One of the most eagerly anticipated new Business Class cabin products in Asia is undoubtedly Cathay Pacific’s ‘Aria Suite’, coming first to its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft in 2024, followed by its brand new Boeing 777-9s, and this week the Oneworld carrier has finally started to reveal the new seats.

The Aria Suite will replace Cathay Pacific’s longstanding and relatively popular Cirrus product in Business Class by Safran Seats (formerly Zodiac Aerospace), first launched in 2010 and slightly enhanced in 2016, with the arrival of the carrier’s Airbus A350s.

While the airline has yet to confirm the exact seat manufacturer and model, the Aria Suite looks to be a customised version of the Collins Elements product, which first launched with Starlux Airlines on the A350 back in February 2023 and has since also been selected by Etihad as its second-generation Boeing 787 Business Class seat.

While we’re still waiting to learn some of the finer details of Cathay’s upcoming Business Class product, including its proposed rollout schedule across the Oneworld carrier’s long-haul fleet, let’s take a look at what the airline has revealed so far.

Aria Suite Business Class

In early 2024, Cathay Pacific’s CEO Ronald Lam described the upcoming Aria Suite as “an exceptional new Business class experience” for its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, and this week the airline has finally revealed the key details of the product.

“Our state-of-the-art Aria Suite gives you the space to unwind, featuring a large lie-flat bed, privacy door, 24-inch 4K widescreen TV, wireless charging station, customisable lighting and tailored storage for your travel essentials.”

Cathay Pacific

Cathay Pacific has maintained its reverse-herringbone layout in Business Class with the Aria Suite, so window seats are angled towards the windows while aisle seats are angled away from the aisle, towards one another.

As with the current long-haul Business Class product, direct aisle access is retained for all passengers with a 1-2-1 configuration in this cabin.

The big difference though is the obligatory sliding privacy door, now standard fit almost industry-wide in new Business Class cabin designs.

The door itself doesn’t look that high, and there’s a gap between the base of the door and the cabin floor, so this is far from a fully enclosed suite or even the high privacy levels of Qatar’s high-walled Qsuite.

Nonetheless, doors are now a passenger expectation in new Business Class seats, and we’re fully expecting Singapore Airlines to follow suit on its brand new Boeing 777-9 a couple of years from now.

Each seat also boasts a 24-inch widescreen 4K in-flight entertainment screen, a huge upgrade on the 16-inch ones currently fitted on Cathay’s 777-300ERs, and even the 18-inch HD versions on board their latest A350s in Business Class.

It really can’t be overstated how big these screens are for Business Class – even the Qatar Airways Qsuite has only 21.5-inch screens, while the upcoming brand new Qantas A350s will offer 18″ screens.

Here Cathay is matching the latest JAL A350-1000 Business Class IFE screen offering.

These will be fixed monitors, unlike the foldable ones in the current Cathay Business Class fit, and so should allow for gate-to-gate viewing with no need to retract the screens for takeoff and landing.

Cathay Pacific is also promising the ability to “sync up your inflight entertainment with your travel companion” in this seat, a nifty idea for couples in the middle seat pairs watching the same movie or TV show, for example.

Bluetooth audio streaming is also enabled, and that also extends to the refitted Premium Economy and Economy Class cabins.

Storage remains familiar, with the head-height cupboard at the window side or between the middle seat pairs, including an integrated vanity mirror inside the compartment door.

The compartment is lined with a pastel teal green hue, a rare nod towards Cathay’s colour palette in what’s otherwise a mostly beige and cream finish with light wood and brass-coloured finishes, not unlike the upcoming Qantas A350 premium cabins.

Another storage compartment at the seat side is within easy reach, with a sliding side panel revealing a shallow stowage.

This looks the ideal spot for your smartphone, travel documents, and other smaller bits and pieces.

Wireless charging, another apparent must in the latest Business Class cabins, hasn’t been forgotten here – with an integrated power pad directly within reach at the side console.

If you prefer charging the old-fashioned way, at the front end of the side console there’s an AC power outlet along with USB-A and USB-C sockets.

That’s also where you’ll find the seat adjustment, plus some lighting controls, do not disturb button and the cabin call function.

A big benefit for middle seat passengers who don’t know their neighbour is the inclusion of a retractable full-sized privacy divider, currently missing from Cathay’s Cirrus Business Class product.

Obviously when flying as a couple or with a colleague the divider can be retracted, but it should mean no more fear of which seat remains available on board especially for last minute bookings or changes, with the obvious exception that there’s no window view in these middle pairs.

The tray table extends from beneath the IFE screen in this seat, and can be extended in a half-leaf or full position depending on what you’re using it for.

There’s also an integrated device holder at the far end of the table when it’s in the fully extended position, allowing you to prop up a tablet if you’re watching or reading your own content while working or dining.

Cathay Pacific is making a big deal of the lighting options in the Aria Suite, with “personalised suite lighting” that includes a lamp above the side console.

Presumably this will be adjustable to suit what you’re doing at the time.

Of course the seat reclines into a fully-flat bed as you would expect, with a retracting armrest to match bed-level at the aisle side, in a similar setup seem on the airline’s current A350 Business Class seat.

The new cabin fit will also include redesigned lavatories with wood panelling and Bamford amenities.

You can see more of the Aria Suite in this video Cathay Pacific has released of the product.

New Premium Economy

Cathay Pacific is also using this opportunity to install a brand new Premium Economy seat on its Boeing 777-300ERs, with an upsized six-row cabin of 48 seats, compared to the current 32 or 34 seats.

These seats have enhanced privacy thanks to extended headrest ‘wings’ where there is another seat alongside, with an adjustable reading light embedded in that side panel.

Seat recline looks generous, perhaps a little too generous for the passenger seated directly behind you, as the image below suggests.

As you can see, there’s also an extendable footrest.

A large 15.6-inch 4K entertainment screen will be installed at each seat in this cabin, quite the increase from Cathay’s current 10.6-inch version on the current Boeing 777-300ERs.

Even back in Economy Class, while the seats themselves aren’t new there is updated upholstery and a more modern finish in store.

Cabin rollout programme

Cathay Pacific will launch its new Aria Suite Business Class as a retrofit to its existing Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, starting in the second quarter of 2024.

“Savour the quiet luxury of Aria in our redesigned Boeing 777-300ER cabins, ready for departure in Q2 2024.”

Cathay Pacific

The airline currently has 39 of these aircraft in its fleet, but nine are on operating leases that will be expiring between now and 2026, and so we expect only the 30 owned aircraft will receive the new Aria Suite.

A timescale for the retrofit has not been announced yet, but on the plus side when the carrier’s 21 Boeing 777-9 aircraft finally start to arrive, they will come fitted with the Aria Suite in Business Class from the get-go.

It’s not known whether Cathay intends to retrofit the Aria Suite on its Airbus A350 fleet, so stay tuned for any news we receive on that.

New First Class in 2025

Cathay Pacific’s introduction of this new Business Class seat in 2024 comes ahead of another much-anticipated product launch – an all-new First Class product dubbed “The Halo Suites”.

This will debut on the airline’s upcoming Boeing 777-9 aircraft, which was supposed to arrive in 2025, however Cathay Pacific deferred its Boeing 777-9 deliveries as the COVID-19 pandemic persisted, in October 2020.

It now seems unlikely the carrier will receive these aircraft any earlier than 2026, so we’ll have a bit of a wait on our hands before this one is revealed.

This also raises the question of whether the airline will retain its current First Class seat on selected Boeing 777-300ERs that receive the Aria Suites Business Class retrofit, since that would mean Business Class having closing privacy doors, while First Class does not!

Let’s wait and see what happens there.

A330 Regional Business Class getting flat beds

In its annual results statement, Cathay Pacific has also announced that it will be retrofitting regional Airbus A330s with flat-bed seats in Business Class from 2026, to provide a more consistent experience in this cabin.

While it’s not yet known whether the configuration will allow for direct aisle access for all passengers, it should still be a significant improvement on the airline’s current regional A330 fit.

Cathay went with a “recliner plus” seat in Business Class on its Airbus A321neo fleet back in 2021, which in our opinion fell well short of what SIA subsequently offered on its Boeing 737-8 MAX aircraft later that year.

Let’s see if the airline comes close to what SIA offers in its current A350 and 787 wide-body regional Business Class cabins with this new product, in a couple of years from now.

It’s hard to believe that Cathay Pacific’s long-haul Business Class ‘Cirrus’ seat design is already nearly 14 years old – testament to it being a well-thought-out product, especially when it was refreshed with additional privacy for the Airbus A350s in 2016.

Nonetheless, the world has moved on to closed-door suites in Business Class, a concept that started with the likes of JetBlue, Delta and Qatar Airways, but that’s now an expectation in new long-haul seat designs like this ‘Aria Suite’ by Cathay Pacific, which will be rolling out later this year.

The Aria Suite itself is more evolution than revolution, with the inclusion of closing doors basically a must these days, though this should address the current seat’s privacy issues especially in the middle pairs, which will also finally have a full divider between them.

In-flight entertainment certainly goes up a notch with 24-inch 4K screens and gate-to-gate programming, while storage and charging options look set to pick up nice improvements.

Stay tuned for further details on these seats, plus the all-important rollout schedule and route news, in the weeks ahead.

(Cover Image: Cathay Pacific)