Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines are shaking up their London Heathrow flights, with Cathay offering more of its newest business class seats and SQ swapping around its Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 jets.
The 2013 changes come into effect in July for Singapore Airlines and October for Cathay Pacific, so if you're booking now for the UK summer and autumn conference seasons you'll want to make sure you get the right flights for the long leg to London.
Cathay flights CX255 to London and CX252 back to Hong Kong will be upgraded to a Boeing 777-300ER with the airline's newest business class seats three days of the week from 27 October.
That leaves only four weekly Hong Kong-Heathrow flights on Cathay's Boeing 747 with the older "coffin class" biz beds: CX 252 and CX255 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. They're the ones to avoid in the schedule.
Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines is planning a swap between its Airbus A380 and Boeing 777-300ER jets from 1 July.
SQ305 and SQ306 get an upgrade to the Airbus A380, while SQ318 and SQ319 move to the 777-300ER.
Business classes are the same on both jets, but the A380 has more business seats, a lower cabin pressure and is quieter. There's also a chance of the upper deck economy seating, in a more spacious 2-4-2 layout with business class-style side bin storage and work space for window passengers.
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About John Walton
Aviation journalist and travel columnist John took his first long-haul flight when he was eight weeks old and hasn't looked back since. Well, except when facing rearwards in business class.
1 on 10/1/13 by Libertyscott