Business class cabins on airlines around the world are evolving, becoming less of a seat in the sky and more of a design-centered small hotel room.
Is Cathay Pacific’s New Aria Suite Worth the Wait?
17.10.2024 - 18:47 / skift.com / Cathay Pacific / Gordon Smith
“I’ve been pregnant for a very long time, but my baby is finally born,” said Vivian Lo, Cathay Pacific’s head of customer experience and design.
Lo was presenting the airline’s new business class cabin Wednesday evening in a glitzed-up hangar on the fringes of Hong Kong International Airport. The event sought to shake off the final specter of the pandemic, one that haunted the airline until relatively recently.
Executives claim that Cathay was hit harder than almost any other major airline during Covid-19 due to an extended period with strict quarantine rules. In the darkest hours, some industry watchers questioned Cathay’s ability to survive in its present form.
The new ‘Aria Suite’ is helping the airline regain a sense of confidence missing for more than a decade.
The Aria has been in development internally since 2018 and was first teased publicly in August 2023. There was plenty of excitement, but little detail on what it meant for passengers.
Aria-equipped 777s have a total of 361 seats, comprising 45 in business class, 48 in premium economy, and 268 in economy. In real terms, the business cabin retains much of its existing capacity, but that’s a big increase in premium economy seating.
As is customary for new-generation business class products, the Aria has a 1-2-1 configuration. This means all passengers have direct aisle access. Unlike some competitors, Cathay has retained its ‘reverse herringbone’ layout with seats angled to optimize space.
Other fresh elements include a sliding privacy door, wireless charging, and Bluetooth pairing. Among the other highlights is a 24-inch monitor. Unlike its predecessor, this is in fixed position and boasts a 4K display which somehow manages to be enormous and understated at the same time.
The suite is packed with new-age tech, but much of it isn’t immediately obvious. For Lo, this is by design.
“We’ve done a lot of work to make advanced technology almost invisible because we know a lot of our customers look for travel as an escape. For example, we’re the first airline that has the ability for customers to customize all the settings with just one touch – the seat and the lighting all move together.” The vision, according to Lo is to create “a cocoon oasis of personal space.”
As for the name, Edward Bell, Cathay’s brand and marketing guru, explained the thinking: “You know that experience when you go to the theater and everything is around you – it’s a perfect performance. There’s a great word that describes this, and it’s Aria. We think in business class when everything comes together just right it makes it feel like it’s all a performance just for you,” said Bell.
Despite its (many) notable features, Aria isn’t a completely game-changing product. Cathay
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