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

Introduction

This report is the last segment of the long journey back to Paris, after three stops in Hong Kong and mainland China, and then in Japan.
For more details on the structure of this journey, see the introduction of the first FR of this series.

The schedule was delayed after I hadchased our tickets… by only 10 minutes, which didn't change anything about our connection from KIX.

HKG airside at night

We made it through the security check without incident, only slightly less so for a passenger who forgot his laptop right in front of me. He quickly realized it and came back: the staff asked him to type in his password to prove that it was indeed his, and the incident was closed.
I knew in advance that the next step was going to cost me a bundle, in the shape of purchases by the wife in this duty-free store.

I had dissuaded her from doing her Christmas shopping for our relatives' children, having the memory of a toy purchased in a Hong Kong Toys R'Us for the same price as in a store of the same brand in the Paris region.

Late at night, the HKG terminal was impeccably clean, but terribly impersonal

The seats have power socket

… sometimes AC (type G) and USB,

… but often only USB

Workspaces which did not attract sleepless workers

A few works of art attempted to soften this environment of straight lines

Heartfelt Love (Man Fung-yi): The artist takes to heart the heartfelt love, and strives to distinguish the spirit of love and peace by art creation.
I was unconvinced!

Plane spotting was not very fruitful in this part of the terminal (it's so large that I gave up the goal of exploring it entirely). Aside from a few CX aircraft, I only found this Turkish Airlines 777

The A350 which would be operating our flight was at the gate

The last characteristic of the HKG terminal: it's cold, very cold. The fleece in my hand luggage supposed to help me cope with the thermal shock upon arrival at CDG came in very handy in HKG.

Boarding: The cabin of a Cathay Pacific A350

It was so cold in the terminal that I welcomed the start of boarding

Going through the J cabin

And reaching the Economy cabin – there was also a Premium Economy cabin, but my picture there was a total failure.

The seatbacks recline 12°: a standard value for a long haul Economy seat

No surprises regarding the seat pitch: it was acceptable, but not great for Economy. I was lucky that the passenger ahead of me didn't lower his backrest, which allowed me to use my laptop after sleeping; it would not have been possible with his backrest reclined.

The seat width between armrests, was Airbus standard, hence very good for Economy.

There is a multi-standard 100V / 60Hz power outlet under the seat, you need to know about it: as is often the case, there was no signage, and I had to fumble around to find it and plug in my laptop’s power cord).

The cabin was almost full

… and the bet on the neutralized middle seat, at the back of the cabin, was been lost once again: seat 71J was occupied by a passenger who offered to switch seats with my wife, but she preferred keeping her aisle seat.

The safety cardboth sides

Takeoff from HKG

Pushback at 1:16, over an hour late

The control tower

A CMA CGM Air Cargo 777

The IFE provided the view of the nose wheels during takeoff

The compact camera was not sensitive enough to take night photos; This is the "spaghetti bowl" of expressways serving the airport and the Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities, i.e. the Hong Kong terminal of the bridge-tunnel structure linking Hong Kong to Macau and Zhuhai.

Upon reaching Tsing Yi Island, the highway from the airport splits into two branches: north (left) towards the Shenzhen border at Lok Ma Chau, and south (right) towards Kowloon.

Cruising at night

he menu was distributed by the cabin crew after takeoff, as soon as they could leave their seats.

This was the dinner as served.

I chose fish, which I found very disappointing: soggy and tasteless. I remember reading that the constraints of air catering make it usually difficult to create a successful meal with fish and this was a good example.
No coffee or tea were offered after dinner, contrary to what was written on the menu.

I found the seat rather hard and uncomfortable, but I nevertheless slept six and a half hours. Where were we when I woke up? Thiswas the moving map:

This was definitely not that the great circle trajectory (thanks to gcmap.com)

Because this was the complete trajectory (thanks to flightradar24): not only is Chinese airspace notoriously congested due to military airspace areas, but above all, the pilots afterwards carefully avoided Russian airspace via Azerbaijan and Georgia (thus without entering Chechnya, which was to tragically hit the civil aviation news some time thereafter), then flew along the southern coast of the Sea Black, as far away from Ukraine as possible, remaining within the presumed safe Turkish airspace.

Back to the flight: a visit to the restrooms, which were clean

Drinks were available for self-service in the aft galley,

… as well as bags of small Sweet and savory snacks.

A wink at to two French contributors that some Flight Report regulars will identify easily

Let's go back to the plane's route: after a brief overflight of Azerbaijan, some 100 nm from Vladikavkaz and Makhachkala, where the pilots of Flight J2 8243 in distress were not given permission to land, the plane flies close to Tbilisi

Nighttime landscapes

This was the S5 highway, from Vaziani on the left to Sagarejo on the right

And just beyond, the Tbilisi metropolitan area, partially blurred by a light cloud cover

TBS was thus coincidentally blurred on the right.

The "egg tart" advertised on the menu was served in this box, nine hours after takeoff.

8 cm in diameter: it was eaten in a few bites.

As shown here !

There was obviously nothing to see on the starboard side as we sailed along the Turkish coast, being on the Black Sea side, and there we were, entering Bulgarian airspace.

This was Varna, the largest Bulgarian seaside resort.

The cabin was lit, but we were still far from our destination

The city lights of Belgrade in the distance

Tuzla, in the center of this picture, in the long urban strip. In the lower right quarter, the illuminated perimeter outlined its airport, TZL.
In the lower third of the photo, this was the Živinice urban area

This was breakfast, as served

And then unwrapped

Waiting for the lavatory while there was still time

All items had been stowed in the galley

Door shot, towards the outside to the right, and towards the access to the crew rest area –– the first few steps are visible.

View of the cabin from the rear

Descent and landing at CDG

Saint Soupplets and Monthion, with Lagny-le-Sec’s business park in the distance, at the left edge of the photo

Imminent landing: it was 8:06 a.m. local time, after almost 14 hours of night flight.

First glimpse of Terminal 1

Arrival at the gate with an A220-300 airBaltic

Deplaning…

.. going through the Premium Economy cabin, with a 2-4-2 seating layout

.. and through the Business cabin, in 1-2-1 seating layout

Paris isn't trying to love us

Terminal 1's tricolor illumination, seen from its satellite

Long underground moving walkway to reach the center of the terminal

Paris Aéroports was careful not to claim that "Paris loves us" (their standard motto), because reaching the immigration quickly convinced us of the reverse

A quarter of an hour later, there was this long line behind us

… and still all these people ahead of us

Canadian, US, Mexican, and British citizens had a dedicated lane,

And since there were far fewer of them arriving than EU citizens, they have a de facto fast track that allowed them to go through immigration much faster than the locals.

The time-stamping of my photos betrayed a 22 minute waiting time; it seemed much longer to us than it really was.

Boarding one of the iconic tubes of CDG’s Terminal 1.

The longish wait at immigration did not really matter, sincewe would be wating for our checked luggage even longer.

The CX cabin crew are waiting like us

Their luggage will be delivered first…

… but our two suitcases appear only 1 hour and 7 minutes after our plane’s final stop: not a brilliant performance. !

All that was left was to find the hired cab waiting for us a little further than expected around this circular building.

And there we were on the way to Paris in early morning.

Thank you for reading me!

Bonus: Hong Kong Murals

I'm offering you a bonus on the street art works made with spray paint, not tile glue, seen during our wanderings in Hong Kong