Welcome to this trip report on CX654, from BKK to HKG on one of Cathay's new A321neos. Since I also took a similar timed flight on this exact route with Cathay in 2023 January, I may try to make some references back to some unpleasant aspects of the flight along with my outbound flight that I took, the review of which has been released yesterday.
I hope you find this trip report useful and I once again apologise for any mistakes in advance – I got sick after my trip and suffered from back pain (thanks to the seats on the 321neo – you'll see why later)
Flight routing
- 1
- 2CX654 - Economy - Bangkok to Hong Kong - Airbus A321neo
Check-in at BKK
My day starts off at a busy and ever so congested BKK. Cathay's check-in counters are located in aisles R and S, which is near the 8th door as labelled by BKK on the departure level.
BKK has installed self check-in counters which I did not know beforehand.
Since I also didn't conduct online check-in which is available for up to 48 hours on CX's website or mobile app, I just approached the bag drop counters to conduct check-in for my flight.
Overview of CX's counters at BKK. There weren't much people since I arrived at around 12pm BKK time.
Got my ticket and headed to the observatory deck to do some planespotting before I passed security.
Security and airside
Security was quicker than expected and I made it to airside within 10 minutes.
There was nothing noteworthy of BKK's airside other than it being as congested as usual and I had a few snacks from Burger King before going on to watch my plane make its way to my gate E2.
Here's the aircraft taking me back to Hong Kong, a 1.7 year old A321neo registered B-HPN.
The waiting area at the gate was open once the aircraft was parked, though boarding only started at roughly 1430, where business class passengers and those with oneWorld and Cathay status were invited to board first.
The CX A321neo experience
Welcome aboard the CX A321neo! All CX A321neos feature the HAECO Vector seats with 190 of them in economy. However, most features found across the economy seats of the CX fleet are pretty identical. My fare class also allowed me to pre select 29A but unfortunately I couldn't see the fanblades – if you want a beautiful engine view, you will have to try your luck with row 28 or any seats further in front, which incur an extra cost for me to select.
The seat itself features an adjustable headrest…
Coat hook…
4k resolution IFE screen, which is a very good offering for a narrowbody…
Small platform that doubles as a cup and phone holder when deployed…
2 audio ports (but Cathay offers single plug headphones now??) and 2 charging ports….
Bifold and extendable tray table (though the extending function might not be of much use)….
Recline and liftable armrest (same one as A350)
Seatback pocket which includes safety card, air sickness bag, Cathay shop magazine and complimentary headphones…
Extra storage compartment for phone or other small items – this is not present on their A350s…
and last but not least, reading lights and to my surprise, individual air vents are all available.
At this point, you may be convinced that CX offers a top-notch product on their A321neo economy class, but the legroom is too much of a pain to ignore. Being roughly 175 cm tall, I barely had any space to move my legs around.
This is a stark contrast to the legroom on their A350s, where I can stretch my legs fully. If this still doesn't convince you how bad the legroom is, just imagine not having to extend my tray table during meal service.
(Mind you, I was initially fine about the legroom having taken most of my flights on LCCs/ non full-service airlines post COVID but then I had some pretty painful back pain when I got back home, which I assume was a result of being cramped in the seat for too long.)
On a more positive note, not only WiFi is available for this flight but Bluetooth connection for audio is also present. However, the connection didn't work on the ground (which is understandable) and wasn't the most stable during the flight – I switched back to the complimentary headphones halfway through the flight.
Overall, CX does offer a top-class product on their A321neo economy seats compared to other airlines, but the legroom is definitely worse that most other airlines out there – let alone a premium airline.
Old safety video was played (which seems to be the result of the software not being updated yet – more on that in the IFE section)
We took off at 1536 BKK time, 36 minutes behind scheduled departure time.
Food
Flying out of BKK, CX's food is done by Thai Airway's catering which is in most cases, better than catering when flying out of HKG – the Thai take their food seriously.
Meal service began 20-30 minutes after takeoff and 2 options are available today. These, according to the flight attendants, were "shrimp and fried noodles" and "pork with rice". However, the former option was a bit misleading as it turned out to be Pad Thai – I suppose it is a form of fried noodles if your definition is broad enough. I also nearly mistook the Pad Thai for "luncheon meat and fried noodles" as the pronunciation was similar in Cantonese. A chocolate Haagen Dazs ice cream, fruit assortment and cold bread roll also came along with the meal. Oh, CX also offers metal cutlery even for economy, which I forgot to mention in my previous report.
(Note: It seems like CX flight attendants do have a tendency to make appealing meals sound less attractive to customers so they can have it for themselves… I cannot verify if that is a consistent occurrence but if you ever fly CX it may be worth taking note of)
Both meals were equally favourful, but I found my Pad Thai be slightly greasy. Still very delicious though and I cleared my tray once again.
Drinks were also offered immediately after meals were handed out. I was also able to verify that Cathay still serves hot drinks and I ordered a tea.
IFE
I don't have anything new to say about the IFE system itself since I'm sure you've heard enough about how good it is.
However, it seems like Cathay is still progressively rolling out new IFE software on their aircraft (as seen with my A350 flight with the) which features a new UI but the content should be the same. Below is a picture of the old UI
If you remember the skip ad button that I mentioned in my report, here's a picture of it.
Toilet
All economy toilets on the CX A321neo are located at the rear. The toilet was pretty small and didn't seem to feature the same amenities available on my A350 flight.
The toilet wasn't the most clean too, which brings me to the crew…
Crew
Don't get me wrong, the crew were professional and did their job mostly fine. However, I'm not sure whether they took advantage of the seat belt sign that was turned on for much of the latter half of the flight and decided just not to show up. This becomes pretty apparent when you are on a narrowbody aircraft too since there is only one aisle. They also didn't do anything about passengers walking during that period, which I'm not sure whether its protocol/ against safety requirements.
However, I can definitely confirm that the crew were probably just chilling at the galley and didn't call out the passengers. There was also no water service which is a shame.
Landing at HKG
After a mostly uneventful flight, we landed at HKG 4 minutes ahead of schedule.
We parked at the North satellite terminal and made our way to the main terminal via the skybridge to clear immigration.
We were out of the airport in 20 minutes, where I made my way home with the reverse route of what I did for my outbound flight.
Very friendly pilots
Before I end the review, I do want to mention how nice the pilots were. The captain saw me peeking at the cockpit when we were on the ground at BKK and invited me in for a quick visit. He also invited me in after the flight and let me sit on the captain seat – props to the nice pilots and I hope I get to meet them again :)
No tourism bonus because I don't have much to share and I'm also sick, maybe next time :(
