Hong Kong Airlines A330-300 Business Class

[Francisca Noggles]

HongKong Airlines belongs to no airline alliance. It has many airline partners, though, including Alaska, Etihad and Hainan, on which one can earn credit in the Hong Kong Airlines Fortune Wings frequent flier program. Hong Kong Airlines flies from HKG to Vancouver and started HKG-LAX service in September 2017.

When I booked a trip to Hong Kong on American Airlines, I had every intention to spend a few days in and around Hong Kong. While playing around with ITA Matrix after making that booking, I discovered a business class round trip fare from Hong Kong to Bangkok for only $311. I could not resist the opportunity to try an airline I had never flown, add another journey to my trip to Hong Kong, and take advantage of such a great price fro business class travel.

American Airlines Flight 125 from Dallas, TX arrived at HKG Terminal 1 just before 4:00pm. Hong Kong Airlines Flight 761 to BKK was scheduled to depart at 9:45pm. The long layover was a good safety margin in case of a delayed flight on American and plenty of time to check out the Hong Kong Airlines Club Bauhinia lounge if American was on time.

Hong Kong Airlines Club Bauhinia (bauhinia is the flower that serves as the company logo) is located near Gate 23 in Terminal 1. Those traveling in business class on Hong Kong Airlines and elite members of its frequent flyer program have access. This lounge also serves certain passengers flying on a diverse group of other airlines. The lounge hours are 6:00am to 1:30am daily.

The 500-square-meter lounge accommodates 120 passengers. The lounge offers several seating areas, a buffet, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, showers, a business center with Mac computers, and two conference rooms. Wifi speed was excellent.

While lacking the luxury of the Cathay Pacific lounges at HKG, the Club Bauhinia lounge was a good place to spend four hours until the next flight. The food and beverages were better than the average Priority Pass international business class lounge. My sole complaint was a shortage of electrical outlets.

Flight HX 761 boarded at the Midfield Concourse. From the lounge it was a 12-minute walk and train ride to Gate 218. Boarding was slightly delayed and began at 9:20pm shortly after I arrived. This gate has separate jet bridges for business and economy passengers.

One can extend a panel near the reading light to serve as a privacy divider between the seats. On this flight the load in business class was light enough that everyone who wanted to sat next to an empty seat.

The flight attendants (FAs) were busy prior to departure. Five minutes after boarding they offered guava juice and water. A few minutes later they came by with newspapers. Next they delivered the menus and hot towels. Then, they distributed Thailand immigration forms and coupons for using the Premium Lane at immigration. Last, they took dinner orders.

The service of the flight attendants was courteous and efficient. While the food and seat fell short of standards for a long-haul business class flight, that was minor. For the money ($155 one way) this 1,000-mile, 2.5 -hour business class flight gets an A+.

Happy Year of the Dragon & best wishes to everyone in 2024! As Chinese New Year approached, we planned another getaway from HK, this time to Sapporo.

HKG-CTS does not see many competitors, with only Hong Kong Airlines and Cathay Pacific operating this route. Both carriers fly this route yearly (despite Hokkaido being a lot more popular in the winter) but frequencies differ greatly throughout the year. Up to 21 weekly flights are operated in winter, and only around 8 weekly flights are operated in summer by the 2 carriers, both using widebodies.

Hong Kong Airlines (HX) was established in 2006 by Hainan Airlines to directly compete with Dragonair and Cathay Pacific with a fleet of A320s and A330s, offering competitive as a full-service carrier. The airline grew larger and was thriving, allowing them to add A350s to their fleet and launch long-haul flights to Vancouver, LAX, SFO etc.. For a few years, we all thought HX would be successful in breaking the monopoly of CX in the market.

However, their ambitious expansion plans proved to not work as they filed for bankruptcy in 2019. They shut down all long-haul flights & retired their fleet of A350s, stopped offering in-flight entertainment and hot meals to cut costs. At some point, they could only offer water to all passengers on their flights.

Just as we thought HX would have to be shut down due to its horrible finances, they managed to bounce back after covid. Now transforming into a Hybrid carrier, they adjusted their focus on holiday destinations (e.g. Phuket, Male) and smaller Japanese cities (e.g. Hakodate, Kumamoto, Kagoshima) with little to no competition. Fueled by the easing of restrictions and the post-covid tourism boom, HX was able to once again grow in size, tripling its fleet of A330s.

Charging 40% less than CX on this route, I will be taking a look at HX's offering between HKG & CTS. Online reviews on HX have been a mixed bag, so I didn't really know what to expect.

I have included some videos in this report too! Let me know if you like them.

There were lots of passengers queuing for check-in that morning, which was to be expected as most HX flights leave between 7am and 10am. Thankfully, with a co-branded credit card, we could skip the queue altogether and use the priority check-in desks, which saved us a lot of time.

Of course, HX is now a hybrid carrier, so they are very strict on bags. You do not get free checked bags on the lowest fare class, but you can bring 1 carry-on bag per person onboard. They weigh each bag and you're only allowed to bring your bag on board once it's checked and labelled "Cabin Approved".

We purchased 30 kilos of checked bags for all of us, at a reasonable price of around 500 HKD. Here's the checked bag allowance table for your reference. You can choose to purchase checked bags at the time of booking (which is the cheapest), before online check-in or at the airport (the most expensive, do not do this!)

Check-in took around 10 minutes and we then proceeded to security. It was fairly crowded as expected since it was the start of the holidays and lots of people were travelling. It took us around 15 minutes to get through, which I thought was pretty efficient and quick.

More on the Midfield Concourse: it was only open in 2016 to accommodate more planes at HKIA, and even used to see airlines like Lufthansa and Virgin Australia! Sadly, with the latter shutting down their long-haul flights and the former moving to the main terminal, the Midfield Concourse is almost exclusively used by Hong Kong Airlines, HK Express and Greater Bay Airlines these days. There are also not many shops & things to do here, so I would advise against coming to the concourse too early.

Gate 216, our gate to Sapporo this morning. HX starts boarding a full 50 minutes before departure, which proved to be an effective strategy. Note how the Midfield Concourse doesn't have those fancy departure boards featured at the main concourse.

This particular unit has only been transferred from Hainan Airlines (海南航空, the airline group that founded HX and owned them until they were hit by financial troubles) in June of 2023 to help with HX's increase in capacity. As such, you will see lots of traces of its previous owner inside!

Walking into the cabin, you can see that HX has employed a very red colour scheme on its planes, which has been criticised by lots of people online. I personally don't mind such a colour scheme though.

Actually, HX has not changed the cabin configuration of their A330s when they got it from HNA, particularly since both airlines actually feature identical cabins on their A330s. (Kinda like how KA and CX had identical cabins on their A330s)

Sitting on the right side meant views of HAECO (Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company)'s maintenance hanger. I managed to spot a Finnair A330 & Lufthansa A340. Lots of airlines actually send their planes to HAECO for C/D checks. Of course, their close ties with Cathay Pacific mean that all CX planes undergo maintenance here too!

As HX is now a hybrid carrier, they do not offer full hot meals anymore. Instead, they offer each passenger a light snack, which happened to be a Hong Kong style BBQ Pork Bun. Other drinks apart from the bottle of water are also available on request.

The bun wasn't that tasty. However, it was still early in the morning and I would've preferred to save my appetite for the tasty cuisine in Japan, considering how airplane breakfasts aren't usually tasty.

Here's where things get more interesting: not every seat has access to the IFE. On this particular aircraft, the TVs of the front section of the economy class cabin were all locked, while most TVs at the back worked. Some online have mentioned that your TV will only work if it's "disconnected" from the main computer system, but I'm not too sure about the details. Anyway, don't expect any entertainment onboard BUT do appreciate it if your seat somehow has it!

You have to be lucky enough to be flying on an ex-HNA A330 (5 out of 9 A330s HX currently has are ex-HNA aircraft, which are the B-LH* series) with the right seat that has its screen disconnected from the main computer system.

However, headphones were not provided. Without the right headphones (these planes have 2-pin connectors and I only brought my airpods), I could only stick to the games and the map offered by the system. Still, it was better than nothing and I definitely did not expect the system to work in the first place.

Towards the middle of the flight, I wandered around the cabin and was lucky enough to find the only completely empty row of 3 empty seats towards the back of the plane! Thus, I was able to enjoy "poor man's business class" & slept for the remainder of the flight.

Unfortunately, as we were too early & this Air China A330 (which was occupying our gate) was delayed, we had to wait for 20 minutes on the tarmac until they left. Part of this though is to be blamed on CTS' tiny international terminal. With only 7 gates, it's very common for delays like these to happen.

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