Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Best Y seat in A330-300

Will be travelling on CX later this yr from BNE to TPE via HKG. I tried to check the fare online via CX booking system, and have noticed that online seat allocation is possible at the same time with booking. 3 sectors will be on A330-300 while one whill be on B747. Any suggestions on best Y seats on the aircrafts? I have been looking at 30A/K on airbus and another front cabin bulkhead in B747. This is advisable? Are bulkheads much better than other seats in the cabin?

Let's face it. Y sucks with a passion!

But when travelling Y I always prefer an aisle seat as opposed to a window seat or, even worse, a centre seat. Lukily, I can alway avoid the centre seat in Y.

Emergency exit row seats are good if you have long legs and enjoy stretching out. Bulkhead row seats don't allow as much leg room and also you run the risk of being next to a baby. Fortunately, If you can get a bulkhead row on the sides rather than the middle, you usually avoid the baby issue because mothers usually travel with the baby and their husband. Bulkhead seats are a good thing if you can get them by yourself.

Note that both bulkhead and emergency exit seats have the tray table in the armrest so that reduces the width of your seat slightly. If you are a big guy then this is an issue.

For me personally, any aisle seat is okay on a flight in Y - a much better option than getting stuck with a screaming baby. If not an aisle seat then a bulkhead seat at the sides (not the middle!!) and hope for the best.

cardenio98

you can always go to the following sites for a seat recommendation:
www.seatguru.com
www.seatexpert.com

bulkheads are great in that no seat will recline in front of you, but some bulkheads may be next to a galley (noisy) and/or a toilet (stinky). the latter gets worse when it is a long-haul flight and you are sitting in Y (more usage). on cx F/B, usually the FAs are quick to detect a heavy usage and would immediately come in and spray the toilet to neutralize the odor.

bulkheads' other disadvantage: armrests cannot be lifted, so if you have a free space next to yours, you will not be able to lift the armrest to enjoy it, though you can still put your books and whatnots there.

Flew in April 2005 from Detroit-Frankfurt in a new (manufactured in 2003) A330-300. Seats on the way over were 36H and 36J, which means we were pretty far back. We were still in seats that had the full width of the plane, as later rows start narrowing or getting misaligned because of the tapering/curvature of the plane toward the tail. There is 72" of room from the floor to the overhead bins. Airbus has designed the A330-300 to be 2-4-2 seating so that no matter where you sit, you only have to step around one passenger to get to an aisle. The seats were comfortable, although any 8-hour transatlantic flight is going to make a person sore and antsy. Very clean and still looked new, rather than tattered and faded. Every seat had a movie screen in the seatback directly in front of you...wide selection of movies, music channels, and games. I was very impressed by this feature, as originally I thought that there would be one movie on the flight over and one choice on the flight home. The rear section of coach was as nice as the front section of coach. I though maybe there would be lesser nice or fewer amenities that further back one sat. Flight home was on my birthday and the flight attendent presented me with a bottle of champagne. Check out www.airliners.net: you can get a wide range of information about any plane that you are going to be flying on. Very helpful sight.

bjc71,

Welcome to FlyerTalk! I'm glad you enjoyed your flight but as far as I can tell that was on Northwest Airlines, whereas this forum is about Cathay Pacific. Every airline configures their aircraft in different ways - whether you have seat-back TVs or 2-4-2 seating is entirely up to the airline who specify the configuration of the aircraft.

Also, please note that the BNE-HKG are operated under the 330 (2 Class Regional Config) not the 333. But for Y Class it should be the same.