For the well-heeled frequent flyer who likes nothing more than whiling away the hours in an airport lounge, Cathay Pacific has come up with the perfect solution for those rare occasions when its most regular passengers have to spend time in their own homes.
The Hong Kong-based carrier is now allowing passengers to buy the same furniture that features in its up-scale premium airport lounges, including a sculptural modular sofa that frequent flyers may be accustomed to seeing in Cathay Pacific’s flagship ‘The Pier‘ First Class lounge.
The Cloverleaf sofa, designed in 1969 by Verner Panton in Denmark and sourced by Hong Kong’s luxury Scandinavian furniture retailer Manks, could be yours for just US $24,700 (HKD 192,201) or nearly four million frequent flyer miles if you can’t think of anything else to do with your points.
If the Cloverleaf sofa is slightly out of your price range, fret not, as Cathay Pacific has made other pieces of its lounge furniture available to buy, and some are slightly more modestly priced.
You could, for example, spend just $1,866 for the same type of dining chairs that feature across Cathay Pacific’s lounge network (the price is for one chair, not a set of chairs!).
Or, how about something to relax in with the Carl Hanson & Son ‘Colonial Chair’ in solid oak with padded leather cushions for a mere $3,334 or 524,640 frequent flyer miles?
Cathay Pacific reopened ‘The Pier’ First Class lounge in 2015 and, perhaps unsurprisingly, London-based design studio Studioilse wanted the 2,000 square foot lounge to feel like a “contemporary apartment” with a “domestic level of comfort and characteristics of a home.”
The lounge displayed the airline’s new design ethos, which has rolled out to other lounges around the world and will soon be brought to its other lounge at Hong Kong International Airport, known as ‘The Wing.’
The Wing is set to close by the end of 2024 and will remain shuttered for an entire year before being reopened in early 2026. At the same time, Cathay Pacific is set to open its first-ever dedicated lounge in New York, while a new flagship lounge featuring the airline’s Manks procured furniture will open in Beijing next year.
The plans for new and updated lounges were made in August when Cathay Pacific announced HK$100 billion investment over the next seven years to improve the passenger experience.
Among the investments is the rollout of Cathay Pacific’s new Aria Business Class suite, which includes a sliding door, all-aisle access, and other improvements to bring the airline’s international Business Class product on par with some of the best airlines in the world.
Are these memorabilia prices for existing items that will be replaced during the upcoming renovation, like when PDX sold their signature carpets for people to use as place mats for eating or new items? I’m inclined toward the latter but I’ve been wrong on such things before.