Review: Cathay Dragon A330 Business Class

I think you had a little bad copy and paste there, as you reference reverse herringbone seats.

This flight just about matches all of my recent 2-4 hour Dragon flights. Perfectly fine service, odd seat, no WiFi.

KA regularly use these on some 6-7 hours long red eye flights and charge the same as CA mainline price. Cathay should really confine these within 3 hours or market this type of seats as PE instead of J.

Interestingly I've been given amenity kits in KA J on overnight flights which are the exact same as CX J long haul. I find KA catering and service to sometimes be better than CX as well

"To finish off my Miami to Beijing itinerary"

Well, technically, you have 2 more flights 😉

You are not allowed to be gay in China. I was reading this cuddling my boyfriend in bed and we were so upset. Why do you support this airline?

@Aaron - I think Lucky booked this as two separate itineraries, as the Miami to Beijing was paid ticket through American and then the return was separately booked.

I believe the weird aircraft routes over mainland China is due to the restrictions in airspace. I heard that the government utilizes like 70-90% of it for military use and that planes have to go on what is basically a "highway" for commercial planes.

Is it possible to upgrade from Biz into First on these without upgrading the transpac leg?

I have an AA flight to HKG and then a < 1 hour connection on one of these. Maybe it's so short it doesn't matter...

@Lucky
"we were already cruising at 26,500 feet, which is awfully low."

Perhaps your jetlag affected you brain and have mistaken for 265.00 feet which is really awfully low. Flying at 26,500 is nowhere close to awfully low. Heck many turboprops don't even fly that high and doesn't seem to be awfully low at all. I hope you are not trying to imply a Wi Tu Lo joke on a Chinese carrier.

"I was expecting the flight to be quite empty."
Aside of dumb kids and global news showing only the violence, after few months of slowdown HK for most part is business as litter slower than usual now.

"Lastly, I’ve always found the relationship to be interesting. though it’s not explicitly a low cost carrier."

Jetlag is really messing you up, getting too old? This is very similar to regional carriers in USA. Never consider American Eagle to be lowcost yet.

@ Eskimo -- 26,500 feet is significantly lower than you'll usually find jets cruising. Generally they cruise at 30,000+ feet. So I stand by that.

The difference between regional carriers and mainline carriers in the US is that regional carriers fly smaller planes. That's why they're allowed to exist to begin with, due to scope clauses. In the case of Cathay Dragon they're flying the same planes as Cathay Pacific. Again, I stand by that, and do find that to be unique.

@ Kevin B -- You can upgrade if the ticket is issued by Cathay Pacific (using Asia Miles), but you can't if the ticket is issued by American.

@ Aaron -- Hah, yep, as Greg noted, the outbound was one ticket, and the return was a separate ticket.

I find Cathay's regional business class to be significantly uncomfortable. 3 hour flight is too long. The seat slides in a way to make sure your lower back is just unsupported.

I understand that a recliner is good enough for regional flights but not this uncomfortable one. There are good recliners. United used to have recliners in the early 2000s that were so comfortable and certainly far better than the angled lie flat seats every one else was adopting.

Cathay bring the old United seats for your next iteration. They were great.

Those pillows and blankets are absolutely filthy.

@Lucky - Though you didn’t have time with your quick HKG connection, do KA passengers get same lounge access as CX/oneworld Emerald passengers? I would imagine so, but just checking as I have my first AA/KA connection coming up...thx

Also, who gets AA Concierge Key status? 16 years EXP (and just requalified today!), but not a clue how that status is achieved.

@As - remember the old British Airways business class “cradle seats”, and Virgin Atlantic’s competing lazy-boy type seats. Funny, none of today’s glitz and glamour, but they were so comfortable...the old UA seats, ehhhh

@Leigh - Yes, same lounge access as on CX.

@John there's no laws banning homosexuality in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_China. Plus, Cathay is based in Hong Kong, which has a different legal system to Mainland China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Hong_Kong

China can be quite conservative on social issues, and you won't find gay marriage or adoption like in Western countries, but it's nowhere near as extreme as the Middle East or parts of Africa, for example.

The fact that you are Comparing this business class to a domestic US first class seat is unfair. This is a wide body aircraft and Any US airline offers a better business class seat on domestic wide body.
The product looks outdated.

Where did you get the information that KA crew is paid less than CX? I was told before that they earn more (CX being so prestigious that candidates line up for a job). Maybe pilots, yes, but not cabin crew

@John
Because Hong Kong is not the same as Mainland China. No one cares if you are gay or not in HK.
And Cathay is definitely not a Mainland Chinese airline, thank God! Did you have a chance to read the "controversy" with Cathay's gay ad on here? You may want to google search that.

"The difference between regional carriers and mainline carriers in the US is that regional carriers fly smaller planes. That’s why they’re allowed to exist to begin with, due to scope clauses. In the case of Cathay Dragon they’re flying the same planes as Cathay Pacific. Again, I stand by that, and do find that to be unique."

Not entirely true. KA's fleet consists of both narrow-bodies (A320 and A321) and wide-bodies (A333), but the entire CX fleet is wide-body (A333, A350, B777). Moreover, CX has been gradually retiring its regional-configured 777s as well as handing its regional-configured A333s over to KA, so even though KA and CX might be flying "the same planes" in the only case of A333, they are not necessarily offering the same product. As of now, the only destinations where CX and KA overlap are PEK, PVG, and TPE. So in a way, you could compare CX and KA with SQ and MI and find them not that unique in the Asia market.

Who offers business class seat that lies totally flat??

one thing that struck me is that these seats look really, really worn. i’ve flown cathay dragon regional business class this year, and the experience was good, although my seat did look less worn/thicker than yours.

One way business on KA/CX from HKG to PEK now costs 22,000 avios, not 20,000.

26,000 feet is a totally normal cruise altitude. Let’s leave the hard work to those who actually know they’re talking about, shall we?

I would take this seat every day over United's PremiumPlus seat, which gets flown up to ~16 hour flights FWIW (and seems to be basically identical to AA/DL's PE offering)

@john

Maybe in "mainland" China, but not in Hong Kong. You are more than welcome to be gay.

Cathay Dragon is a Hong Kong-based airline.

KA crew are not paid less than CX, in fact, KA crew are generally paid more than the same grade CX crew, as they work on more sectors.

Altitudes in China are assigned in meters, which would explain the odd altitudes you would see.

Why not take photos of lav with seat down? We don't need to see the inside of a toilet, do we? thanks

@john- cathay pacific and cathay dragon are based in HK. you are allowed to be gay in HK. Also, ben is gay- onemileatatime.com/i-got-married