Continuing with the last trip report I have up my sleeve for now – another HX flight from KIX back to HKG!
Apologies for the extremely late report - I've been locked up with lots of school work :/ But anyway I'll be writing this report with new insight from 2025 regarding HX's current state, which honestly, is quite a surprise compared with their previous standing.
Enchainement de vols
- 1
- 2HX619 - Economy - Osaka –> Hong Kong - Airbus A330-300
The Airport Experience
After visiting the Rinku-Town outlet (which is situated next to KIX), we took one stop on the JR Kansai Airport Rapid Service to reach KIX. This train runs directly into the centre of Osaka, and is probably the best option (in terms of value-for-money) if you're travelling between the airport and the city.
Arriving at KIX, HX uses the check-in aisle the furthest away from the entrance, at Aisle A. It's shared with Turkish since this is one of the few routes that HX codeshares with Turkish. (Honestly would be massively disappointed if I came off a Turkish flight into HKG, and had to fly…HX…to get to my destination…)
With the same credit card we had access to the priority check-in desk. HX uses Swissport agents at KIX.
Security was a big mess as KIX was under massive construction for the upcoming Expo 2025 (at that time…). It took quite a long time and lots of detours, with crowd control being done poorly.
After that, we headed to gate 23 (which was surprisingly quite close to security?), only to find that our aircraft was arriving late into HKG. It was scheduled to arrive at 16:30 but was delayed by around 40 minutes. As such boarding time was delayed till 17:35, yet our departure time stayed the same. I began to wonder whether there would be a delay…
Oh look who's next door! Apparently with the same departure time as us too! (So they'll be racing us back to HKG!!)
Looks like they are winning, especially since their plane was already at the gate with bags being loaded, and ours was just pulling in… This was at 17:06, 44 minutes before our scheduled departure.
Oh, B-LHI again??? (I flew this exact aircraft from HKG-CTS before - with only 9 330s in their fleet it's not that hard to get the same one for a second time!)
Finally arrived!
With a whole army waiting to clean the plane up as soon as possible…
Cabin & Seat
At 17:40 we were finally allowed to board, which was only 10 minutes before our scheduled departure time…I start to doubt whether we could depart on time. CX meanwhile has finished boarding completely!
It's the same configuration once again, a standard 2-4-2 with 31 inches of pitch and 17 inches of width. We were seated quite upfront this time though, in literally the 2nd and 3rd row of the economy cabin.
Legroom is quite fine! I am 177cm tall FYI.
Every seat has an IFE screen (which contrary to the previous review, is now officially back in service though with a catch…)
With a remote control for the TV…
There's also this safety card.
(Side note: HX has introduced this redesigned card, which looks pretty nice and cute actually - credits to Karl)
And this wing view which doesn't look like it's from Economy at all! (for being seated in such a seat upfront!)
Taxi out
Boarding was complete in no time (within 15 minutes) and we managed to push back 30 seconds after I saw the cabin doors close…great efficiency and the whole turnaround was done within 45 minutes. Nice job there HX!
We saw this Japan Airlines 787 as we left the gate… (Side note: JAL and ANA don't operate many international flights from KIX - there are probably more flights to Hong Kong alone than all their international flights combined!)
And also this starflyer A320, which has an interesting livery.
Wait…we managed to beat the Cathay plane that was all ready 20 minutes ahead of us??? :O
We got to enjoy a pretty nice sunset as we taxi-ed to the runway too.
We took off at 18:25 local time, off into a nice sunset.
Meal Service
The meal was served pretty quickly (around 45 minutes after takeoff), and we were lucky to have a full meal just like the previous flight to KIX. (Side note: up until this date, hot meals have still not been completely rolled out yet! In addition, on all A321 flights you will never be served a hot meal - HX accquired those aircraft for cheap, and never even bothered fixing their ovens - so now all of us have to suffer with their inconsistent offerings! Yay!)
It included a Japanese-style Pork rice, a bottle of water as well as a Daifuku, which is a traditional Japanese dessert. I opted for an apple juice again this time.
The meal was tasty, but the meat was quite dry - I drank the whole bottle of water and the juice right away just after the meal. Overall though it was a nice upgrade compared with the hot buns we used to get.
In-flight entertainment
The system is now available to all passengers! Headphones were also distributed. (My plane happened to have the IFE system, some others have nothing, while some others have streaming entertainment - mostly on other A330s and few selected A320s as of 2025. As from flight reviews I've seen online, those appeared to have a better selection than what was on offer here…)
The system was updated (?) compared with the last flight I had on the exact same aircraft over to CTS, though that update simply meant a removal of most of the functions including games, music and most tiles available… weird…
All the Hainan-airlines content was removed.
And there was ONE episode of ONE random TV show on offer in this category…
And 5 random movies from the West…bring your own content on HX please (unless you happen to have the streaming service, but if you don't speak Chinese at all that unfortunately makes no difference)
There were only 3 episodes of cartoons available for kids too..
At least the moving map was still available back then… (It's no longer in service on ALL HX planes)
which includes a very poorly designed UI… This is the problem of Thales though (it's the Thales Geofusion system on here)
In-flight
I passed through the business class cabin, which has 1-2-1 fully flat beds placed in a staggered configuration. This is actually much better than CX's regional business class with 2-2-2 (or even 2-3-2 layouts on their 777-300 non-ERs) and I do recall them having great fares before all the financial trouble… I flew them back in the day when they were somehow cheaper than CX's economy fares, and I really enjoyed the flight.
A look at the economy cabin, which was completely full that day.
Before I forget, the service on the flight was nothing to write home about - efficient, friendly but nothing much (the crew did disappear after the meal service as usual, but nothing to complain about as they still responded to call bells).
Landing
We soon approached HKG after around 3 hours in the air and landed on the new runway at HKG. Total flight time was just 3 hours and 10 minutes that day.
We were docked at the midfield concourse as usual for HX, and had to take the train to the main terminal for immigration & baggage claim. It wasn't too much of a hassle though (but will be if your flight lands after 01:30 - the train stops running by then)
Baggage took a little longer than usual and was to be expected - the Airport Authority didn't build a proper baggage system from the Midfield concourse to the main concourse to save up on cash when it was constructed. As such, bags have to be hauled manually with baggage carts all the way from the concourse to the main terminal - which results in much longer wait times.
Conclusion (and a short update on HX's status as of 2025)
Overall it was a pretty decent flight - the crew were efficient in getting a full A330 turned around in 45 minutes, the cabin and seat were fine, and the food was also a nice touch, but the IFE felt like a short-coming - I feel like it would make sense to make offerings more consistent across different planes and switch all the IFEs to the streaming kind where a newer & wider selection of movies are available. HX remains a competitive option, but its inconsistent offerings may drive travellers crazy if they don't know much about its products.
At the time I took the flight, HX announced a resumption of long-haul flights to Gold Coast (that was a seasonal flight) (and shortly later Vancouver, served year-round and being bumped up to a daily flight starting May 2025). They've acquired two more A330s from the HNA group, with super diamond business class seats and Recaro seats in economy to fly them. But honestly, I don't think they're financially or technically ready for these long-haul flights - I feel like they should address the shortcomings in their product offerings before they start long-haul flights again.
They have also announced flights to Sydney a while back - beginning on June 20, 2025. It would be interesting to see how they are even able to compete with Qantas & Cathay's dirt-cheap yet superb offerings (I guess they could win over Qantas by running their flights on time, but CX with their new Aria-retrofitted 777s? Nah)
In the meantime, HX has expanded their fleet significantly by taking on additional second-hand A320s and A321s, both from the HNA group and also from airlines around the world (that returned their planes to their lessors like China Eastern, Starflyer, Tigerair Taiwan and Vietnam Airlines to name a few). Unfortunately, they didn't invest much in refurbishing those aircraft and they further add to the inconsistency at HX - ranging from the 150-seater A320 with 34 inches of pitch, to the LCC-style 220-seater A321 without a proper oven. My confidence in HX has declined much upon seeing them expand in such a diabolical way…but I guess time will tell whether these rather aggressive expansion plans would do any good to the airline.
Thanks for reading till the end, and I hope to be bringing you some new trip reports in June this year, as well as in August/September! Until then, wishing you all safe travels!
