Cathay Pacific will be making changes to the layout of its Airbus A321neos, to make the plane more comfortable for both passengers and crew, as reported by Executive Traveller. That’s a pretty rare thing in the industry nowadays, eh?
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Cathay Pacific plans Airbus A321neo cabin changes
Cathay Pacific has a total of (at least) 30 Airbus A321neo aircraft on order, with roughly half of those planes having already been delivered. This is the Hong Kong-based carrier’s only narrow body plane, and the backstory is quite interesting.
These planes were first ordered for Cathay Pacific regional subsidiary Cathay Dragon, but Cathay Pacific decided to merge Cathay Dragon into the mainline fleet several years back, and in the process, these narrow body planes also joined Cathay Pacific’s fleet. Since then, the airline has even expanded its order, recognizing the value these planes bring to the fleet.
While Cathay Pacific has very high service standards across the board, these planes definitely aren’t the most comfortable in the fleet, as you’d expect. The planes have a total of 202 seats, including 12 recliner business class seats and 190 economy class seats.
With that in mind, Cathay Pacific has committed to introducing a new layout on these planes in the near future, centered around a few improvements:
- Cathay Pacific wants to increase seat pitch in economy, so the airline will be removing some seats in order to improve legroom; economy seat pitch on these planes is currently 30″, which compares unfavorably to the rest of the fleet
- Cathay Pacific plans to move a couple of the rear lavatories forward of the rear doors, in order to make them more spacious; currently the A321neos have a couple of those super tight lavatories that have become pretty standard on A320-family aircraft
- Cathay Pacific plans to increase rear galley space, to make it easier for the crews to work; presumably this is made possible by moving the lavatories forward
The airline hasn’t yet clarified how many economy seats will be removed. Unfortunately the airline also doesn’t have plans to introduce new business class seats, even as rivals increasingly introduce flat beds on some regional narrow body aircraft (China Airlines, Korean Air, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, etc.).
The timeline with which Cathay Pacific plans changes
When can we expect Cathay Pacific’s new Airbus A321neo layout? The plan is that the 17th of these jets to be delivered will join the fleet in the second quarter of 2026, sporting new cabins. The remaining A321neos to be delivered will also all come with these cabins installed.
On top of that, in the second half of 2026, the airline plans to retrofit its 16 existing A321neos, as fleet consistency is a priority. That project is expected to be carried out pretty quickly, so it could be that this entire project is done by the end of 2026.
Bottom line
It’s incredibly rare to see an airline remove seats from a plane in order to improve comfort, but that’s exactly what Cathay Pacific is doing on its narrow body aircraft. This year we should see some changes to Cathay Pacific’s A321neo fleet, including an increase to seat pitch in economy, more spacious lavatories in the back of the plane, and more galley space.
It remains to be seen exactly how many seats the airline will sacrifice with this project, but either way, it’s a mighty customer friendly move for an airline to make, and not something we often see.
What do you make of Cathay Pacific’s A321neo plans?
They schedule these narrow bodies also on 4 hours treks like KUL, Indonesia, Japan, Seoul and also on red-eyes, they compete with other airline (and also their own) wide-bodies, so in order to make them more popular with travellers, they have to improve.
They still have 333 and 773 in recliners though.
Select A330s will be getting new lie-flat seats. Older A333s along with the 773 (non ER) will keep the recliners until they are retired so it doesn't make sense to include them in the retrofit; some of the 773s and A333s are still from 1998-onwards, so while they are tired and have older seats, they're still airworthy.
Just another educated guess of mine, but as soon as the retrofit gets going, I can see more...
Select A330s will be getting new lie-flat seats. Older A333s along with the 773 (non ER) will keep the recliners until they are retired so it doesn't make sense to include them in the retrofit; some of the 773s and A333s are still from 1998-onwards, so while they are tired and have older seats, they're still airworthy.
Just another educated guess of mine, but as soon as the retrofit gets going, I can see more of the more higher-yielding destinations get them while the likes of Manila, Surabaya, Cebu, Phnom Penh, et al. get the recliners.
I noticed that the CX share price was up today and wondered why. Probably just coincidence.
It looks like a nice comfortable ride and worth a squirt, for those less vertically challenged …. :-)
Crazy to think that British Airways used to fit only 180 seats in their slightly larger 757s, and this was with European style Business Class. Probably one of the reasons they left the fleet a little early too though haha
Well would you look at that! A non-American airline focusing on something other than pure segmentation / revenue extraction.
USA-based airlines don't have low-cost subsidiaries like Cathay Pacific does
With no respect at all: show us the last time a European or Australian major airline did similarly either.
I’ve (5’10”) sat in this plane, and my knees were against the front of the seat in front of me. It was impossible to be comfortable.
The problem is the seats are too thick. The seat pitch doesn’t take into account the seat’s thickness in front of you so you end up losing several inches. The actual useable space is much lower than 30”.
It depends on how long of flights CX uses these aircraft for.
The Airspace rear lavs is not standard but an option. Some airlines have them on some Airbus A320 family aircraft but not on others.
The motivation to change the configuration is not the lavs but the galleys.
You can't do a meal for all of economy, esp. a hot meal, with the Airspace galleys.
"It depends on how long of flights CX uses these aircraft for."
The same way they're being used now!
Singapore would pushing it for them, but hopefully with the arrival of the 330neos, Singapore gets all wide-bodies again.
Tim is exactly right on the technical constraint, the Airbus Cabin Flex rear galley configuration was optimized for LCCs selling buy on board, not legacy carriers staging 190 hot meals. You physically cannot cycle carts in that footprint without blocking the lavatories, creating a bottleneck that destroys crew efficiency. However, the strategic decision to de-densify is baffling. Cathay is effectively deleting 3-4% of their narrowbody capacity just to protect a hot meal service on 2-hour...
Tim is exactly right on the technical constraint, the Airbus Cabin Flex rear galley configuration was optimized for LCCs selling buy on board, not legacy carriers staging 190 hot meals. You physically cannot cycle carts in that footprint without blocking the lavatories, creating a bottleneck that destroys crew efficiency. However, the strategic decision to de-densify is baffling. Cathay is effectively deleting 3-4% of their narrowbody capacity just to protect a hot meal service on 2-hour hops to Taipei or Shanghai? That is a massive CASM penalty to pay for "soft product" nostalgia. The smart move would have been to keep the density and switch to high quality cold boxing or a premium buy-on-board model. Sacrificing hard product revenue potential for the sake of an economy meal service is legacy thinking that will get them crushed by the agile Mainland carriers who know exactly what their CASM floor needs to be.
I've flown both CX's A321neos and their regional A330s, and I can tell you the A321neos are noticeably tighter. I'm not tall, but while the A330s feel pretty spacious (32" pitch), the A321neos (30") are tight and my knees are practically up against the seat back. Yes, US carrier econ seats are just as tight, but CX's seat is better padded and has more stuff on the seat pocket, eating up into legroom.
It's also...
I've flown both CX's A321neos and their regional A330s, and I can tell you the A321neos are noticeably tighter. I'm not tall, but while the A330s feel pretty spacious (32" pitch), the A321neos (30") are tight and my knees are practically up against the seat back. Yes, US carrier econ seats are just as tight, but CX's seat is better padded and has more stuff on the seat pocket, eating up into legroom.
It's also about market segmentation to some degree. CX also owns HK Express, a ULCC, with 29" pitch. Probably helps create a slightly larger point of differentiation.
"However, the strategic decision to de-densify is baffling. Cathay is effectively deleting 3-4% of their narrowbody capacity just to protect a hot meal service on 2-hour hops to Taipei or Shanghai?"
Nothing baffling about that, it's just what their competitive market-space demands.
The inverse is how European airlines can get away with offering economy seats as "business class," which would be beyond baffling to an east Asian carrier. Yet that's what Europe's competitive market allows....
"However, the strategic decision to de-densify is baffling. Cathay is effectively deleting 3-4% of their narrowbody capacity just to protect a hot meal service on 2-hour hops to Taipei or Shanghai?"
Nothing baffling about that, it's just what their competitive market-space demands.
The inverse is how European airlines can get away with offering economy seats as "business class," which would be beyond baffling to an east Asian carrier. Yet that's what Europe's competitive market allows.
Fairly straightforward.
As I've mentioned before, the current batch of aircraft were inherited from Dragon. While it was the regional "arm" if you will, it was still considered a separate brand, so they could've gotten way with a more dense configuration. Now that it has been fully integrated into the parent brand, it makes sense to have a consistent experience across the fleet from narrow-body to wide-body. The IFE system is one of the best out there...
As I've mentioned before, the current batch of aircraft were inherited from Dragon. While it was the regional "arm" if you will, it was still considered a separate brand, so they could've gotten way with a more dense configuration. Now that it has been fully integrated into the parent brand, it makes sense to have a consistent experience across the fleet from narrow-body to wide-body. The IFE system is one of the best out there with Panasonic's NEXT system which is 4K. While not the ASTROVA which is basically the top of the line OLED system , it's still a fantastic system that can be found on JALs A35K.
Regarding Business Class, the recliners are not my thing for those readers who know me already. This is just a educated hypothesis of mine, but I can see the seats being upgraded once all of their A321neos are fulfilled as they have plenty on their plate right now in regards to CAPEX from lounges and wide-body retrofits, to new aircraft orders.