We have a flight with Cathay Pacific in a couple of months.
It's a cheap fare so seat selection is only available within 48 hours of departure when online check-in opens.
For those that have done similar check-ins before on Cathay Pacific, is there usually a decent choice of seats still available?
Yes
Search up your plane you will be flying and Cathay Pacific seats e.g. "Cathay Pacific A380 seats" should come up with Seatguru. You can find out good seats!
I wish Cathay Pacific had A380s..
It depends on how busy the flight is and how many people have checked in already. I fly regularly to HK with Cathay - I usually check in online when it opens and there is enough of a selection for me to get roughly what I want
Cool, thanks, good to know.
There was a comment from someone in another thread that with most airlines, once online check-in time had commenced, all passengers without seats already selected were automatically assigned seats.
Passengers could still change their seating if so desired when checking in online, but it meant that the choice of free seats was limited.
Do you know if that's the case with Cathay Pacific?
This might not help but I bought tickets on Singapore Airlines via best jet and the confirmation said seat selection is available on check in. When I logged into Singapore airlines site I was able to select manage my booking and select seats i.e not through the check in process.
Unfortunately Cathay Pacific don't allow you to pre-select seating for cheap fares on all routes yet (I tried on their website), although it is being progressively introduced.
That being said, it will be very expensive to do so, around $50 per person. Singapore Airlines' fee is much cheaper.
On the upside sounds like everyone is in the same boat - if it’s expensive to select in advance you can count on most people leaving it until checkin opens, most people won’t be organised enough to be logging in right on checkin opening either.
Not for those with FF status
Same happened to me, at the booking time, SQ wanted me to pay for booking seats early, which I didn't. But after booking, I logged in to manage my flight and viola, it was free to select normal seats.
Then later I realised that when they linked my Star alliance silver, it gave me free seat selection.
It all depends how full the flight is (and how many frequent flyer are on that flight). At times, you might find that only middle seats are left less than an hour after online check in opens.
My flight departs at 12.45am so hopefully not many people checking in at that time of the morning.
If it makes you feel better, on British Airways business class it's $150 to pick your seat in advance, otherwise you get what you're given and need to get the best of what's left at the check in desk…
I'm so glad that Cathay pacific doesn't charge to pick my seats on susiness class.
My wife and I are going to HK during Chinese Spring Festival. It would definitely be a full flight, but we are able to select our seats next to each other.
What dates is the Spring Festival held?
I think the festival is 5th of Feb. But it would stay busy for at least 1 week before and after that.
Flew with Cathay 2 years ago, same , cheap flights and 48 hours prior seat selection. Absolutely no problem getting 4 seats together.
Just make sure you get in bang on the 48 hours prior. I would dare say about 70% of the plane was not allocated.
We flew with Cathay in their cheapest seats two years ago out of Sydney. I set a reminder to check-in right on 48 hours before the flight, and there were only one pair of seats available when I did, so I grabbed those. Quite a few single seats scattered thru the cabin, but just the one pair.
We flew on a Thursday night right at the end of July, two weeks after the school holidays had ended. It was their last flight of the night too, so that may have been a more popular flight for time-poor holiday makers - work the day and fly out in the night.
And yep, I was in fact singing the last verse of Chisel's 'Khe Sanh' to myself as we taxied. :-)
In a word , in our experience as a group of four, NO….
You will be spread throughout the cabin in middle seats with a Chinese person each side of you, happened to us in two outward and two home bound legs.
Will never fly "Scatter Specific" again, really felt that us honkys are only included to fill the gaps….
That was our experience in any case. Others have had wonderful experiences so there ya go, probably all depends!
I'd love to fly Cathay if I'd be wealthy enough to pay for a regular ticket so I'd be able to choose a seat and enjoy the comfort, but I'm always after the lowest fare and tend to fly China Southern/Eastern if I'm going that way…
Need to save $ to fund my smartphone addiction :P
If we answer yes or no, does that help you?