Cathay Pacific holds a really special place in my heart.  My first big foray into the points and miles world was on none other than Cathay Pacific First Class on my way to Vietnam over a decade ago.  Over the years I’ve not only flown Cathay Pacific in premium cabins quite a few times but also visited their home base of Hong Kong probably 15-20 times, so I have a huge store of great memories.  

Cathay struggled more than most airlines with COVID so I’ve been paying keen attention to their recovery story and loved seeing that they finally debuted their long-planned Aria Suite Business Class seat on their London-Hong Kong route.  When I saw last week that they expanded the Aria Suite into the Hong Kong-Sydney market, I loved it even more and had to fly it for myself.

If you’ve followed my blog for a long time you know what’s coming next…that’s right, I booked a weekend trip from Sydney to Hong Kong for an old-fashioned Andy’s Travel Blog flight review!

Cathay Pacific’s New Aria Suite Business Class

Cathay Pacific is gradually rolling the new Aria Suite across their fleet but the first jet type to get them has been a select few 777-300ER aircraft.  These refittings remove Cathay’s historic First Class cabin, which is a bummer, but 45 Aria Suites do their best to make up for its absence.  (Cathay Pacific’s new First Class, rumoured to be called the Halo Suite, will debut alongside Aria Suite Business Class on the 777x aircraft when they are delivered by Boeing).

The airport experience

Hong Kong International Airport is my favourite airport in the world, and Cathay Pacific’s The Pier First Class Lounge is my favourite lounge in the world, so I made sure to get to the airport with enough time to enjoy the wonderful airport and lounge experience.  I’ve covered The Pier in detail before, if you’d like to see that review please click here.

It was finally time to board the flight back home to Sydney.  Boarding was finally called, I made my way onboard, and WHOA.

The Aria Suite

The suites were stunning.

On one hand, the Aria Suites felt like an evolution of one of the best business class seats in history, the Cirrus business class seat used by Cathay Pacific and American Airlines on their 777-300ER fleets.  Was this just a reskin effort?  Was there enough of a difference to write about?

Yes.  Plenty.

I made my way to my seat, 21A, and snapped a few more photos before boarding began in earnest.

Once boarding reached critical mass and I couldn’t really take any cabin-wide pictures, I got to know my suite a little better and the differences started to shine.

The suite details

My favourite part about Cathay Pacific’s premium cabins historically was that they were plenty luxurious but didn’t shout at you about it.  The cabins have been elegant, artful, and comfortable, almost as if to say that other airlines make their cabins and seats the purpose of the flight while Cathay makes their customer’s comfort the purpose.  It’s a concept they’ve owned well in the hyper-competitive Asian markets, and the Aria Suite is their best expression yet.  

I sat down and had a look around.  On a shelf I found a Bamford amenity kit in a complementary colour, placed underneath a large diffused light which cast a soft light across the suite, which was a lovely touch instead of the harsh lights that accompany most airline seats, even premium cabins.

Inside the little cubby area I found my headphones and a bottle of water, but there was easily more room on the bottom for a phone, along with a pad which would keep it from moving around.  Very nice touch.

Looking around the seat, I found food and beverage menus sitting atop a sliding shelf which revealed another small cubby area with another anti-slip pad.

Looking further toward the footwell I found another cubby area that went deep enough to store my big noise-cancelling headphones.

The space was very functional and I felt like all of my stuff had a place for it to keep the suite tidy and uncluttered.

From a design standpoint, I loved the functional nature of the suite.  The colours seemed muted but not boring, with subtle green hues (in line with Cathay Pacific’s colours) tastefully applied around the suite.  It was elegant, subtle, and had finesse.  Even some of the wall finishes were soft to the touch with a microfibre sort of texture in place.  It added a textural element to the design which was cool.  Curious how long it will last but it was definitely nice for now.

I loved the design, clearly.  Cathay has never struggled there.  What really surprised me, though, was the incredible technology around the Aria Suite.

The Cathay Pacific Aria Suite’s Impressive Technology

I noticed a little screen below one of the shelves and figured it contained seat controls.  When I touched it, I was presented with an impressively-designed control screen.

The cool part about this screen is that it was dynamic and had sub-menus that were intuitive and easy to navigate.  It wasn’t just seat controls, but ambient lighting controls, or flight attendant call controls, or do not disturb.

If you were laying down and wanted to see how long you had left in the flight without turning on the massive TV screen (we’ll get to that in a minute), the screen kind of just knew when to display your flight progress versus the menu of controls.

Now, was a lot of that information also on the remote control that you saw earlier?  Yes.  But it was also on this screen and much easier to use.  But really none of it compared to The Screen.

The Aria Suite features a 24″ 4K in-flight entertainment screen that feels almost comically huge.  I know there are other seats with bigger screens out there but I can’t remember the last time one almost completely filled my vision like this one!  It was just slightly more than arm’s distance away, making it easy to interact with the screen, and had Cathay’s excellent in-flight entertainment system on board.

From a technology standpoint, you had real-time icons to indicate when wifi was active, whether or not you had Bluetooth headphones connected, and another icon I’ll go over in a bit.  I’m glad airlines are finally allowing people to connect their own headphones via Bluetooth, sorely needed imo.

Elsewhere on the screen I saw more detailed, text-driven versions of the seat controls on that smaller screen from earlier, from Do Not Disturb options:

…to the wide variety of seat and light controls.

Within moments you could completely customise your in-flight experience.  

Even the main light was completely reconfigured from what you see on other airlines.  I mentioned the soft diffused light bar earlier.  To the left, you’ll see a little black oval.  That black oval has all of the targeted lights for use in the cabin (on the food, reading light, etc.) instead of placing those lights on the ceiling and impacting the experience of other customers.  I thought this was absolutely genius!

The only technology miss was the wireless charging area on one of the shelves: it’s nearly impossible to find and almost equally hard to keep your phone in that spot for as long as you would need for it to charge a meaningful amount.  I’ve cropped in pretty tight on this picture and it’s probably still hard to see where the charging area is.

This was the best position I found for my phone, but ultimately I just used a plug instead (there are 2 USB-C ports and one USB-A port in addition to the universal power outlet).

It was technology-forward without being confusing.  Later it got epic, but let’s get to the actual flight part first.

The actual flight: CX101 HKG-SYD

We taxied for quite a while (which is normal for HKG these days, you feel like you’re taxiing to your destination instead of flying) and eventually took to the skies.  Since the flight left almost right at midnight, the flight attendants immediately sprung into action so we could get through the meal and have a chance for some great sleep.

Shortly after takeoff, the flight attendants came by and unlocked everyone’s doors.  That’s right, the Aria Suite has doors.  Yay.  I’m sorry, I just don’t understand doors on a business class seat, I’d rather have a wider seat and more shoulder room.  (fight me in the comments below)

When you closed the door there was still a 1-2cm space between it and the wall, which honestly I appreciated.  I hate it when doors completely close with a clunk because that could impact other customers.

From the outside though, the doors look harmonious and on theme with the rest of the cabin.  I didn’t bother closing mine most of the time but others did for almost the entirety of the flight.

It was meal time.  As I pulled out my tray table I realised they had a slot in there for your mobile device in case you were watching something on your phone.

I went with Cathay’s signature Wonton noodle soup and was curious how it would translate in the skies.  It was an absolutely wonderful noodle soup and hit the spot without filling me up too much.

I was already exhausted and wanted to get some sleep, but I wanted to have a look around the cabin first.  It was just a beautiful design, as pretty as the QSuite cabin in my opinion but in a different way.  Subtlety was the name of the game and it worked.

Cathay Pacific is also featuring artwork from local artists in the galley areas, which I thought was a really nice touch.  Cathay Pacific calls it their Gallery in the Skies.

The only critique I have is that it’s kind of in an out of the way location that people may skip over, which would be a shame.

Back to my seat, which I was quickly able to convert into a bed.

The footwell extends far underneath the TV screen and I could almost completely stretch out.  I’m a side sleeper and had no issue with leg/hip room underneath the TV, credit to Cathay for a job well done here.  Very comfortable.

I woke up a few hours before we landed and was playing around on the TV screen and hit an icon I hadn’t noticed before.

And that’s when I saw the lavatory availability map.

It was literally a real-time map that would show you when a lavatory became available!  I was transfixed on it instead of my usual flight map and thought it was hilarious to be like “uh oh, seems like the aft lav didn’t read a particular article from my blog” when they were in there for quite a while, and it really aided me in making judgmental I Know What You Did looks at people as they walked by afterward.  Absolutely hilarious.

It came time for breakfast and I went with a lighter fare of an egg and chorizo wrap and a light salad.  It was delicious!

As the flight wrapped up, Aussie entry cards were distributed and we descended into Sydney.  The in-flight wifi (free for business class customers) held up well enough to join a planespotting broadcast from a YouTube channel called SydSquad, where I got to watch my own plane land!

It was a great ending to a wonderful flight.

What makes Cathay Pacific’s new Aria Suite so great

I really thought this would be about the cabin itself and the beautiful design of the Aria Suite, but it’s not.  It’s about the technology.  Cathay Pacific managed to incorporate an incredible amount of technology into the customer experience without really forcing it on them.  For those comfortable using a physical remote, it was there.  For those who wanted to use the smaller screen, it was there.  For those who wanted the ultimate in control, the TV screen was there.  The technology was smart, tasteful, and enhanced the customer experience.

The cabin was also absolutely stunning, it needs to be said again.  I think it’s a wonderful product that will hopefully stand the test of time as long as Cathay’s venerated Cirrus seats have lasted.

If you’d like to give it a go, you can find the new Aria Suite on CX100 and CX101 until 30 March 2025, when it will move to CX161 and CX162, all between Hong Kong and Sydney.  Cathay will quickly be rolling these out to new destinations so keep your eyes peeled and give it a shot when you can, you’ll love the new Cathay Pacific Aria Suite!

 

What do you think of the new Aria Suite?  Tell me in the comments below!