Review: Cathay Pacific’s The Deck lounge in HK, currently for First Class passengers

This is our review of the Cathay Pacific The Deck Lounge in Hong Kong.

Post-covid, Cathay Pacific is undergoing a shuffle of its lounge estate at its home hub in Hong Kong. Whilst it is not opening any new lounges, it has and is in the process of refurbishing a significant portion of its existing spaces.

Part of this involves unifying the look and feel of the lounges around the now-iconic Ilse Crawford design first introduced in The Pier lounges and since rolled out globally, including the existing Heathrow lounges and soon-to-open New York lounge.

The design features warm cherrywood panelling, framed screens, green onyx walls, a noodle bar and more. If you’ve ever stepped into one you’ll know what I mean. It has become a blueprint for Cathay’s lounges and even influenced the design of Cathay’s new Aria Suites onboard.

There’s just one problem: not all of the lounges in Hong Kong sported the look. The Pier was first when it opened in 2013; The Deck followed in 2018. The other two lounges (The Wing and The Bridge) featured older designs (in The Wing’s case by Foster + Partners.)

Cathay Pacific spent six months last year completely refurbishing The Bridge, which had been closed since the pandemic, before reopening it. I reviewed this yesterday.

Re-opening The Bridge gave Cathay the capacity to close The Wing lounges for refurbishment in 2026, starting with the First Class section. This has been closed for some time and is expected to open in late April, when the business class section will be closed.

Whilst The Bridge provides additional business class capacity and has a small area for Cathay’s top frequent flyer members (but not oneworld Emerald flyers), it needed a First Class lounge near gates one to ten.

Enter The Deck, which has taken on this mantle. This was previously a small business class lounge that has temporarily been repurposed for First Class passengers. I took a look inside on my recent trip to Hong Kong to review Cathay Pacific’s new premium economy cabin.

Inside Cathay Pacific’s The Deck lounge

The Deck is located close to Gate 6, on the right hand side of the airport. At 823 square metres is much smaller than Cathay’s other lounges and has seating for 180 passengers.

Whilst, like other Ilse Crawford designed lounges it has a false ceiling to create a sense of intimacy and cosiness, it also features a wrap-around balcony overlooking the terminal concourse which it calls The Terrace. (It will be interesting to see if a similar concept is introduced at The Wing, which previously was also ‘open air’ to the rest of the terminal.)

At the end you can see a small bar, although this was unstaffed during my visit, largely because you can order a drink to any seat. That might change when it reverts to a business class lounge.

The centre of the lounge is home to casual living-room style seating:

Next to this is the Noodle Bar with green leather seating booths. I love a booth: they are great for groups or when travelling solo, and offer a great place to work as well.

Table service throughout the lounge is now in play, which means nobody wants to sit at the Noodle Bar:

You then have The Terrace, which features three co-working tables:

There are just a handful of showers here but they are smart, clad in stone – but not travertine like The Bridge.

Real papers are available!

Food and drink in The Deck lounge, Hong Kong

I’ll only lightly touch on food and drink as this is one feature that is likely to change when the space reverts back to being a business class lounge. For now, the Noodle Bar has been turned into a table service area.

Unfortunately, the smaller size of the kitchen means they can only offer a limited menu; for a more substantial, multi-course dining you’ll need to head to the dining room in The Pier First or, I assume, The Wing First when it reopens.

Whilst each lounge serves Cathay classics, such as wonton noodle soup and dandan noodles, you’ll also find special dishes unique to each. The Deck offers prawn cheungfun (rice noodle rolls) although, as I discovered to my disappointment, only until 3pm.

Other dishes include grilled pepper, parma ham and Kalamata olive salad; Vietnamese shredded chicken salad; pan seared Atlantic salmon with shellfish veloute; Wagyu beef skirt; and porcini mushroom risotto. This is supplemented by a small buffet.

One thing that is noticeable whilst this is a First Class lounge is the staffing, which is significantly more than you’d expect in a business class lounge. I have to say they were excellent – friendly and attentive, topping up drinks and offering amuse bouches.

Conclusion

Whilst currently a First Class lounge, The Deck will revert to business class passengers as Cathay’s lounge refresh program progresses and The Wing’s business class section is refurbished.

The good news is that from a hard product perspective – ie. the design and furniture – The Deck is lovely and will remain unchanged. It’s small and cosy, something that sets it apart from the bigger lounges, and this means there’s a more intimitate atmosphere.

The bad news is that the current excellent food options will revert back to the less fancy Noodle Bar – still delicious but not quite as nice as the First Class offering!