mlin32

Being originally from the Washington DC area, this flight is great not just for those who need to go to HKG, but also connect to other Asian destinations because previously the only "rapid" choice was UA/ANA via NRT. My mother is booked on this flight in a couple months.

I flew EWR-HKG-TPE earlier this year which has a near-identical time schedule and it's great. Basically on the midnight departure from the east coast, you'd show up rather tired, get a meal in, then sleep a bit. Wake some, snooze some more to help minimise the jet lag. You arrive in Asia in the morning and get a good day's worth of stuff/work in. Better than the midday UA/ANA departure in my opinion.

needtoescape

Thanks for your review, cova. I am taking CX860 in November and was wondering what the second meal service would be given the arrival time at IAD. Interestingly, my flight is scheduled to depart HKG at 5:40 pm and arrive at IAD at 8:25 pm, so it seemed weird that the early flights were scheduled for about an hour longer

I get cold easily and have always found CX long haul business class blankets (which are duvets) to keep me warm enough. I would not bother bringing a blanket, but I do layer my tops to allow adjustments to different temperatures in the airport and on the plane.

patrickw

I believe the early arrival is due to wind conditions. Many flights to east coast arrive early too currently. On the other hand the flight schedule is different for November due to the end of daylight savings in the USA, the duration is still roughly the same at 15h45m.

needtoescape

Thanks, patrickw. I did not think about DST and assumed that it had something to do with wind conditions. I have also experienced early CX arrivals to the US (and had to wait on the plane for about 45 minutes when an early am flight into JFK arrived before customs was open) and late arrivals from US to HKG due to winds.

cova

The switch from Daylight savings to Standard time in October will likely move up the arrival time. Looks like flight moved from 5:55pm departure to 9:45pm arrival to 5:40pm departure to 8:25pm arrival (so 15 minute move up in time with Fall back time change). But could still arrive early due to wind.

On IAD-HKG - the route is over the north pole, up towards Toronto, through Canada, then down through Russia, Mongolia, and China.
On HKG-IAD - the route is East of China, then just east of Japan and then just south of Alaska, over Juneau, then diagonally through Canada to IAD.

The second meal service was sort of a breakfast. They call it a brunch.
One choice is poached eggs over bacon (ham). - what I had.
Another choice was Chinese Congee (a porridge).
I believe the third was a vegetarian.

You have the option to also order one of three of the six lunch options throughout the flight. Such as a hamburger or hot salad.

If you have lounge access, there is plenty of great food in the lounges, so you may not need as much food on the flight as you think.

The 351 is a beautiful new plane which is passenger friendly. Just that the crew has tight quarters and galley, so be patient with them - the service seems a bit slower since it takes longer to get the food ready in the small galley space.