worse – the tray table barely slides out from the seat at all, so the storage compartment lid/tablet holder gets in the way when you’re trying to use the tray table.
Cathay Pacific A350 Economy Class Storage Compartment and Tray Table
Say you want to store your phone or AirPods in the storage compartment and use a laptop. Here’s how far my 13″ laptop opened when I tried to do this:
Cathay Pacific A350 Economy Class Design Fail
This is frustrating – the seat was so close to being industry-leading, though the only storage left when using the tray table (when eating or working) is the seat pocket, in line with the less thoughtfully designed economy class seats out there. For an airline so focused on design and customer ergonomics, this is a bit of a disappointing fail.
Cathay Pacific’s A350 Economy Class Catering: Not bad!
While some of my experiences eating on Cathay Pacific have been really good, generally I’ve not had the best experience with food when flying ex-Heathrow. I specifically remember that Jason and I had the same mediocre menu in premium economy one year apart when we flew it a couple of years back, with a particularly middling breakfast option (I didn’t even find catering on my ex-Heathrow flight in business class to be that impressive, despite how good Cathay Pacific business class catering can be these days). J and I were seated near the back of the plane, and we didn’t even have our preferred meal choice available, which was the “safer” stir-fried Chinese option.
That’s why I was happy to see that the seared chicken breast with mustard sauce dish featured some moist and well-seared pieces of chicken breast, as well as some well-executed vegetables. There’s also something to be said about Cathay Pacific consistently offering very tasty side salads – granted a bit of variety would’ve spiced things up (since there was chicken breast in both the appetiser and the main), though the bulgur wheat salad was very tasty as well, and much better than some of the tasteless leafy salads you find elsewhere.
Cathay Pacific A350 Economy Class Meal Service
Breakfast was a little less exciting, consisting of a choice between congee and scrambled eggs. Both were fine if not remarkable – no Japan Airlines, but perfectly edible.
Cathay Pacific A350 Economy Class Meal Service
Of course, the supreme form of mid-flight dining in economy class has to be instant noodles, which are available on request in all cabins (and chicken flavoured). Ex-Hong Kong you get egg tarts as well, though the instant noodles hit the spot in this case.
Cathay Pacific A350 Economy Class Instant Noodles
While this is a small thing, I was also pleased to see that there was a menu at each seat, which you don’t find in economy – on top of that, you could also find the menu on the inflight entertainment system.
Cathay Pacific A350 Economy Class Menu
Cathay Pacific’s A350 Economy Class Service Flow: Impressively Efficient
I’m not going to say that service was particularly warm or friendly, though I was so surprised by how efficient the service flow was on Cathay Pacific. After waiting in premium economy seats for 50+ minutes for my tray table to be cleared in the past, I was impressed to see that both meal services were cleared within 15-30 minutes of them being served, which is impressive in a completely full 214-seat economy class cabin. Instant noodles usually also came within minutes of them being ordered, and crew were really quick to respond to all call bell requests (in contrast to my British Airways flight a few months ago).
Perhaps the actual service flow could’ve felt a bit tighter – for example, breakfast was served to us around an hour before landing, though the lights were turned on 2h 30m before landing, with not much activity in the cabin for an hour or so after. I would’ve appreciated the lights being off for longer, which would’ve allowed a better chance for us to sleep.
Cathay Pacific A350 Economy Class Cabin
Conclusion: Cathay Pacific’s A350 Economy Class
After touting Cathay Pacific’s economy class seats some of the world’s best (across their many fleet types), I’m surprised that their A350-900 hard product offering is significantly weaker, given that this aircraft is the Hong Kong-based airline’s longhaul workhorse. While I appreciate the unique winged headrests, I just don’t find the design to be as good as the economy seats on some of the other aircraft in the network, including the airline’s 777s.
Otherwise Cathay Pacific’s economy class is still a fairly strong product offering. Catering and WiFi/amenities are still high points. If the price is right (they no longer command a super high price premium as they used to, especially if you’re only connecting through Hong Kong), I’d be happy to recommend them.
What do you think about Cathay Pacific’s A350 economy class?
