Melbourne-Hong Kong business class: Cathay Pacific vs Qantas vs Virgin
By David Flynn, July 31 2018
With five daily flights between Melbourne and Hong Kong, this Asian corridor is one of Australia's busiest regional routes – and among the most competitive, with Cathay Pacific, Qantas and Virgin Australia in a three-cornered race.
Here's how the Melbourne-Hong Kong offerings of each airline stack up for the business traveller.
The schedule
Cathay Pacific trumps Qantas and Virgin Australia with three daily flights between Melbourne and Hong Kong, compared to one each for the Aussie airlines.
With Melbourne departures at 7.35am, 2.20pm and 11.40pm (plus one daytime return flight and two overnights) this provides maximum flexibility for business travellers.
Want to start early, fly to Hong Kong during the day and have plenty of time to check into your hotel, freshen up and meet a colleague or client or colleague for pre-dinner drinks at one of the city's amazing whisky bars? Done.
With five daily flights to Hong Kong, Melbourne travellers have plenty of choice
Prefer to put in a full day at the office and have dinner with the family, fly overnight and hit the ground running (after popping into Cathay Pacific's Hong Kong Arrivals lounge) or catch a connecting flight to China? No sweat.
By comparison, the single daily flight of Qantas (departing 9.35am) and Virgin Australia (departing 11am as of October 28, until then it's five days a week at 12.30am) requires that high flyers shape their schedule to that of the airline, not the other way around.
Getting down to work
With 9½ hours of flying time between Melbourne and Hong Kong, business travellers can chalk up a productive day in the best business class seat that each airline has to offer.
Qantas' Airbus A330 Business Suite
We're talking wide and comfortable seats with direct aisle access, AC/USB power at hand, and ample personal space around the seat for your laptop and any related documents.
Virgin Australia's Airbus A330 business class cabin
All of the seats are good, and as a result the issue of ‘which seat is best?’ comes down to preference.
Cathay Pacific's Airbus A350 business class seat
Note however that two of Cathay Pacific's three daily Melbourne-Hong Kong flights are on the Airbus A350 – those being the daytime CX104 and CX134 services – which has Cathay's very latest business class seat as well as inflight WiFi, so those flights will have the edge for corporate travellers.
The lounges
How do things stand before your flights from Melbourne and Hong Kong?
Virgin Australia is the only airline of this trio without its own lounges: business class passengers and top-tier Velocity frequent flyers in Melbourne use the Etihad Airways lounge, while in Hong Kong they enjoy access to the Club Autus business class lounge (below) of Hong Kong Airlines.
Virgin Australia uses the Club Autus lounge at Hong Kong
In Melbourne, Qantas maintains its own international business class lounge – although it's a somewhat unimpressive bunker – and for Platinum-grade frequent flyers, a superb first class lounge, with the Hong Kong leg anchored by an impressive 'premium' lounge (below).
The Qantas Hong Kong Lounge
Cathay Pacific has a small and rather underwhelming Melbourne lounge, but thankfully the airline's membership of the Oneworld alliance means that business class passengers and high-ranking frequent flyers (in the airline's own Marco Polo Club as well as Qantas Frequent Flyer members) are entitled to skip the Cathay lounge for the better Qantas lounges.
However, in Hong Kong Cathay Pacific boasts its own collection of six lounges, with The Pier first class and business class lounges considered among the world’s best.
Cathay Pacific's The Pier business class lounge
(Qantas business class passengers and Gold and Platinum frequent flyers can also use the Cathay Pacific lounges, again because both airlines belong to Oneworld.)
There's also the Cathay Pacific Arrivals lounge at Hong Kong airport where you can freshen up with a shower, grab breakfast and get on top of your inbox before heading to your hotel or first meeting.
Which airline gets your vote for the best business class experience on the Melbourne-Hong Kong route?
David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
24 Oct 2010
Total posts 2560
Comments for this article will be temporarily held for moderation before being published. Readers are reminded to keep their comments on topic (ie, comparing airlines on the Melbourne-Hong Kong route for business class) and to ensure their comments add value to the article and the conversation.
17 Sep 2015
Total posts 371
David, just out of interest why did you add this warning to this story, and not to others? Is it particularly contentious because there's a price war on between the three airlines with nonstop flights on MEL - HKG - MEL and you perceive that there may be airline staff or contractors wanting to criticise the other two's offerings?
24 Oct 2010
Total posts 2560
Traveller14: it was simply a desire to keep comments on topic and adding value so that they become a useful adjunct to the story for people who want to read about MEL-HKG business class. The comments we have held back fail on either or both of those scores. I figured this article would attract a lot of comments (some of which might be rabid rants against one airline or another, or just pointless no-value asides), so filtering them to sort wheat from chaff for readers made sense, and the quality of published comments suggests to me that where possible we'll aim to do this more often with other articles in future.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
21 Jan 2017
Total posts 51
i recently travelled to hk via cathay and back with virgin, both trips are on J. frankly the service on cx feels rushed, my dishes were cleaned in no time, when i was half finished. the food on virgin is awesome and the service is more personal. The seats are quite close between CX and VA but VA is newer and more stylish imo.
13 Sep 2016
Total posts 55
24 Apr 2014
Total posts 269
Completely agree with the CX approach to service that you and the prior commenter made. They are robotic and lacking warmth.
21 Apr 2017
Total posts 51
A good summary thank you. CX wins for schedule, breadth of network and seamless connections, outstanding HKG lounges and on-board service.
13 Sep 2016
Total posts 27
17 Sep 2015
Total posts 371
For business travellers, punctuality may be one (though not the only) factor in choosing an airline.
21 Apr 2017
Total posts 51
Yes, punctuality is a good point. In this case it is heavily influenced in most (but not all) cases by factors outside the airlines' control. These include worsening congestion at HKIA, the impact on HKIA's operations of PRC's approach to controlling its adjacent airspace and particularly at this time of year, the monsoon season throughout S and SE Asia which in the case of CX will impact across its Asian network resulting aircraft not being in the right place at the right time.
17 Sep 2015
Total posts 371
The factors you mention are part of the story, but if that was all there was to it, the punctuality among the three carriers would be fairly close to uniform, especially for flights that have similar departure times.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
19 Aug 2011
Total posts 165
Excellent piece, there's also the CX lounge at MEL, hardly worth mentioning (QF lounges are better), but CX will direct business class passengers to it. It doesn't come close to the CX options at HKG, which are excellent. Another element is that CX and VA have premium economy, but QF doesn't on this route (using the A330).
24 Oct 2010
Total posts 2560
Ah yes, Cathay's little Melbourne lounge – good point, I'll add that into the article!
21 Apr 2017
Total posts 51
Haha. I actually think it is just fine! Sure, not quite in the same league as the HKG offerings or QF First upstairs but solid nonetheless, particularly taking into account the real estate made available by MEL airport.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
19 Jun 2017
Total posts 41
Does VA have PE on their A330s? I thought it was only on their 777s
24 Oct 2010
Total posts 2560
Virgin Australia doesn’t have premium economy on its A330s (which are what is flown to Hong Kong) - the closest is Economy X, which is the same seat as economy but with a few perks such as extra legroom.
03 Mar 2012
Total posts 15
23 Oct 2014
Total posts 238
VA for me, best awarded business seat, good flight options now either morning via SYD or evening direct with a fantastic seat for sleep up on evening and back on red eye flight. Onboard food being 2 full services is a plus as well, VA’s touch of Aussie humour in the cabin is always great, brings you home before you leave HKG.
Singapore Airlines - KrisFlyer
08 Jun 2018
Total posts 91
Surely in terms of all round package (and considering that many business class flyers are not paying for their own tickets) Cathay Pacific would win hands down. When you combine the flexibility of their schedule and their fantastic array of lounges at HKG (albeit they are available to QF flyers assuming One World FF Status). CX also has fantastic onward flight options should HKG not be your final destination.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
22 Nov 2017
Total posts 6
I'll also add a vote for VA. I flew MEL-HKG-MEL in J class when it was still the daytime flight outbound. The personal service in the smaller cabin was phenomenal on both legs and the food was also fantastic.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
18 Feb 2014
Total posts 19
CX wins for service and lounges. No contest really
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
06 Oct 2016
Total posts 174
14 Jun 2017
Total posts 4
The Cathay A350 aircraft is superb. As pointed out these fly twice daily from Melbourne.The B777-300 which operates on the third flight daily suffers in comparison.
It should also be noted that the food on CX business class is inedible and there is an extraordinary lack of non- meat options. I recently pointed out to Cathay that on their otherwise superb service from HKG to Tel Aviv it was probably inappropriate to offer seafood and meat with no vegetarian options. They didn't seem to get the point.
12 Aug 2017
Total posts 75
David,
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
05 Apr 2012
Total posts 57
Qantas & Cathay win in their integrated network for both Australia & Asia & beyond.
Jetstar Airways - Qantas Frequent Flyer
05 Oct 2012
Total posts 2
One of the main problems with Qantas is that they are often well out of their departure schedule. I missed two connecters to Taipei and was lucky to get on the last flight of the day arriving at my hotel at 3am.
18 Jan 2015
Total posts 3
David, Totally agree with Russjking's comment. This was so enjoyable reading relevant and civil comments without the juvenile personal attacks often found in Comments. Hopefully this will set an example to all of how to compose a comment. Thanks for instituting this policy!
05 Aug 2016
Total posts 4
CX stands out for frequency, service, and food.
CX
05 Jun 2012
Total posts 127
David, since you mention oneworld lounge access rights, and the CX arrival lounge in Hong Kong, and you also mention that (although you didn't phrase it this way) QF and CX passengers can "mix-and match" on departure lounges and use either QF or CX lounges, I think it would be helpful to clarify that arrival lounges are NOT part of the oneworld lounge arrangements. Accordingly the CX arrival lounge in Hong Kong is ONLY available to passengers on CX.
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