Beginning the first leg of our return to the States on the backbone of Cathay Pacific’s long-haul fleet, the 777-300ER. As Australia’s second-largest airport, Melbourne Airport sees a large of traffic between it and Hong Kong, for both terminating and connecting passengers. Four daily flights connect the two, three operated by Cathay Pacific and one by Qantas. These former flights leave Melbourne aeound midnight (CX178), the morning (CX134) and in the mid-afternoon (CX104), with the first and third operated by the 777-300ER and the second by the A350-900. Today, we’re on the first flight of the day, departing shortly after midnight.
Server: Solo
Airline: Cathay Pacific
Aircraft: Boeing 777-300ER
Origin: Melbourne Airport, Tullamarine, Australia (MEL)
Destination: Hong Kong International Airport, Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong (HKG)
Flight Number: CX178
Route: YMML-VHHH
Seat: 21K (Aria)
Time En Route: 8 Hours 42 Minutes
Boarding our aircraft at Gate 18 for roughly 8.75-hour flight to Hong Kong. This is our second time flying in the new Aria suites in business class. These seats, which are replacing the Safran Cirrus II seats and the first class suites on the 777-300ER are currently available on only a few routes, between Hong Kong and Frankfurt, London, Melbourne, Sydney, and Vancouver.
Pushing back from Terminal 2 next to a China Southern Airlines A350-900 originally scheduled to go to Guangzhou a couple hours ago, but is now spending the night here due to a technical issue. We’ve got the lights dimmed in our suite, as we’ve been up since 8 A.M. here and we’re going to try and get as much sleep as possible between here and Hong Kong.
Taxiing out for departure with Melbourne Tower in the distance. It’s a pretty small ATC tower for such a large airport, although they’ll likely upside when MEL gets the third runway in a few years.
We had a derated takeoff from Tullamarine with a very, very gentle intial climb before increasing to the typical 2,000 ft./minute rate. When there isn’t terribly much living at below the departure end of the runway, getting to altitude as quickly as possible isn’t as much of a priority, since livestock and wildlife don’t file noise complaints.
Climbing over rural Victoria. At last, we can relax, put down the window shades, and fall asleep in our Aria suite, serenaded by the low rumble of the GE90-115Bs.
After briefly waking up to answer the call of nature, we got a beautiful view of the Outback on a largely clear night as we cruise over southwestern Queensland
Breakfast is served just before sunrise as we approach the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. Not only was the inital falling asleep part extremely easy, even discounting the being-up-for-17 hours-straight part, but falling back asleep after getting up to avail ourselves of the lav was no problem either. To be honest, the Aria seat, when fully reclined, is significantly more comfortable than a lot of hotel beds, and you hardly think you’re on an airplane at all. As for breakfast, it was an absolutely scrumptious pastry with a pork siu mai main course, with a pineapple and coconut chia pudding for dessert.
Approaching the cirrus layer in our initial descent over the South China Sea. According to the latest announcement from the flight deck, we’ll be arriving a few minutes ahead of schedule.
Reverse-ops landing on Runway 07R next to the cargo ramp. Since we floated over the ILS antennas seemingly no faster than a twin Cessna, we’re using minimal autobrake and less than full reverse thrust to slow down.
Deplaned at Terminal 1 for a 2-day layover in Hong Kong. The Aria suites were impressive as ever, and we’d definitely recommend them and look forward to when they come to the U.S.!
