Aussie Flyer

Last month I finally got to try out the latest Cathay long haul business class seat. It was a long time coming I suppose since the seat has been in operation for well over a year and now features on all flights between Australia and Hong Kong. All CX flights to Australia are operated by the Airbus A330-300 in a 3 class configuration with economy, premium economy and business class. Today I will take a look at flight CX134 which departs Melbourne at 7.40am during the winter months, and 8.40am during the summer months. I warn you, there is a lot of photos... 51 in total! A fairly quiet check-in zone at MEL

Turkish Airlines has been rapidly expanding in recent years and now has a huge worldwide route network that rivals that of the big middle eastern carriers. I had heard good things about the airline so I decided to give them a go and visit Istanbul for the first time. The flight I am reviewing today is TK65, the daytime service from Bangkok to Istanbul. When I booked it was scheduled to be on an Airbus A330-300 with the latest business class product. Unfortunately when I went on Flightradar24 the night before the flight to see which aircraft had left Istanbul to operate the service I found out my flight had been swapped to the smaller A330-200.  I suppose the fact that there was a military coup with strict curfews in place in Bangkok at the time meant that the flight would be lightly loaded but unfortunately it meant I would be stuck in the older and much less exciting angled lie flats for the 10 hour journey. Disappointing but there was nothing I could do about it. Turk...

On my recent 'flyventures' I had an opportunity to sample the new regional business class offering of Cathay Pacific. Whilst I say new, it is in fact already a bit over a year old, but it is the latest product offering from Cathay for regional flights. This product is used on short to medium haul flights, I think services to India/Pakistan/Sri Lanka may be about the longest flights that feature this product. My flight today was CX703, a 17.05 departure to Bangkok from Hong Kong, which continues on to Karachi. The aircraft was an Airbus A330-300 B-HLO, a 13 year old aircraft delivered new to Cathay in 2001.