Hi

First of all apologies for my ignorance regarding all things airbourne, I am hoping the experts will take pity on me!

My family and I are emigrating to Brisbane,Australia from the UK in June of this year, we were intending to fly premium economy but this is not an option into Brisbane(we would have had to fly into Sydney then connect into Brisbane) so I decided to price up business. I have found what seems a reasonable fare although after reading up I am unsure as to what the business class cabin would be like so if anyone could offer me some advice I would be very grateful the flights I am looking at are cathay pacific CX 254 London - Hong Kong and CX 103 Hong Kong - Brisbane.

Any advice would be great

LHR would have a new cabin (ie. new business class with herringbone) if you flew on wed-sun, and old cabin (ie. old long haul business) on mondays and tuesday. however, cx does substitute aircraft at times, so there is no 100% guarantee you'll fly the aircraft that is designated for that day.

hkg to bne is on a 330. has the old business (regional or long haul, don't remember?)

but for me, i'd go for the biz class for your LHR route, upper deck, only because it feels better with a 747. if you're travelling with family, i would suggest you fly old biz because there's no way you can talk to your family unless you shout in new biz, but of course that's up to you. you can check out cx's products on their website.

Welcome to FT, theleslies!

CX254 and the two other 744 rotations out of LHR are scheduled to be 74A with New Business Class unless there is a last minute aircraft substitution.

CX103 is a 3-class 333 with slopey beds in Business Class. An important thing to note is that the F seats are sold as J class on this flight. If you're lucky, you'll be able to bag one of those seats at check in.

Now, I'm going to leave it to christep to tell you how the new seats are for travelling together...

Thanks guys

We're looking at flying on a Thursday so things look as good as possible for the new seats on the first leg at least.^

I have to admit I had never really considered business until I got this price from Cathay just over �11,000 for the 7 of us the equivelant route in premium economy we'd be looking at �7,500 so I thought it was definatly worth consideration.

If the night flight london - hong kong leg is in the new long haul flat beds I was hoping the the kids will sleep their usual 12 hours then the second leg would be bearable as chances are we'd all be awake for most of the flight so just the extra room would be great.

As for the level of social interaction allowed by the new herringbone layout, I was thinking if we had the 4 window seats for the kids and the 3 middle row seats "facing" these would suit us perfectly as the kids are young enough that when they wanted to chat they could share a seat, but when they wanted to sleep they would have their own bed.

Any more thoughts?

There are no window seats in new business class (at least not ones that enable you comfortably to look out of a window).

I'm not fussed about specific window seats, I was just trying to explain the seats we would book if you know what I mean

it would not be possible for your kids to share a seat.
1. the leg rest cannot be used as a seat due to cx requirements.
2. the seat itself is so narrow a kid and a baby probably won't fit. it's approx the same width as an econ seat

�11,000 for 7 seats? WOW!

yeah i was thinking the same things - and all in J!!

care to share how you got such a deal?

May I suggest you look at calling BA and ask for I class their biz class is way better than CX