First class to get refresh among other things
 

Basd on the monthly CX staff magazine, First class will get an update starting next month. The update will only be on the 77W as the 744's are progressively being retired. The improvements will consist of colors, touches and trim similar to the one used in the newly rennovated Wing lounge. The fabric will be upgraded to a softer kind, artwork will be added and minor improvements to the workspace such as an adjustable meal table, a new drink holder, improved closet space and a touchscreen controller for seat adjustment.

The new sleep suits will be produced by local HK company, PYE.

Bose QuietComfort headphones will be used.

The washroom is slated to get an improvement consisting of a new sink and countertop.

Will take about a year to complete starting next month.

PYE = a shirt tailor company, owned by a contract clothing manufacturer. Hmmmm no cachet in that really.

i dont think this is good enough. CX F "suites" need more privacy. and they need to catch up quickly with competition.

the bathrooms should be updated for sure, as most of them look worn-out already. even for the 744s, i would expect that in F everything looks shiny new at all times. but as cleaning money is being saved, that is not the case.

leaving out the 744s will keep me flying more EK from FRA, as FRA still gets the 744s and that might remain for a long time.

I actually don't think they need more privacy. What they can do is rip out the closet so that there is more leg space. I find the CX suites are the best without the caustrophobic feel of the EK/SQ suites

I reckon this could start a good debate here, but count me as someone who thinks the CX F seats are quite perfectly designed. And I am almost always a single traveler. I have not tried the new LH F, but hands down CX F beats BA F and SQ regular F (not suites). As a single traveler I think I have a great deal of privacy in the CX F seats because you are seated so far back in the seat, the wall separating you from aisle makes your sitting area very private. While it's true that someone walking by could see you, to me the suites are a good combo of privacy while maintaining the feel of a cabin.

At the absolute worst privacy-wise, in 77W you would have 3 pax max who got a glimpse of you (if you were seated in 1D or 1K, there could be up to 3 other pax using your aisle and walking by), and in 747 the most who would see you is 4 (if you sat in 4A/4D there would be 4 other pax using your aisle). Not to mention, I can only imagine CX F is awesome for couples or groups travelling together. I've flown my parents CX F and it seems very good for a couple.

I'm not one for CX spending money on bling just for the sake of it, I really quite enjoy the design of CX F as it is. The refresh detailed by the OP sounds very reasonable and hopefully they can put some additional money back into booze or food. That's CX (and our?) reward for them designing F right the first time, instead of J class which has already been completely re-designed. Coffin J was rolled out at the same time as F and it had to be redesigned and discarded quickly (which no doubt cost a fair chunk of money).

Emirates DOESN'T HAVE FLAT BEDS!!!!
 

I am 6'4 1/2, I have now flown EK twice in F on their Shower enabled A380 and once on one of the other Airbus's. All three times I found the service to be mediocre at best. They might speak 34 languages between them but many of the men and ladies just stand around in the galley chatting and flirting and not working....it is almost like a lack of supervision? They have that Awful coffee and fig served in the beginning. The shower to me is useless as I prefer to sleep or watch a movie onboard as I can shower at the lounge if need be.

Emirates seats have two Epic Fails. 1 The seats DO NOT GO FLAT....they actually go down at the feet. so you are flat until about mid calf and then the seat kinda drops off. When I pointed this out they told me the plane rides at an angle so it is "almost flat".....to which I replied "is that like being almost pregnant" and we had a good laugh. That said, this seat for my height was poor and they put a thin little mattress on it....really nothing and I have slept poorly twice. Thankfully I also have a choice...

The second issue I had with the EK F was the doors to the suite. In order to open the doors you have to turn on the remote controller device, get to the door part through the menus and push the open button....What a pain! When I am waking up from sleep the LAST thing I want to do is fight with a remote control to open the doors of my suite....The flight attendant said most people don't like the device however they like the doors..... I could care less.

Cathays soft product is comfortable, roomy, private,fully flat and LONG and might be without the bells and whistles of EK but is a far more comfortable product for me. The selection of movies and TV shows with the adjustable screen far beats Emirates and I like very much the Asian inspired dishes etc. With a full cabin, Cathays service trumps Emirates every time IMHO.

Safe travels to all!

Well they've finally gone for Bose headsets.. Let's hope this can filter down to the Business Cabin too. Doesn't mind me - I have my own pair.

so what are the.... "other things" beside F seat refresh ?

Having tried many other options in F I have to say CX is brilliant. I have never had any issue with the product. My wife loves it as well. Never seen a dirty bathroom in F. Done hundreds of thousands of miles in F and frankly its hard to get it much better.

the last thing CX needs to do is to put its passengers into glorified prison cells!!

The CX seat is unique and extremely successful- glad management know that and are not tampering with it too much

When they asked me to complete the feedback survey about a month ago, the 2 items I gave them bad feedback on were
- bathrooms
- audio quality/headset

:)

You can see the original article here http://downloads.cathaypacific.com/c...index.html#/2/

Thanks JALPak.
I was wondering if there's a source/link to the news.

^^^

I wonder when pictures will be released?

not sure the grey and burgundy combination will work!

Not to be picky, but aren't you describing the hard product?

Very happy about the headphones. IME the current ones have to have the plug/cord in the precise correct position/angle otherwise you get a lot of crackly sound.

I laughed for 5 minutes after I read this!

I know what you mean about that coffee!

And it does seem to be a bother to the FAs when you ask for something! You are interrupting their gossip and flirt session in that F galley - and did you ever notice that there are at least 3 of them in there talking?!

It will look like Qatar!

I love Qatar's color combo on the 787! It's one of the few color combos that I really love in a cabin. Other than QR's color combo, I really love CX's color combo in the new J, and JL's gray combo. The new combo on their refitted aircraft is so-so for me. I'm pretty certain the color combo in F will not fail to impress.

One thing that could have been changed is the flooring of the F washroom. The wahsroom itself is nice, but the flooring doesn't work out for me.

The Bose headphones are a huge improvement from the current generic ones being used but a dissapointment in my opinion as I feel that Bose is overrated.

absolutely +1. But they've got the brand cache which is killer for them, and are good enough for most folks who want something better but aren't audiophiles. For the same price as the QC-15s Senheiser makes significantly better-sounding 'phones, albeit the aesthetics aren't as appealing as Bose. Basically Bose gets a brand premium.

PYE is a realtively new company founded by the daughter of the owner of Harvey Nichols. Definitely doesnt carry the cachet of Shanghai Tang.

Are you sure? Do you mean the guy that has the right to run the Harvey Nichol stores in HK? Dickson Poon

Yes, Mafai is correct. But the brand is actually from her mother who has a 40 year old company making clothes.

Well that answers the question as to how they got that contract then:td:

I have purchased quite a few shirts from PYE since they opened their Pacific Place store a couple of months back. The shirts are actually pretty comfortable and their selection of colors and styles are pretty good.

I would like to think that CX has a tender process for these things btw??

But to be honest the price they charge is 2X what a good HK tailor will charge and really you are not even for any big shot designer

Doesn't matter how good the actual products sold in their stores are. The real question is whether the PJs will be of the same quality or CX will simply use lower quality material and put the PYE brand on it, just like it did with Shanghai Tang PJs.

But if you put gap and use a nice material, what will people think?
The shanghai tang PJs were good and I don't see any problems with it?

The Shanghai Tang PJ's have been around forever and I am getting a little bored of them so it's nice to see a change. Only time will tell if we like them or not.

New J headphones
 

New headphones in J tonight, on an A333 with the new longhaul J cabin.

No brand. CX logo.
Noise cancelling with no audio playing may be slightly better than old version
Sound quality watching TV show was so-so
Sound quality listening to music was terrible. Really awful.
I did a comparison with a few songs that both IFE had and I had on my iPhone :
- iphone + stock apple ear bud headphones were much, much better quality

I think I will now finally buy some proper headphones to take on the plane, as the stock version is now unusable for music.

Thanks CX...

Dickson Poon owns Harvey Nichols. Both in HK and in the UK (and elsewhere where they have outlets). Doesn't he also own Barney's New York?

Had the new headphones again on a HKG-SIN flight.

I retract some of what I said above. The sound for movies / TV is awful too, not even just ok. .

All around, pretty terrible product, and certainly a step backwards from the current offering.

If they are introducing Bose to F class, then they are making a very distinct differentiation between J and F!

Yes because F/J and PEY used to have to same headphones!

Finally CX is better than SQ in something!:D

http://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_H...-features.html

details and pictures announced today

they removed the pillow from the past of the seat that can be folded down!!

before the bed looked like this http://thepointsguy.com/wp-content/u...-Class-Bed.jpg

with the arm rest also sliding out to form the bed- the new pictures of the fully made bed seem to indicate otherwise- which means headspace is reduced

looks very ummm - let just say the flight attendant red provides a nice contrast

A very classy refresh ! Shame there are no photos yet of the new tray table.

I notice that the seat controls will be via a touch screen panel in the same place too. Hope that doesn't malfunction!

Wirelessly posted (Ipod: Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 6_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10A403 Safari/8536.25)

Looks good. Any way to know if I'll be flying the new F?

route list
 

Maybe someone can find the routes that will refreshed, or what route this was rolled out on.