During my flight crew use galley at Door 2 for J catering. Not sure whether it's a short haul configuration.

Chatting with crew on the 777 Aria Suites launch walk-through, I commented on the large open L-shaped galley at the very front and asked how this reconfigured space might work for them (as it's quite spacious, a lot of room too move around) - she said the galley behind (Door 2, as you mentioned) would be the main one for catering, I think she said this Door 1 galley area was more likely to be used for 'prep' and things which are less cooking/reheating-intensive... I didn't get more time to chat with her but will be interested to see how both galleys are used on these Aria flights.

Seat recs in J?
 

It looks like I have an Aria flight this week? I see an odd seat map for 77W from PVG, must be it right?

I haven't been on one yet. Has anyone taken any views on preferential /bad J seats yet? It seems windows in back mini cabin the only As and Ks still available. Still some Ds and Gs in forward cabin available.

All of the Aria seats seem to be same-same, on my walk-through even the first row of each cabin appeared to have same room for legs and same foot cubby (unlike many airlines where that first row has extra legroom and a larger cubby built into the bulkhead, and that's before you get into the 'business plus' realm).

I suppose 368/367 pair is 77J in Nov except Nov 23?

Please try avoiding 19K unless they quickly fix the seat control issue.

Enjoy your Aria trip~

Stumbled across this social media post today. It appears 19K and 22K are defective as of 03Nov
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...653ecab471.jpg

Does anyone know when will HKG-SYD equipped with Aria?

I'm gonna be taking the Aria flight tomorrow out of PVG- will closely look at any differences in the seats if I can (missing windows, larger/ smaller footwells, etc)

i wonder whats the reason of the breakdown. maybe its way too large and heavy, especially from the large tv and extensive technology, and this is a older B777.

with these issues, it seems like cathay might have to keep flying it on short routes for a while until they figure out how to fix it.

This is exactly why airlines try out their products on short haul routes first!
I hope they will address the recurring issues before reconfiguring more planes! I don't think CX wants to block a row of seats on 77J flights. I presume for short haul flights, it is somewhat okay, but on a London bound flight, it will really anger plenty of passengers.

Carfield

I'm sure CX has a pretty good idea pencilled in, but as to the rest of us, nope...

Now I would suspect sometime between March and May 2025 because CX has said early 2025 the first three Aria'd 777s will be locked into a single daily frequency to "Europe", which is widely held to be London, and based on the upgrade rollout of one per month, that will mean another few 777s start to roll out of the HAEC facility from say late February – and SYD is a prime route which can be served with a single 777 (AKL also said to be on the shortlist, but we all know that AU trumps NZ LOL) – hence, I'd not be surprised to see an Aria 777 flying HKG-SYD between March and May 2025.

But that's just spitballing and has zero foundation in known fact.

Before Covid and political unrest in HK, CX were selling F from LAX and JFK.

In the past, whenever there was a new seat, SYD was always the first route to get them (maybe not A350, as I don't think A350 was on SYD initially - memory getting rusty). Slopey J, Coffin Class, first version of reverse herringbone were all put on SYD first.

Also relevant to this is how long the 777 will remain on Aus routes. These are not historically 777 routes for CX however everything remains topsy turvy post-COVID and presumably a lot of variables at play including the substantial 777 crew shortage, resumption of longer haul routes/frequencies, freight demand ex-Aus etc. At some point soon, the fleet is planned to reduce to 30 frames.

got off PVGHKG today, a few seats were blocked as they were not working. My seat also had a broken component and the door could only open fully by holding it underneath and not sideways.

On best seat / windows etc:

First row (11, 19) has 1 window only. Then for every row thereafter, you get more and more of a 2nd window (partially blocked by the IFE console) in increasing proportion, so the more views you want, you should go further back.
i.e. row 12 gets say 1 + 1/6 of a window, row 14 1 + 1/4... all the way until row 17 where you get 1.5 (or maybe 1.6) windows
18K: you only get the second window i.e. just 1/2 of a window

bulkheads: row 19 (A/K) feels claustrophobic (D/G is slightly recessed back so feels less so), whereas all 4 seats in row 11 have more space in front (however, the curvature of the aircraft kicks in so the entire 11A/11K 'curves into' the aisle.)

I was in an A seat, I tried an empty D seat and 19K.
It seems the 'spaciousness' of the leg space as discussed earlier would be middle > window > bulkhead, but the difference is not noticeable (and I could be totally wrong - i did not have tape with me or what not. In any case the bulkhead seats are definitely NOT more spacious unlike FB2 of the A330s / 77Ws)

TLDR: most seats are quite similar, there's no more need to 'fight' for mini cabin like on the 77A
i would avoid row 17-19 - noting that on this PVGHKG flight, ONLY the door 2 galley was used for the service (and it was painfully slow!), plus the lavatory traffic behind 17A.

PEY:
only last two rows have 2 full windows. Rows 30-33 windows are misaligned to different extent (with row 33 being the worst..)

p.s. I tried to lie flat for ~15 minutes. I think I hit my knees for around 3-4 times...... I think it is definitely a regretful tradeoff getting the big screen now (p.p.s. our captain turned off the camera - oh well) for 1) the IFE console taking away half a window and 2) the footwell shrinking back to 'industry standard' rather than the very spacious (both vertically and horizontally) signature trademark of the previous generation CX seats.