a large white airplane with red and yellow stripes on the side
Feature image via Benson Kua via Flickr

The Many Business Class Products of Hong Kong Airlines

Like many other people earlier this week, I was able to take advantage of the great fare sale from LAX/SFO to Asia for as little as $540 round trip. The deal is now gone and Hong Kong Airlines claims that the sale was unintentional but they also said they will honor every ticket that completed the ticketing process.

Considering that I now have a flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Shanghai (PVG) coming up in January, I wanted to know more about the Hong Kong Airlines on board product. I learned that they have one of the most inconsistent fleets of  business class products, including one product that I didn’t know any airline besides Hawaiian Airlines flew. For an airline with just 41 planes (13 of which don’t offer business class) they have 6 different on board products. That is 4 too many products than they should have. Take a look at all the different options below.

1. Staggered A330(33V/333)/A350

a row of red seats in an airplane a row of seats in an airplane

Pitch Width Number of Seats Recline
42-45″ 20-20.5″ 18-33 180°

2. A330-300 Singapore Angled Flat (33S)

a row of seats on an airplane
Image Courtesy of Alvin Tse – Young Travelers of Hong Kong
a plane with rows of seats and monitors
Image Courtesy of Alvin Tse – Young Travelers of Hong Kong
a woman standing in a row of seats
Image Courtesy of Alvin Tse – Young Travelers of Hong Kong

Check out Alvin’s review of the product here.

Pitch Width Number of Seats Recline
42-45″ 20-20.5″ 18-33 172°

3. Regional A330-200 (332)

a close-up of a plane

Pitch Width Number of Seats Recline
62″ 20.5″ 24 151°

4. Regional A320 Recliner (32H)

a row of red and purple seats in an airplane
Photo via Business Traveler
Pitch Width Number of Seats Recline
45″ 22″ 8 115-120°

5. Optimares Maxima  A330-200 (33T)

This is the most interesting product Hong Kong Airlines is flying. It is the same product used aboard Hawaiian Airlines. It was designed to allow window passengers direct aisle access even when their neighbor is reclined. As far as I know Hong Kong Airlines is the only other airline flying with this seat design and they are the only ones flying it with a built-in in flight entertainment monitor as Hawaiian uses a tablet based system. Hong Kong Airlines only has 2 planes like this (B-LHA, B-LHB).

a row of seats on an airplane
Images Courtesy of ychxk – Triplust.Asia
a screen on a stand
Images Courtesy of ychxk – Triplust.Asia
Pitch Width Number of Seats Recline
71″ 20.5″ 18 180°

6. A350 Reverse Herringbone

This product has yet to be release but we know it is coming. Ben from One Mile at a Time reported about a year ago that Hong Kong Airlines planned to introduce the B/E Aerospace Reverse Herringbone Seats onboard the A350. According to the tweet above from Hong Kong Airlines, we should start seeing these seats as of September. We anticipate that they should look similar to the image below of Qatar Airlines A350

a seat in a plane

rows of seats in a plane
Hong Kong Airlines New Business Class
Pitch Width Number of Seats Recline
Unknown Unknown 33 180°

Did you purchase any sub-$600 business class flights to Asia?

Feature Image via Flickr: Benson Kua