In 2010, Cathay Pacific defined a generation of business class seats with JPA Design: the inward-facing herringbone Cirrus seat originally from Sicma, then Zodiac Aerospace, and now Safran Seats. That seat remains a firm favourite for many, and after well-publicised delivery problems with the Boeing 777X, the carrier turns once more to the Boeing 777-300ER to carry the torch with its new product, Aria.
A Collins Aerospace Elements outwards-facing herringbone, Aria is a strong refinement of the Super Diamond family that the then-B/E Aerospace launched a couple of years after Cirrus. And it is beautiful, a real refinement of the category.
On arrival into the cabin — as, full disclosure, a guest of Cathay — the colour, materials and finish feel truly superlative, with almost every surface feeling premium and luxurious.
Cathay’s Aria cabin makes a great first impression on boarding. Image: John Walton
The one exception here is the curved slightly shiny thermoplastic directly in front of the passenger, which didn’t feel up to the same standard.
The shiny thermoplastic immediately in front of the passenger doesn’t feel as premium as the rest of the suite. Image: John Walton
The cabin lighting on a dim London February afternoon was soft and perfect, with each suite lit beautifully. The hustle and bustle of the terminal fades away, replaced with peaceful music and clear, calm pre-recorded boarding announcements. No muffled tannoy noises here — truly, an excellent move.
Aria is very much a cocoon product, and the inward-curving side panel is a big part of that feeling. Image: John Walton
On arriving at your seat, a big plus is that Cathay has certified the footwell space for “Mount Blankets”, the stack of soft product that passengers otherwise need to find a place for while also stowing their own belongings.
There’s a good-sized storage bin by your knees, while the footwell is certified for soft product. Image: John Walton
There’s an incredibly useful storage space underneath the surface of the side table, which allows you you divest yourself of the contents of your pockets, wallet, rings, spectacles and so on, keeping them safe during the flight.
This little all-purpose storage drawer is an absolute revelation. Image: John Walton
The quilted foam here (also seen inside the headphone cupboard) is particularly delightful and soundproofs any cascade of coins or jingle of jewellery, and to be able to slide the top of the side table over — keeping things secure while also retaining access — is genius.
In addition to the sliding drawer, the soft waffled foam also appears inside the side locker. Image: John Walton
Aria is a mini-suite rather than a maxi-suite, although the walls, dividers and doors are all of different heights, and the privacy is very strong, even without the door.
Various elements of the Aria shrouding, seatback and door come to different heights, which breaks up sightlines well. Image: John Walton
It seems that, like many products, there has been some issue with passengers pulling the emergency egress mechanism when wanting to exit normally, because there is a break-in-case-of-emergency sticker over it.
It’s been fascinating to observe how various airlines, seatmakers and regulators are solving this egress mechanism problem. Image: John Walton
The seat itself is pleasingly wide when sitting down, and you can choose even more width by stowing the aisle-side armrest. This is adjustable via what is frankly quite an odd mechanism of lifting and pulling, and rather noisy in the clunkiness department, but it does mean the armrest is comfortable for passengers of various heights.
Aria’s aisle-side armrest can be moved to several positions, but it does make a bit of clunking and thunking as you do it. Image: John Walton
As you recline, there’s a slightly odd upwards-and-forwards translation movement between Z-bed and fully flat, which I presume is to avoid the sliding backwards and forwards of previous generations of seat, but it is something of a surprising movement.
In bed mode, Aria feels short. I’m 190cm (6’3”) and my feet bumped right into the end of the bed when lying on my back, which gave me some pause as I looked towards the twelve-plus hour flight.
However, I needn’t have worried, because the tradeoff Cathay and JPA have made here is to cut out what would be side table/footwell and instead give you space at the knees.
This is, on balance, an excellent tradeoff for side sleepers or indeed anyone who doesn’t sleep rigidly on their back like a vampire in “coffin mode”: it felt very spacious, I was able to turn over in multiple positions, including bending my knee slightly on my back, and the foams were very comfortable as a bed, meaning I got a great night’s sleep.
For centre pairs, the positioning is much improved over previous generations. Image: John Walton
Cathay’s service onboard hasn’t materially changed, as you’d expect since Aria is only just being introduced, so I’ve concentrated on insights into the hard product here.
In terms of seat production quality, Collins has done a good job — there are a couple of misaligned elements visible at the top of the shroud, but for an early production model this is well above average in the current field.
There were a few misaligned elements of the seat, but production quality was above average. Image: John Walton
All in all, Aria is perhaps the best outward-facing herringbone seat I’ve ever flown in — as a seat. But in many ways it’s more than that, it’s a new generation of user interface and technological integration with the inflight entertainment, various control panels, ways to interact with the seat, and customisation options. There’s a lot to delve into there, so we’ve split it out into a separate review, coming soon. Watch this space.
Cathay Pacific provided roundtrip tickets to enable this review, but all opinions are unfettered and the author’s own.
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Featured image credited to John Walton
