Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - CX750 5 March ex BOM...mixed performance

Was booked on CX750 ex BOM this morning connecting in HKG to NRT. It was a rather poor performance all round...

Was called at 2330 in my hotel last night by CX (and woken up as I had to be up at 0300 to get to the airport in time) to tell me the flight was 40 minutes late. I asked whether we could check-in later. Answer: No. What about our connections? The plane will make up the time. Don't worry! And for this I was woken up???? Apart from that, "Don't worry" ALWAYS starts alarm bells ringing.

Got to the airport having checked Expertflyer.com and asked to be transferred to KE via ICN. Duty Manager could not have been more helpful. The computer was showing space available. She sent an agent with us to KE where chaos was rampant. Despite what the computer may have shown, the flight was overbooked. So back to CX.

Spent an hour in the BA Terraces Lounge with the projection of the clock on the wall and the extremely irritating ticking noise...sounds like a time-bomb! The attendant was rather lethargic bit was absolutely charming when she smiled. Pity she did it so infrequently. Went from there to what must be a fairly usual bun fight at the gate. They stopped boarding at to let the coongestion in the jetway subside and a guy comes flying along knocking everyone out of his way shouting "Business Class"...Don't you just love 'em?

Anyway, if anyone had any illusions about making up lost time during the stop in Bombay they were sorely mistaken. The plane left having accumulated a further ten minute delay but made up twenty during the flight to Bangkok. So, in all we were on blocks in BKK with a 30 minute delay. With a bit of luck we might still have made the connection in HKG. But this was NOT our lucky day.

We are sitting waiting to go and the captain comes on with a story about technical problems with the aircon and it has to be checked out. The belly camera shows a wonderful picture of a ladder underneath the front landing gear..we are not going anywhere. The Captain says that we will have a two hour delay. At that point the crew were talking to people about rerouting and stuff. We said that ideally we would like to deplane in BKK and be rebooked on a direct flight in the evening to Tokyo which would get us in the next morning rather than spend a night in Hong Kong and get to Tokyo in the early afternoon the following day. They came back and said "All flights full". I had difficulty believing it, but what can you do? Tonight I checked and here is the result:

NH954 C4 Z4 J4 D4 R4 Y4 B4 M4 H4 W4 G4 N3
SQ996 F4 P4 A4 Z4 C4 J4 D4 S1 Y1 E1 B1 M1 W1 Q0 N0 H0 V0 T0 L0 K0
NH916 C4 Z4 J4 D4 R4 Y4 B4 M4 H4 W2 G1 N0

So, with J class tickets there were at least three options that would have got my colleague and I home sooner. But why bother telling me BS that I could check afterwards? Why not just say: "Sorry, we really don't want to deplane anyone here because we might get things fixed and have to leave in a hurry".

As it was, we ended up arriving in HKG 90 minutes late. They gave us seats on the first CX flight in the morning. It took them another two hours to get us our bags (which I absolutely insisted on seeing physically given the chaos that had prevailed in most stations along our route) and then we were given rooms at the Regal Airport Hotel.

Positive points:

- The willingness of the Duty Manager at BOM to despatch someone to help us with KE despite the fact that the Check-in was busy.
- The fairly good processing of missed connections upon arrival at HKG
- The upbeat attitude of the crew despite having so many disgruntled and concerned pax on board.

Negatives:

- Waking me up shortly before midnight to tell me the flight is late, that is has no effect on me and not to worry!
- Giving me a cock and bull story about full flights out of BKK rather than playing it straight.
- Taking almost 2 1/2 hours to get us our bags after arriving in HKG

By the way: When checking schedules out of BOM to NRT, one system actually suggested flying via FRA. I thought it rather amusing...however had we gone that route we would have arrived seven hours earlier!!!

Er, it's a 50 minute connection at HKG - legal but pushing it. The problem at Bangkok was that it is much harder to break a ticket coupon (BOM-HKG) midway than it is to endorse a complete single coupon over to another airline. I really don't think you have much cause for complete here. S**t happens.

Er, it's a 50 minute connection at HKG - legal but pushing it. The problem at Bangkok was that it is much harder to break a ticket coupon (BOM-HKG) midway than it is to endorse a complete single coupon over to another airline. I really don't think you have much cause for complete here. S**t happens.

Ok, I actually went out of my way to be quite balanced about the whole saga because CX didn't score badly on some points. However your point about breaking a coupon doesn't wash. Airlines use things called FIMs, appropriately named "Flight Interruption Manifest". Other airlines accept is as a ticket. CX sort the rest out internally. The fact is that with a full J ticket that shouldn't be an issue. As I said, I wouldn't have had a problem had they just said "we don't want to do it that way (for whatever reason which could have ranged from "we don't want to pull your bags and you are not getting off without them" to "we want to keep the revenue from your ticket")" rather than being blatantly lied to about full flights. It's just so lame and it's easily checkable, so why insult my intelligence?

As for pushing legal connections, as far as I am concerned it is fairly black and white. If it's legal then it's ok, if it's illegal it's not. There is no such thing as a "kind of legal, almost illegal" connection. CX publish them, so they think it's doable.

I'm not the kind to start writing big letters of complaint or starting a thread entitled "What compensation am I entitled to?". I merely wanted to point out that a) Cathay could have done better today and b) I have learnt that the Milk Train flight DXB-BOM-BKK-HKG is probably best avoided because there are just too many places where S*&t can happen....and does!

b) I have learnt that the Milk Train flight DXB-BOM-BKK-HKG is probably best avoided because there are just too many places where S*&t can happen....and does!

I was on the CX751 on 5 March from HKG-BOM, and everything was fine - on time, and excellent service. I know what you mean about there being too many places where there can be problems on this route, but I take the 750 and 751 reasonably often, and I have found them to actually be very reliable.

Snoopy, that's some ordeal. The delay getting the bags is the one I can't comprehend.

Hopefully that adventure used up all your travel related bad luck for the year...

Sorry to hear about your experiences.

I know from my experiences 750 often fails to make a connection in HKG to 508 to NRT. I think this topic was covered here at least once.

After 750 arrived late in HKG, I saw once a few NRT-bound passengers ask CX to fly them back to BKK or fly to SIN so that they can take a red eye, which arrives earlier than CX's first flight out of HKG the next day.

In addition to the three flights you mentioned, there are also three other red eyes from BKK -- two by JL (both on 747) and another on TG. BKK-NRT has plenty of seats in the night. It's really hard to believe all flights are full.