CATHAY PACIFIC ECONOMY CLASS SAN FRANCISCO TO HONG KONG JULY 4 CX 873 國泰航空經濟客艙三藩市直飛香港

July 4, 2014
San Francisco to Hong Kong
SFO - HKG
Economy
Coach
Seat 72D
72G similar
Boeing 777-300ER

Sharing my experience with an economy seat on Cathay Pacific flight CX 873 from SFO to HKG hoping to help anyone choose the best seat. It's a paid coach fare, lowest fare that included mileage accrual.

72D

Decent seat 72D with a little bit extra elbow room and unofficial storage space behind seat, good for books, newspaper, or a small light bag. Just be discreet and keep from sight of flight attendants. It reclines just enough. 

Pillows, blankets, and headphones were all already placed on seats before boarding. Headrests were the ones with two ends folding out to keep your head in place. 

Back of seat in front

72 C to 72 G all recline backwards. Seat in front does not recline towards you. Personal entertainment system is all touch screen now. There is no physical button nor any retractable corded handheld control pad. Nice touches include mini hook for hanging small items, small shelf right below monitor is perfect for cell phone or small electronics. A small cup-holder can be used by itself without folding the whole tray table out.

Widened aisle

Advice taken from Tripit.com, there's a giant aisle between you and the rest of the seats, enough to hang your elbow and leg out a lot more than the regular aisle seats along the narrow aisle. Your elbow is also protected by the partition right behind your seat, which sticks out by a few inches.

USB jack

USB port at bottom of personal display. AC power outlet is under the seat. See below for photo taken on the flight back from HKG to SFO.

Cathay (exclusive?) under plane belly loqw-res camera

Pretty awesome to have a view of a small albeit low res camera at the bottom of the plane. Super fun during take-off and landing. You can also switch between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios.

Menu pages:

English breakfast menu

Available wines

Supper Menu

Chinese supper menu

Food was decent. I will take more pix in future posts. Portions of courses on planes are never big enough for me. I've asked for seconds before and have succeeded on both SQ and CX flights, economy class. It doesn't hurt to ask. There's also the usual cup noodles, chips, dried fruits, crackers, chocolate ..... , etc . . . The snacks and fruits are usually placed on a basket in the galley, self serve.

Breakfast pic

I had the beef stirfry for dinner and scramble for breakfast, both very good. One cannot really expect the little baby shanghai bokchoy to be fresh green color though =) it's been cooked and microwaved. 

I have nothing to complain about this flight though I had an empty seat next to me yay!

Just an observation: there were a lot of 3-5 year old kids seated in premium economy section. I wonder if they have filthily rich parents or is it Cathay's policy to gather up all the kids in the premium economy sections now? Will keep observing. 

Yay! My first travel review is online!!! Thanks for reading!

under seat photo - universal power outlet present!

Yes, confirmed, the power outlet is under the seat.

Uh oh they stopped speaking mandarin on the flight I was on. There's no more mandarin announcement. Is this planned? Flight attendants kept speaking Cantonese to mandarin people and say sorry I do not speak mandarin after switching to English. Is this a protest??

September 25, 2015 update:

On my latest flight on Cathay Pacific, announcements were only in English and Cantonese, no Mandarin.