What The Cathay Pacific Business Class Lounges Are Really Like

The three lounges on offer are well worth an early arrival.

Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) has consistently been ranked as one of the best in the world. There are plenty of activities and facilities to keep you entertained and relaxed before your flight. However, arguably the best place to unwind and refresh is in one of Cathay Pacific’s lounges which are also consistently ranked among the best in the world.

With an impressive three business class lounges to pick from when you arrive at Hong Kong International Airport, Cathay Pacific offers unparalleled amenities, world-class food and chic spaces to start your trip off on the right foot or to have some quiet time between flights.

Here’s everything you need to know about the three lounges, whether they’re worth visiting and which one is right for you.

Overview of Cathay Pacific business class lounges

Although the facilities in the general area of HKG rival many other international airports, visiting one of the lounges provides a more comfortable environment that helps reduce the stress of a busy terminal.

a Cathay Pacific staff welcoming a guest at The Deck, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — Drop by The Deck for some quiet time in between flights.

Cathay Pacific has an impressive three business class lounges – The Wing, The Deck and The Pier –located in different areas of the airport. They offer everything you need to recharge, relax and catch up with work. Each has been designed to offer travellers something unique, but all share a common thread: they’re comfortable and stylish, and serve delicious food.

a close-up of a woman getting food at The Wing, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — The lounges offer a diverse range of food.

Access to these lounges is available for business class ticket holders, Silver, Gold, and Diamond Cathay members, oneworld Emerald and Sapphire members, and for those with a member lounge pass.

They’re also designed to be accessible for passengers with mobility challenges.

a woman relaxing at the Deck, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — Visiting one of the lounges provides a more comfortable environment.

The Wing

Located in Terminal 1 near gate two, The Wing is the closest of the three lounges to immigration and a great option for short layovers or travellers departing from lower-number gates.

Spread across two levels, the light-filled, minimalist lounge features a sophisticated palette of timber, black and white marble, and leather. Two bamboo gardens bring a touch of Zen to the space.

a man carrying a suitcase into The Wing, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — The Wing is a great option for short layovers.

There are a few spots to get comfortable in this lounge including curved booths that offer some privacy, leather occasional chairs, the Noodle Bar and the Long Bar.

The generous food offering spans Chinese, Western, Indian and Thai cuisine. Expect salads, sandwiches, noodles, curries, cheese, cold meats, fresh fruit and pastries.

The standout of the lounge is The Noodle Bar. Here you’ll find cooked-to-order Asian dishes that will bring you comfort before your flight.

Don’t miss slurping on a heartwarming bowl of wonton noodles with handcrafted prawn and pork dumplings, egg noodles and chicken broth.

a close-up shot of a man eating noodles atThe Wing, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — Don’t miss out on the food offerings at The Noodle Bar.

If you’re in need of a tipple to calm your nerves before you fly or to get you in the holiday mood, prop yourself at the marble Long Bar and sip on a glass of Champagne or one of the many premium wines on offer while you watch the planes take off from the tarmac.

a glass of Champagne available at The Wing, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — Sip on a glass of Champagne while you wait for your flight.

Need some energy before your flight? The Coffee Loft’s baristas will keep you caffeinated while you enjoy a cookie or slice of cake on the side.

There are no shower facilities in this lounge, so those needing to freshen up should head to either the nearby The Deck or The Pier lounges.

a passenger arriving at the reception area of The Wing, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — The Cathay Pacific staff are renowned for their professionalism and customer service.

Opening hours: Open daily from 5.30am until the last departure.

The Pier

Entering The Pier feels exclusive and while it’s a business class lounge, it surpasses many first class lounges. And honestly, you probably won’t be that mad if your flight is delayed.

The Pier is located at gate 65 and is the most spacious and best option for those with longer layovers or those taking a particularly long-haul flight. A quieter lounge compared to The Wing, this sleek space is designed to help you unwind.

a woman writing on a notebook while having tea at The Pier, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — Have a cup of tea to relax while waiting for your flight.

Decorated with a handsome medley of leather seating, woven pendant lights and dark timber joinery, there’s a decidedly high-end feel here that evokes the sense you’re in one of Hong Kong’s chic city apartments.

a Cathay Pacific crew staff talking to passengers at The Pier, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — The Pier has a decidedly high-end feel.

There are 14 luxury shower suites which means you won’t have to wait long, or at all, to freshen up. Clad in stone and featuring brass accents, they’re equipped with hair dryers, premium Bamford bath products (including face wash), plush towels and a toilet. If all suites are occupied the friendly staff will give you a buzzer so you can enjoy the lounge’s other facilities while you wait.

a man with a suitcase at The Pier, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — Step into one of the shower suites to freshen up.

The food offerings, again, are impressive and split the lounge into distinct sections. There’s a deli-style food hall, a Noodle Bar, a Teahouse and a bar. If you just want a small bite, you can grab tasty snacks such as tapas delights, cheese, cold meats and crackers from the food hall.

a man eating at The Pier, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — Fuel up before your flight.

The Noodle Bar is similar in style to the one in The Wing, serving up seriously delicious noodles, dim sum, char siu buns and dumplings. The moodily lit Teahouse is a Zen addition to the lounge and offers seasonal and artisanal tea varieties, served by fine tea specialists.

the dining area at The Pier, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — The moodily lit Teahouse is a Zen addition to the lounge.

Those needing to attend to business can plug in at one of the dedicated workspaces that feature ample power outlets for you to stay productive. The Bureau near the lounge entrance also has workstations equipped with iMacs and printers.

a hand plugging in a cable at the charging station in a Cathay Pacific Business lounge — There are plenty of workspaces for you to stay productive.

Opening hours: Open daily from 5.30am until the last departure.

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The Deck

Located near gate six, The Deck is the smaller version of The Pier and great for early arrivers and those departing from lower-number gates who don’t want to trek to gate 65.

The newest of the three lounges, The Deck boasts super speedy wi-fi and unlike The Wing, there are shower suites to rejuvenate.

one of the bathrooms at The Deck, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — The shower suites are spacious and luxurious.

The same moody, chic interior prevails throughout this lounge as The Pier, however, this space also features a “terrace" with lush greenery and views out to the tarmac.

This little oasis is a great spot to sit if you need to wake yourself up. Otherwise, there are cosy booths for privacy as well as communal tables.

people sitting inside The Deck, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — The Deck is a great spot for early arrivers.

The food selection offers Western flavours along with a taste of Hong Kong, and to everyone’s delight, there’s also a noodle bar here that focuses on Asian specialities such as beef noodles, dan dan noodles and laksa.

a bowl of noodles at The Deck, Cathay Pacific Business lounge — Cosy up to a warm bowl of noodles.

Opening hours: Open daily from 5.30am until 12.30am.

Discover how to access premium lounges without a boarding pass.

After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?

In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.

Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?

Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?

How tourism is changing in Nepal

Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.

Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.

“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.

Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”

Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”

CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.

A new generation demanding more

Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”

We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”

Boudha Stupa's prayer wheels — Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…

bouda stupa prayer flags — Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.

Boudha Stupa vendors — Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.

A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.

Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.

Life unfiltered in the Terai region

tharu woman — Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.

Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.

Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.

Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.

On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.

community homestay entrance — A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.

The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.

In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.

food at community homestay — Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.

The power of community homestays

community homestay owners in Nepal — Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.

“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”

The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.

Sonara community room — An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.

Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.

CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.

“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.

In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.

“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”

Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”

Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.

What the Cathay Pacific business class lounges at Hong Kong Airport are really like

The three lounges on offer are well worth an early arrival.

Overview of Cathay Pacific business class lounges

The Wing

The Pier

The Deck

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These community homestays are changing how travellers experience Nepal