Cathay Pacific Airways

Having read these reviews I can only assume the 'shell' seat is unbearable at any height. I am a 5'6"female & travelled with my 15yo son (5'10") and husband (5'9") - all of slim to average build - from Melbourne to Hong Kong. This was our first experience of these seats and the torture they induce. We each tried to cope with the unnatural shapes the seat contorts your body into by adopting different positions - enduring neck back and/or tailbone pain as a result. These seats are unquestionably the worst we have ever experienced I am just glad we left our 6' plus son behind. We assumed this was an old plane/old design; having just visited the Cathay site I am shocked to learn they are being lauded particularly given all the negative reviews.

For an economy seat leg room was good even with the seat recline. The new seat doesn't give a good sleeping position but few economy seats do. My big gripe is the cushion thickness. While just about bearable on the LHR-HKG leg it became very painful on the HKG-AKL leg. Take cushions and break your journey!

Let me assure tall people who wrote in hypothesising that their height contributed to their discomfort on these sliding seats: it had nothing to do with it. I am 5'3" found Cathay's seats to be poorly designed. Short people have spines too and the lack of lumbar support affects these stubby structures in a similar way. The only difference I noticed was that instead of having my knees pushed into my neck by sliding forward as taller folk experienced my head slid so far down the seat that the nifty head support gizmo spent most of the trip acting as a coat hang and not as head support.

I'm 5'4" and found the seat OK on a 12 hour trip from London to Hong Kong so long as I used the pillow behind my back. The back of the seat provides no lumbar support and is hard. I will happily put up with this given the huge improvement brought about by the seat sliding forward into a recline rather than by tipping the seat back into the lap of the guy behind. This must lower passenger tension and air-rage and is surely worth it. I will no longer have to fight for an exit row or bulkhead seat again.

YYZ to HKG return. This is a long 15hr flight. Being 6'6" makes any seat difficult but to Cathay's credit they gave me an exit row. Without this act of kindness I would have been crippled because the new shell design (non-reclining) is completely insane. Have the cushions slide forward and describing this as the same as reclining is absurd. Your knees end up in your face - try it at home! One can only hope that these things get scrapped and a legitimate engineer designs the new ones. Cathay Pacific dropped the ball on this one and I cannot understand how it hasn't affected their rating.

I have been flying with Cathay for the past 15 years. The new shell economy seat is the worst seat I have ever used. It has very thin padding and provides no support.

New economy seats for long haul are the worst I have been in. Didn't Cathay Pacific do sufficient research on this matter or did the fuel savings on reduced weight for comfortable padding and lighter seats dictate this decision? Just returned from flying to Amsterdam from Hong Kong and back pains.

New economy seat. Absolute torture. I'm 6'4" Doesn't recline only slouches so you slump down and your neck is bent at a torturous angle. No support no legroom luckily I was in an aisle seat and could stick one leg out in the aisle. Very disappointing as the Cathay inflight service is very good. Never again.

I used to love flying on Cathay Pacific but their new "shell" economy seat is absolute torture. These seats don't recline at all but only slouch forward. Unless you are 5'8" or shorter you should plan on spending the whole trip bolt upright because the "slouch" position bangs your knees into the seat in front of you and provides no back or neck support. On one leg of the flight there were empty seats next to me but I could not use them to recline because the armrests only fold up partially. One can only hope that the airline quickly realizes what a big mistake they made with these seats and replaces them soon! I'm certainly not going to fly this airline again until they do so.

My seat was 30A this is the best seat in the new A330 on flights from Australia to Hong Kong. This seat is the first row of the economy cabin although this cost around AUD$100 (HK$700) extra but worth it on those 10hr long haul flights. The best thing is that you can get out of the seat without disturbing the person next to you. The con is that you cannot place any carry on in front of you.