Review of Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo in Economy

the stopover to japan

Hello, this is a continuation of my trip to Japan with Cathay Pacific, after arriving from Jakarta, my group went to hang out in front of the gate. I meanwhile decided to kill time by spotting some planes

Spotting in HKIA

To kill some time, I decided to do a bit of spotting around HKIA

Here in Hong Kong, everywhere I see is just CX after CX widebodies

Although there are some exceptions, like this Ethiopian 787-8 reg ET-ATG in Star Alliance livery

A Cathay Pacific A350-900 taking off

A Singapore Airlines 777-300ER taxiing and taking off

An Indigo A321

Boarding

Soon, it was time to board the plane

This was the plane, a Boeing 777-300ER, reg unknown since the wing was blocking it

Inside the plane

The seat pitch and legroom were excellent, as I expected from my previous flight

The (much larger) IFE

Headrest was adjustable

sudden delay

Parked next to a Cathay Pacific A330-300 just arriving from Tokyo-Narita

Then, while waiting for the plane to move, the crew announced a 30 minute delay due to issues with the cargo door, so that was surprising. I sat at my seat waiting. Thankfully, the crew gave us light snacks to wait it out. However, this wasn't enough as the delay went from 30 minutes to 1 hour, so long in fact a Garuda Indonesia A330-300 that had parked nearby as we boarded already pushed back. 

Taxi and take-off

Finally, at 17:52 we pushed back

The safety video soon played

And finally we started taxiing.

A Cathay Pacific A321 lining up for take-off

And finally, take off (no photos here, sorry)

Cruising and dinner

Reaching our cruising altitude 

The IFE had the option to access a camer outside the plane under the landing gear, very cool

I decided to spend the next 3 hours watching all 3 Star Wars Original trilogy films

View of the cabin from my seat

Dinner was served: Mashed potato with vegetables, fish, soba noodles, fruits, hot bread and Hagen-Daz Vanilla Ice Cream

After a couple hours, night came and the cabin lights became a yellow-ish hue

Landing

A view of Tokyo from above

Cabin announcement preparing for landing

Landing (no photos from the window, sorry)

Taxiing to our gate, parking next to a Japan Airlines 787-8 heading for Helsinki

Disembarkation

A bunch of ANA jets

A Delta Air Lines 767-300

Haneda Immigration (a bit of a rant)

Immigration through Haneda was P A I N for all my group. The line was so absurdly long thanks to only having 6 immigration desks, we all hobbled slowly through. It took my group 1 hour to reach the immigration desks, meaning we were through immigration the next Monday and that Monday we had EF Welcome orientation at 8 am. I still can't believe that at the time, only 6 immigration desks were active at night to handle thousands of passengers. Sorry, rant over.