Cathay Pacific unveils the next piece of its 2024 #PaxEx puzzle with the unveiling of the airline's new premium economy seats, originally intended for the much-delayed Boeing 777-9 and now available this year as part of the modernization of its Boeing 777-9. 9 are to be introduced as a retrofit program for the 777-300ER.
At first glance the seat looks excellent. Aesthetically, the seat is clearly positioned with an emphasis on “premium” rather than “economy”. Seat pitch is 40 inches — a good 2-4 inches more than most premium economy cabins of late — in the standard 777 2-4-2 layout, with large legrests in every row, not just the first .
The seat appears to be a fairly heavily customized Recaro product, and from the design language and timing it seems likely to be the PL3810 product.
The main improvement to the seat itself appears to be in the winged headrests that separate each pair of seats on the non-aisle side. If your head sits in a place where this would improve privacy, that's a great improvement, although your 190cm tall author will have to wait for feedback from taller passengers as to whether it's snagging on the shoulder.
The main functional expansions include the new headrests. Image: Cathay Pacific
The palette is interesting as the glossy PR renderings look much greener in their seat covers than the real footage from the unveiling event surrounding the Hong Kong rugby sevens tournament – including from Go looking for points, Executive traveler And Bloomberg's Danny Lee.
These suggest a more golden, tan color palette, leaning towards the warm neutrals of the airlines latest business class products instead of the characteristic green tones seen previously. This is an interesting branding choice: this palette is generally used by the hub carriers in the Middle East to give their cabins the typical warmth of the desert.
CX new Premium Economy header. Image: Cathay Pacific
In fact, the overall look and feel is much more similar to the color schemes Cathay is using for the upcoming Aria business suite than has been the case with previous generations – perhaps not least because of the way Cathay was originally introduced and expanded earlier it was Premium Economy, which this time allows for a more holistic view of color, material and workmanship.
For those following the ongoing story of the latest generation of large in-flight entertainment screens causing breakage problems in dynamic testing (particularly related to the head injury and neck injury criteria), it is noteworthy that the seats on display in Hong Kong are equipped with two-point locking as standard Belts and not airbag belts (like on the Japan Airlines A350) or even three-point shoulder belts. If this is an accurate representation of what will be on board, it's notable that these issues appear to be solvable.
The impressively featured 15.6-inch monitor will likely be the ultimate test of Cathay's next-generation in-flight entertainment system – or more specifically, its content service delivery pipeline.
4K screens are offered, but even on the relatively older monitors on four separate Cathay flights (777 and A350), the perennial problem of screens that were higher resolution than the content library loaded appeared pixelated and blurry late last year .
Given the seat pitch, this is probably one of the lowest screen-to-inch ratios on the aircraft, and therefore any low-resolution content will be all too clearly visible on the high-resolution screens.
The only surprise visible in some real-world reveal photos is a huge, boxy cage structure at foot level that presumably runs the power and content cables to the seat. This looks a lot bigger than you might expect – possibly an old 777 power or wiring feature? – and in fact it looks and feels like an unfortunate afterthought.
The box takes up quite a bit of foot space at the crucial sticking point, regardless of whether you use the fold-down footrest or not. It's all too easy to imagine yourself with a sock on your ankle getting caught on the exposed, raised screw housing or the 90-degree metal edges of the box.
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Featured image is from Cathay Pacific
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