Frankfurt Rhein-Main

Prior to my flight, I stayed at the Sheraton Hotel located at Frankfurt Airport. The Sheraton is connected to terminal 1, but Cathay departs like nearly all non Star-Alliance Airlines from terminal 2, which means one has to take a quick and short ride with the free shuttle train connecting both terminals.

The check-in desks are situated in concourse E which is on the left side. The Economy Counters were quite busy with long lines, while the lines at First Class / Oneworld Emerald and Business Class / Oneworld Sapphire were not busy. Both counters were staffed with one agent while another agent was assisting and labelling the luggage. The waiting time was not very long. I have to admit that I was surprised to see such long lines at Economy Class given that it was only 10:30 as I arrived at the check in counters for our 13:55 departure. Might it as it be, a friendly agent checked me in and tagged my luggage all the way to Taipei and also attached a priority tag. She also printed my boarding passes for both flights and an invitation for the lounge in Frankfurt and Hong Kong and explained how to reach the Frankfurt Lounge. I arrived early, as I had the intention to do some lounge hoping at Frankfurt and also would pay a visit to the JAL Sakura Lounge before moving over to the Cathay Pacific Lounge.

I also paid a visit at the ticketing desk in regard to my flight to Surabaya in a week, which was most likely to be re-scheduled due to the eruption of Mt. Raunda on the island of Java. I used this opportunity to also confirm the credit card I used for this booking on Cathay and to update my contact details.

The non-Schengen concourse at Frankfurt’s terminal 2 is located upstairs, so I took the elevator upstairs and passed immigration using the Easy Pass Gates, which were not busy at all, while a few people were queuing at the regular immigration counters. It is nice to see electronically operated border control gates saving time and I wish they were in use at Düsseldorf as well. I am using them frequently in London and had been also registered for the predecessor system called Iris scan at Frankfurt Terminal 1 B back in 2003 as they were introduced.

The lounges at Terminal 2 are located pre security, which is a down for me as I prefer to have them after passing security. I decided to first walk over to the Sakura Lounge next to gate D 5 of Japan Airlines which is also used by British Airways for the flights to London. The lounge is open dialy from 05:00 to 23:30 and serves as the main oneworld lounge in terminal 2.

At the entrance my boarding pass was checked and the agent asked me to take a seat while she did the formalities not without letting me know that there was a Cathay Pacific Lounge closer to my gate.

WiFi is available throughout the terminal by Frankfurt airport free of charge.

I took a seat in the very nice and comfortable yet not very busy lounge with a lot of seats. The buffet was a bit limited with the only hot being small burgers and Frankfurter Sausages. Cold items on the buffet were a selection of ham, cheese and salmon sandwiches. Pretzels and chips were also available. The selection of spirits consisted of white wine, red wine and sparkling wine along with Whiskey, Gin and Vodka along with soft drinks and juices.
The lounge offers a first class section, but this is only open three hours prior to the JAL flight out of Fankfurt.

I used the time in the lounge to do some phone calls and check my e-mails and send some tweets. In the meantime the lounge agent gave me back my boarding pass and my British Airways Executive Silver Card. I spend round about 40 minutes in the lounge, which was still not very busy before I decided to walk over to the Cathay Pacific Lounge, which was indeed closer to the gate.

After a short walk I arrived at the Cathay Pacific lounge, which is located close to gate E 7. The lounge is open from 06:00 to 14:00 and thus serves also as arrival lounge for flight CX 289, which arrives around 06:30.

At the entrance I was greeted and asked for my invitation. The lounge consisted of two parts. There is a small area at the entrance with PC desk and some lounge chairs and a small buffet with mostly beverages. On the larger area to the right is the large buffet which also had the section with hot and cold food. This area is again divided in a restaurant style part with a number of chairs close the buffet along with a marble bar table. In the rear part are a number of lounge chairs with tables. The lounge offers restrooms and three shower cabins.

Overall the lounge was okay, but nothing outstanding. There is especially no First Class / Oneworld Emerald part, which means passengers travelling in First Class or holding Oneworld Emerald Status have to use the same facilities as those travelling in Business Class or holding only Oneworld Sapphire Status. It was also disappointing to see that warm food was only available at 12:15 but not prior. The selection of alcoholic beverage was similar to that in the JAL Lounge and on offer were several spirits like Whiskey, Bacardi and Vodka and also one white wine, one red wine and one sparkling wine. The right part was already busy, though seats were available. But the part at the entrance was not really busy, so I took a seat there, grabbed a coffee from the coffee machine and performed some duties at the two forums I moderate at flyertalk and read the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

I decided to leave the lounge ahead of boarding time and walked a little bit through the not really busy terminal. Security was empty, as most passengers in economy class had already passed the checkpoint and no other flights was departing at this part at the same time. Monitors at the security checkpoint indicated the flights departing at the gate and only ask those passengers to pass security though nobody checked my boarding pass.

I passed security quickly though I needed to be padded down as the body scanner was unable to scan a part at my leg for not real reason.

I walked along some of the deserted gates to see if I can do some planespotting, but the view was not very good and mostly blocked by part of the jet ways. Finally I made my way to gate E 9 where our flight to Hong Kong was scheduled to depart.
There was a special priority area close to the gate for those travelling in premium cabin or holding elite status. Boarding started at 13:15 with families with small children and those needing assistance. Passengers in Economy Class would board according to row numbers, while passengers in First, Business and Premium Economy Class as well as Oneworld Emerald and Oneworld Sapphire Members were invited to board ahead of Economy Class but could also board anytime.

I was among the first number of passengers boarding the plane. A few stairs down and I entered the jetbridge which was attached to the second door.

05 August 2015
FRA – HKG
[Frankfurt Rhein-Main – Hong Kong International]
CX 288 (Cathay Pacific); Boeing 777-300ER (B-KPE)
Gate E 9
13:55 – 06:50 [effective 14:00 – 06:35]
Business Class
Seat 20 A

I was welcomed at the door and preceded to my seat. It was my second flight in a Cathay Pacific 777 with the Cirrus seats, in so far I knew the seat. The storage space at the seats is a bit limited because some storage space could not be used during taxi, take-off and landing. Therefore I let the usually items I needed during the flight in my carry on, which I put in the overhead bin. I was offered a choice of water, orange juice or champagne, but no-one offered newspapers or to hang my jacket, so I finally stowed my jacket in the overhead bin.

Pre Departure Drink

Billecart-Salmon Brut Champagne

The passengers sitting in Premium Economy Class and Economy Class passed the Business Class Cabin while also the remaining passengers in the Business Class Cabin appeared. Blanket and pillows were placed on seat and footrest respectively.

The safety video was shown while we were still at the gate. After it was finished, the captain welcomed us on board and informed us about the weather during our 10:15 hour’s flight to Hong Kong, which should be a calm flight. Although he expected good weather for the route, there are often strong jet streams while passing over Northern China and Russia and therefore he asked passengers to keep their seatbelts fastened during the flight. The speech was made in English language and soon later translated into Chinese by a flight attendant.

We were pushed back at 14:00 giving the gate free for the Etihad 777 from Abu Dhabi. We taxied all the way to runway 18 most tme next to a fromer Continental Airlines and now United Airlines Boeing 777 with registration N20165.

Today runway 18 also known as Starbahn West was used today for take-offs in Western direction such as our flight to Hong Kong. Also time to give some details about our plane.

Our flight was operated by a Boeing 777-367(ER), which was delivered as new plane to Cathay Pacific on December 19, 2007. It is powered by two General Electric GE 90-115BL2 engines, which is the only engine type available for this aircraft. The GE90-115B turbofan, which is currently the world's most powerful jet engine in service, has a maximum thrust of 115,300 lbf (513 kN).
In 2003 a Boeing 777-300 ER broke the ETOPS record by being able to fly 330 minutes with one of the two GE90-115B engines shut down on a flight from Seattle to Taipei as part of the ETOPS Certification program. The GE90-115B is a quite big turbofan engine with a length of 7.29 metres and an overall diameter of 3.43 metres. The fan of the engine has a diameter of 3.25 metres and the engine a dry weight if 8283 kg.

The aircraft was operated in a four class configuration with six seats in First Class, 53 seats in Business Class, 34 seats in Premium Economy and 182 seats in Economy Class.

The First Class Cabin has two rows of 1 – 1 – 1 layout arranged in suites. The seat from Contour goes fully flat and offers a length of 81 inch or 2.05 metres and a width of 36 inch or 0.91 metres.

Business Class consists of a short two row front cabin (behind First Class and before the second door) followed by 11 rows in the second Business Class Cabin. The Business Class Cabin has a 1 – 2 -1 layout and the seat is a slightly modified Cirrus seat of Sicma / ZODIAC Aerospace Group, which was launched by US Airways in their Envoy Class of their Airbus A 330-200. It could be found also on a number of other airlines as well. The seat has a seat width of 21 inch or 53 centimetres and a length of 2.08 metres if fully extended, which is longer than First Class.

After the Business Class Cabin are four / five rows of Premium Economy Class with a 2 – 4 – 2 configuration. The seat pitch of the Premium Economy of Cathay is 38 inch and the seat width is 19.3 inch with a recline of 8°. All seats in Premium Economy have universal power outlets.

The Economy Class Cabin has the usual 3 – 3 – 3 configuration offering a seat pitch of 32 inch or 81 centimetres and a seat width of 18.5 inch or 47 centimetres. Like the seats in Premium Economy, Economy Class seat offer universal power outlets as well.

The inflight entertainment system is by Panasonic and the same for all four classes.

We took finally off at 14:22 and climbed into the partly cloudy sky above Frankfurt and after a turn to the East got a nice view towards the airport and the skyline of Frankfurt.

After round about eight minutes into flight the crew left their stations and closed the curtain between the cabins. The leading purser introduced herself and welcomed everybody on board and distributed the printed menu. A few minutes later the amenity kit was offered soon followed by a hot towel service. It was really had and refreshing with the right amount of liquid, i.e. not dry and not to wet.

I had a quick look at the menu and the wine promotion leaflet (click on icon, opens new window)

The printed menu was only in English and Chinese language available but not in German language, unlike e.g. Thai, which offers a German translation along with Thai and English on their flights out of Germany. And also Lufthansa usually has a Chinese translation of their menus on flights to China and Hong Kong. As the printed menu is only for this flight, it would be a nice touch to have it in German as well, but of course there is no real need.

First a beverage service was offered. I opted for a Cathay Delight, which was brought later by the flight attendant as it was not stored on the trolley. A bowl of warm cashew nuts were also offered.

Aperitif

Cathay Delight

In the meantime I put the things I needed during the flight like laptop, charger, notepad and glasses out of my carry on and stored them in the seat pocket and area next to the window.

I also skipped through the in-flight entertainment system and discovered some CDs which caused my interest.
The Cathay Delight was really tasty and refreshing and I enjoyed it. My empty glass was taken by one of the flight attendant passing the aisle.

First Course

Smoked salmon carpaccio, apple radish vinaigrette
Romaine salad, pine nuts, cherry tomato
Parmesan Cheese Balsamic dressing

Billecart-Salmon Brut Champagne

Main Course

Hong Kong stylce curry chicken
broccoli and steamed jasmine rice

Babich Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc

Dessert

Green tea tiramisu

Round about 50 minutes in flight the first meal service started. The tray table was laid with linen and the first course arrived on a tray along with cutlery and a glass of water. Bread was served also and I opted for some garlic bread. The beverage service had not even started for the A/D aisle which I thought was not the most attentive way to perform a first course serving. At least I prefer to have my choice of beverage along with the course. So I waited until the beverage cart arrived and I asked for a glass of champagne to accompany with the first course. As it was a cold dish, this was possible.
The food was tasteful and the salad fresh. The flight attendant refilled my glass of Champagne on her way back to the galley from the rear part of the Business Class Cabin. The used plates were cleared individually by another flight attendant passing through the aisle. Bread was not offered a second time, which I found also a bit disappointing.
The second course arrived after some waiting time and was arranged on the cart so it was possible to actually see the food. The vegetarian option did not look that appealing to me and so did the chicken, but I decided to stay with my choice. A flight attendant restocked the food on the cart while two flight attendants were serving the passengers. It happened that I did not get my glass of the Babich Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc until I nearly had finished my main course. It seems the beverage service was lacking some coordination on this flight. I am not sure, but it seems, that a number of passengers switched wines after their first course and the bottles needed to be restocked more frequently which seems to cause some interruptions with the food service which seems to get priority over beverage. Overall the beverage service was slow and not the most attentive one. Another detail, there are not salt and pepper shakers available on the tray and one had to ask the crew if one needs salt and / or pepper.

The rice was a little bit dry at the top, otherwise good while the chicken was very soft and tasty, but only warm, not really hot – probably due to the way the food is arranged on the cart. The broccoli was hard and did not taste at tall. Overall, I consider this course as below the standard I expect to have on an (Asian) airline.
The empty plates were cleared again individually by a flight attendant passing the aisle.

A selection of cheese was later offered, which I declined. The flight attendant used this opportunity to take my tray and the linen from my tray table.
Nearly an hour after the meal service the dessert arrived along with coffee and tea. I asked for a coffee and a slice of the tiramisu, which was good.

Everything was cleared and I started my laptop while the crew began to dim the lights and ask us to lower the sun shades.

I have flown these aircraft type before on a flight from Hong Kong to London back in October 2013 but would like to share my impressions of these seats again.

The seat feels more spacious than Lufthansa’s new Business Class seat, both in terms of how wide it is and also the general privacy and airiness of the design. As the seat is angled sideways towards the window, there is a triangular bit of seat cushion to one side between the seat and the armrest, which must be lowered for take-off and landing. Unlike other reports I actually use the armrest while working and also while the seat is lowered as some sort of added privacy.

The seat reclines to meet a fixed footrest, and if you only partially recline the seat and move the seat cushion frontwards this brings it into reach of your feet. I usually move the footrest up and relax with one food crossed and one lying on the footrest, which is to me a comfortable position for working and also relaxing.
The screen pops out by the push of a button and could be controlled either by touching on the screen or using the remote control; I prefer the remote as the touch screen function is not really working properly and quite often does not react at all. . All the controls for the seat and the IFE are in a easy to reach position to one side at shoulder height along with a reading light which has two levels of brightness, and the in-seat power (Europe / UK / US plug) and iPod and USB ports are also available.
As already mentioned, the mid size storage space at the lower part of the seat underneath the tray table has to be left empty for take-off and landing, though some utensils could be placed in a small net. The tray table is firm and it is possible to work with a laptop.

There is also a small table at one side to the seat since it is angled. I usually put my laptop there during meal service as well as other items. A small box covered by latch at the bottom of the seat is available to store shoes.
It is possible to listen to music and watch the inflight map. If one is only listening to music, the screen turns black after a given time, which is a bit annoying if you want to follow the flightpath.

Like on previous flights, the time between meal services was quiet – so to say. Unlike other airlines, there is no flight attendant passing the aisle offering water or see if the passenger needed something. I am not sure, if Cathay expects the passengers to use the call button or walk towards one of the galleys.

Like on most of my flights, which depart around noon in Europe for Asia arriving at the destination in the early morning, I decide to stay awake. I also had a longer layover in Hong Kong for Taipei, where I would arrive around noon. To me, this is the best way of fighting jet lag. In so far, I worked on various things during the flight.

The cabin became busy around 5 hours in-flight and a number of passengers including me asked for one of the snacks available. I opted for the beef burger and a coffee which was delivered after 20 minutes.

Inflight Snack

Grilled US prime beef burger,
onion confit, Kaiser roll and tomato ketchup
Coffee
 

The burger was quite good and very tasty, the meat soft. After the empty plate and mug was cleared I lowered the seat and relaxed a bit before I skipped through the movies and TV but finally turned to Frank Valli and the Four Seasons and continued to catch up with some work on my laptop.

Which seats should one take has been discussed here as well as on various forums in the internet. My recommendation goes to try to get a seat in the smaller front cabin of the 777 although this attempt will most likely not be of much success if not an elite frequent flyer with Cathay Pacific’s Marco Polo Club or at least holding Emerald Status with any other Oneworld airline. The down of the front small cabin of only eight seats is that all four lavatories for passengers in Business Class are behind row 12, but from my experience and impression this is not disturbing as there is a curtain.
If this attempt fails, the main cabin with seats at the window for single travellers and the centre for passengers travelling together. In the back of the cabin is a wall dividing Business Class from Premium Economy but this is also the place where the bassinet of Premium Economywould be if a baby is on board. This could mean some more noise, though the curtain and the wall helps. It is also worth to notice that a few Business Class seats have only one window instead of the usual 2 windows (row 21).

Like others, I noticed that there is no divider at the centre seats. If the seats are moved back, one could avoid eye contact with the person on the next seat. Additionally, if one keeps the door of the storage bin that has the headphones in open, you gain additional privacy. However, another possible minor detail of the centre seats appears, if the seat neighbour puts his video screen back into its take-off position but leaves it on, the screen shines right through onto the person sitting in the neighbouring seat

Two hours prior to our scheduled arrival at Hong Kong the lights were dimmed on again. First a beverage round was done before finally twenty minutes later the tray table were laid with linen.

Time to look at the menu again (click on icon, opens new window)

Soon later a hot towel was offered. A beverage round soon followed. On offer were coffee and tea as well as different juices and the strawberry and banana smoothie. The flight attendant addressed me by name and asked about my choice of beverage. I opted for a coffee.

Breakfast

Orange juice
Strawberry smoothie
Fresh season fruit
Bircher muesli

Egg benedict, potato cake, streaky bacon and sautéed spinach

Ten minutes later the first course of the breakfast service was offered. It was like the first meal service served on the tray along with cutlery and napkin. The glass was filled with water but again it took some time before another beverage service was done. As it arrived I asked for a glass of the strawberry smoothie. Used trays were cleared individually and twenty minutes after the first course was served the second course was offered. The available dishes were presented on a cart and one could choose from the presented meals. I went with egg Benedict. The food was tasty and the eggs surprisingly good. Overall, the quality of the breakfast was better than the lunch service prior on this flight.

During meal service the captain updated us about the remaining flight time and informed us, that we would arrive ahead of schedule around 6:30. The inflight entertainment system had already information about our arrival gate (gate 4) and information about connecting flights.

The crew collected the trays and began to prepare the cabin for our arrival while we approached Hong Kong from the North.

We passed Macao and finally touched down at 06:31 on runway 07 R and taxied to our gate 4, where we arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Only the front door was used and after First Class passengers had left the plane we could disembark through the First Class Cabin.

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