Cathay Pacific To Remove First Class From All Planes That Currently Have It [Roundup]

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • Cathay Pacific will remove first class from Boeing 777-300ER aircraft when they update the planes with new business class suites over the next three years. Sad.

    Despite not having doors, the basic suite which was introduced back in 2007 (and refreshed modestly a couple of times) is still an amazing product with just 6 seats in the cabin. First class will only be offered on new 777X aircraft, a plane that hasn’t even been certified yet.

  • Two weeks ago I wrote that United’s growth was being halted by the FAA as they investigated safety issues. One restriction was on opening new destinations not already served by the airline. That means cancelling the planned Newark – Faro flight and delaying Tokyo Narita – Cebu to late October.

  • New Qantas Classic Plus awards let you buy a ticket with miles as the payment for the prevailing price, at a value of one Australian cent apiece and 1.5 cents apiece towards premium cabins.

    It is a good new option that makes it easier to use points – at lower value than a traditional award but you don’t need to hunt for availability. And it is a better value than current ‘points plus pay’ which lets you spend points at a value of 0.6 cents apiece.

    At a minimum this sets a floor to the value of Qantas points (unless/until they adjust the value at which points count against airfare cost for classic plus – but hopefully since this is new that won’t happen for awhile).

  • Marriott seems to have gone ‘asset light’ in their marketing department.

  • Delta, fix your planes.

  • Perfect for turbulence.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  1. Hong Kong struggled coming back from the pandemic (which coincided with the Chinese Communist Party’s soft takeover of the government). I’m sure rich people still fly to Hong Kong, but not as many.

  2. Interesting comment (“sad”) about Cathay Pacific eliminating First Class. For decades, Airlines always had three classes of service on all of their International flights (First, Business and Economy). Along came Premium Economy (and all of its various designations), and that expanded to four classes of service. On the one hand, any technical person can state as a fact that additional shades of granularity on a continuum is superior, provided that the continuum is infinite. Alas, that is not so with an aircraft, each airframe is a very specific size, and that limit is critical to this issue. Given the zero sum game of aircraft size, it’s entirely logical behavior for an Airline to recognize that the vast majority of their demand is in Business, Premium Economy and Economy, and configure their aircraft to meet that demand. All of that said, the good news is that it’s virtually certain that the Premium Global Airlines will maintain a First Class.

  3. A related point is that today’s Business Class is actually superior to what First Class had been 30 years ago. Lay Flat Seats (in any class) only debuted in 1995.

  4. @Texas TJ … +1 . To summarize CP’s decision : “Squeeze In More Seats for More Bucks” .

  6. Another reason why BYOD (bring your own device) on AA and AK are SOOOO much better. It will work, tons of programing and live TV, device holders on 70% of the fleet and more space under the seat. The weight and continued state of dis-repair of those TV screens on DL and soon UA make the direction of AA, AK and SWA make complete and total sense. Plus I had free texting/wifi on AA on my last flight, something coming soon. . I hope.

  7. @sunviking82 … airlines ought to ban all personal devices , all dogs , and those intoxicated .

  8. The official air flow device has no official markings and isn’t using official tape. I would take it down and stow it somewhere if it were me. It looks like a previous passenger didn’t like air blowing on their head. It doesn’t seem safety related so I would not ask a flight attendant.

  9. @jns
    They had better ask an FA. If they are the ones that did it and you take it down they will likely notify the captain of an unruly passenger at which point law enforcement will meet the aircraft and drag you off to airport jail. I tell all new flyers to look down, make no eye contact and never ask for anything.

  10. Will this affect the Cathay airplanes that Qatar is leasing for their DOH-HKG route?

  11. Well, BYOD isn’t perfect either, the system or WiFi altogether can be down. Many of the power outlets on Alaska’s older planes are too loose now to keep a device plugged in or charged, or the power outlets to an entire seat row can be out.

Comments are closed.