SNEAK PEEK: Cathay Pacific’s NEW Business Class Dining Concept

September 25, 2018September 25, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

I’m a fan of Andrew from Expatriate Days’ photos on Instagram. Earlier this month he had the chance to fly Cathay Pacific’s inaugural flight from Hong Kong to Washington Dulles on the new A350-1000, which included Cathay Pacific’s new dining concept. I reached out to Andrew to see if he could provide his thoughts in a post, and he was kind enough to oblige.

Here they are below. While all opinions below are his, I largely agree with them (I’ve been more critical of Cathay Pacific’s current premium product than he has, though). Thanks, Andrew! 🙂

In September, I had to fly from New York to Shanghai for business. The month of September must be a busy travel time as premium cabins were largely full on more desirable carriers — JAL, ANA, Cathay, even the U.S. carriers.

I couldn’t book myself onto one of the five Cathay flights from New York, but luckily space was available on the flight from Washington D.C.— Cathay’s longest flight by distance — and on the inaugural flight no less. The flight nicely coincided with the dates that I needed to fly, so as a result, I got to experience two new Cathay features: the A350-1000 service (with updated reverse herringbone seating and inflight WiFi) along with the new Cathay business class dining concept.

Cathay Pacific Airbus A350-1000 Washington Dulles Airport

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Up Close With Hong Kong Airlines’ New A350 Economy Seat

September 6, 2018September 6, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday I got to tour one of Hong Kong Airlines’ own Airbus A350s. While Hong Kong Airlines currently already flies four A350s, they were meant to be delivered to Azul, so feature a different onboard product. So the rest of Hong Kong’s 21 A350s from hereon out will be delivered with a different product to the one on the first four.

The biggest hype was surrounding the business class product, so yesterday I gave an extensive tour of the airline’s new business class product. However, I realised that the economy class product was also different from what the airline offers on their other A350s, so I thought I’d be bereft in my duty not to check them out as well.

Hong Kong Airlines Airbus A350 Economy Cabin

So, how is Hong Kong Airlines’ newest A350 economy class product?

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Hong Kong Airlines’ NEW A350 Business Class

September 4, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

Today I had the chance to have a look at Hong Kong Airlines’ new A350 business class product. I’ve flown Hong Kong Airlines’ A330 with their staggered business class configuration, as well as their A330 with their ex-Singapore Airlines business class configuration. Hong Kong Airlines has a ton of different business class configurations, and this is the one that they’ve been planning to introduce on all of their future longhaul aircraft since 2016.

Reverse herringbone seats are some of my favourite seats in the industry – I actually prefer them to Apex Suites due to the extra storage space. I’m glad to say that Hong Kong Airlines’ newest A350s have a very nice iteration of reverse herringbone seats.

Hong Kong Airlines Airbus A350 Business Class

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Review: Korean Air 777 Business Class Seoul to Hong Kong

August 15, 2018August 20, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

Introduction: A Wandering Seoul
SkyTeam Lounge Hong Kong
Korean Air 747-8 Business Class Hong Kong To Seoul (First Class Seat)
Park Hyatt Seoul Park Suite Twin
Korean Air Business Class Lounge Seoul Incheon Terminal 2 (East)
Korean Air Business Class Lounge Seoul Incheon Terminal 2 (West)
Korean Air 777 Business Class Seoul to Hong Kong

After visiting both of Korean Air’s dismal new lounges at Incheon Airport, it was time to head home to Hong Kong. I got to gate 252 and enquired to the gate agent if I could be assigned a first class seat, since they were selling them as business class seats on our flight (I did something similar on our outbound flight on the 747-8, and got lucky). Unfortunately I got a firm no from the gate agent – while he was cold, the gate agent showed me the system on his computer screen to prove that those seats were reserved for full-fare business class passengers (we were booked into the lowest fare bucket), which I thought was a very responsible thing to do.

While the majority of “our” gate area faced parked at the gate next to us, from the corner of the gate area I spotted the 777-300ER that would be flying us home.

Korean Air Boeing 777 Seoul Incheon Airport

I was “gate lice” for around 10-15 minutes since I wanted to get better cabin pictures, and soon they started up boarding for the infirm, followed by business class passengers. There was a rather old man in a wheelchair that had brought his family of around nine people, and they were all seated in business class, which I found rather interesting (and was happy about, since I always feel terrible when an infirm passenger is seated in economy).

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Review: Korean Air Business Class Lounge Seoul Incheon Terminal 2 (West)

August 13, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

After briefly visiting the East business class lounge that Korean Air operates at Incheon’s new Terminal 2, I headed over to the West lounge so I could check it out. I planned on spending more time there, since it was marginally closer to our gate, and it was larger.

The lounge directly overlooks gate 249, and is reachable via an escalator right next to gate 249. I went up the escalator and across a footbridge to get to the lounge. The footbridge afforded very nice views of the airport terminal.

Incheon Terminal 2 Airside Concourse

Past the footbridge to the left was an entrance to the Korean Air West lounge. I joined the short queue to get my boarding pass scanned before making my way into the lounge.

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Review: Korean Air Business Class Lounge Seoul Incheon Terminal 2 (East)

August 11, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

While we had a great time in Seoul (which I’ll talk about in an upcoming post, though obviously I don’t specialise in maximising my time in cities – yet), it was time to get home on our 7:45 PM flight. We got to the airport at 4:30 PM – we weren’t actually intending to get to the airport so early, but we’d spent the morning at Alpacaworld and got back to civilisation earlier than expected.

Korean Air Terminal 2 Seoul Incheon

Seeing some Korean Air signage colours we headed towards the left side of the airport terminal, but after walking a fair distance we came across a sign saying that premium check-in was all the way on the very right of the check-in hall, by aisle A. I would’ve appreciated more signage indicating where to check in, and didn’t appreciate that Korean Air’s check-in at their hub airport for premium passengers and economy passengers were at opposite ends of the check-in hall. This would be a nuisance especially for families and groups traveling across different cabin classes (can you imagine how much trouble an unprepared large tour group would have if some of their members were flying in business class/had frequent flyer status?).

Anyway, Korean Air “encloses” their premium check-in desk for first and business class passengers.

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Review: Park Hyatt Seoul Park Suite Twin

August 11, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ 2 Comments

As I mentioned in my introductory post, I’ve wanted to stay at the Park Hyatt Seoul for years. The last time we came to Seoul we stayed at the Westin Chosun, as the Park Hyatt was quite pricey back at the time. As luck would have it, this time the Park Hyatt was offering suites that were cheaper than booking two standard rooms at another chain hotel. While the hotel website wouldn’t allow us to book a Park Suite for all four of us, upon emailing them they were happy to accommodate, and even said that a rollaway would be free of charge. Sold!

The Park Hyatt Seoul is located in the Gangnam district, which is the financial district of Seoul. While a lot of people work around here, the biggest issue is that none of the city’s busiest areas are around the hotel. Myeongdong, Dongdaemun, Jongno, etc. are where you want to be if you want crazy nightlife, good street food, and lots of cheap, local shopping (they’re famous for a reason), and the area, as the CBD, doesn’t have a lot of that. While the Samseong metro station is right next to the hotel’s entrance, it’s still a 12-14 stop ride away from most of Seoul’s biggest attractions. In terms of shopping malls, a quick walk through Samseong station will bring you to Seoul’s gigantic COEX mall, but it’s more of a high-class, imported-goods mall than a popping local joint. That’s something that’s at least noteworthy, in my opinion.

The hotel has a modern, glass exterior quite fitting with the adjacent office buildings.

Park Hyatt Seoul Exterior

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Review: Korean Air 747-8 Business Class Hong Kong To Seoul (First Class Seat)

August 8, 2018August 19, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

While I had booked myself in business class on the Korean Air 747-8, as I detailed in a separate post, Korean Air opened up their first class seats for business class passengers to select two days before departure. That’s quite standard for a few airlines on shorthaul flights, though this was the first time I’d flown a three-cabin flight with a two-class service. At the check-in desk I was denied a seat in the first class cabin (the plan was actually to get the rest of my family seats in the empty first class cabin, as I still wanted to review the Apex Suite), as the seats “weren’t for sale”.

I left the SkyTeam lounge at 1:15 PM and made it to gate 60 by around 1:30 PM for our 1:35 PM boarding time. Going to the gate desk, I decided to slip in a sneaky question if I could have a seat swap. To my surprise, without even giving her my boarding pass, she recognised that I was traveling in a group of four, and gave me a new boarding pass for seat 2A.

I believe the check-in desk decided to contact a higher-up after we expressed discontent, as we were misinformed by the call center that we’d “definitely” get the first class seats if they were available. The higher-ups then confirmed to them that we were indeed allowed to assign seats in first class, so they paged the gate agents to make the change for us. At least that’s what I believe ended up happening.

I was going to seat the rest of my family in the first class cabin and stay in business myself so I could review the Apex Suite, but what was I to do? Complain? At that point, people had already started lining up to get on the Korean Air 747-8, so I followed suit.

The gate agents, while friendly, were not very helpful in suppressing my excitement by stating that the last row of first class was also empty.

Korean Air Boeing 747-8 Hong Kong Airport

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Review: SkyTeam Lounge Hong Kong

August 7, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

We arrived at the airport at around 11:30 AM for our 2 PM flight. We mainly wanted to get there so early so we could get a credit card verification issue out of the way, though I also wanted to be there ahead of time since the first class seats on the flight were first-come, first-serve. Korean Air sometimes releases their first class seats to business class seat selection on regional flights if the cabin is empty 24 hours before departure, which was the case on our flight. As I’ve detailed in a separate post, the check-in desk agents weren’t able to assign us first class seats – or so we thought.

I wasn’t able to add my SkyPass number to our reservation online, since the names were different (since the last time I’ve taken Korean Air, I’ve added my first name to my passport – if you live in Hong Kong this will probably make more sense to you). Even though Korean Air sent me a name change form I never actually got around to filling it out, so I was glad that I could do so at a dedicated counter at the airport, and didn’t even have to go back to the check-in desk to add the number to our reservation.

Afterwards I headed through security and made my way to the SkyTeam Lounge. The lounge is open to business class passengers on all SkyTeam airlines, as well as elite members of any SkyTeam loyalty programme. Elite members can even bring in a guest (business class passengers can’t). I’ve been to the lounge a couple times in the past (my last review can be found here), though I figured it was a time for us all to revisit here at YTHK, since it’s been a few years since I last reviewed it.

SkyTeam Lounge Hong Kong Entrance

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Review: JetBlue A320 Economy Class New York to New Orleans

August 1, 2018August 1, 2018 ~ Jason ~ 1 Comment

In April of this year, I took a trip with my school to New Orleans. On the way there, we flew with JetBlue. While JetBlue gets a lot of attention for their phenomenal “Mint” premium product, their regular Economy product hasn’t been covered as extensively. As such, I thought it would be interesting to report back on my experience with what is considered to be one of the best Economy experiences in the United States.

We arrived at JetBlue’s Terminal 5 at JFK around four hours before our flight. Since we were travelling in a large group, we were given a small roped off check-in area in order to streamline what would have been an undoubtedly messy process. The ground staff weren’t the friendliest but were patient enough when it came to dealing with eighty high-schoolers.

Security was a breeze and the TSA was uncharacteristically friendly. Afterwards, I grabbed some lunch and roamed the terminal with some of my friends, before heading to our boarding gate.

JetBlue A320 at New York JFK Airport

When we arrived at the gate, the A320 waiting to take us to New Orleans was already waiting for us. I appreciate that JetBlue has pimped out its gate areas with plenty of power ports and comfortable seating, which makes for quite a nice change especially when compared to some of the dumpier terminals at JFK… (Terminal 7, I’m looking at you).

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