Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - CX First LHR/HKG seat issue,advice on follow-up

Writing this from the Wing. On my CX flight from LHR to HKG I had a seat issue with my First Class seat (would not recline automatically or manually). And the only seat available was in business class. Treatment on the plane was fine (and given a bag of goodies), given what the had available,i.e. received first meal in business and great service, just unfortunately not with the seat.

To rub insult to injury I actually swapped into that seat to be next to a colleague (3G and 3K). Maybe I am too polite, but I did not once I found out the seat was broken demand to swap back to my original seat and put it down to bad luck. On landing found out that the seat was marked in LHR as broken and the pax who was upped from business class and knew it was broken (the gall to offer so quickly and sincerely to swap seats :mad: actually not mad just surprised at the bad manners). Unfortunately, the crew were not aware that is was broken and spent the good part of an hour trying to fix it. So was and should have been totally preventable.

Like most things with airlines, on landing of course ground services knew nothing of the matter, and I was left to fill out a manual report with the lounge supervisor.

Just wondering what is CX's usual course of action or compensation for such an issue. i.e. what procedures should I follow or expect? I do not wish to demand a palm tree ;) but something should be offered for the inconvenience.

Thanks for the insight.

Mark

Sorry for your problems. Absolutely outrageous that an op-up who already knew the seat was broken would allow you to swap with him. He deserves a slap.

Too bad for the experience - although I find it odd that there would have been a pax who was op-upped from J leaving a spare J class seat? I would have thought if there was need for op-up all seats would have been full.

Too bad for the experience - although I find it odd that there would have been a pax who was op-upped from J leaving a spare J class seat? I would have thought if there was need for op-up all seats would have been full.
maybe the pax who was op uped was staff and that is why he knew it was broken

If it was staff then in my mind it is even worse.

Op up was due to whole plane being full (I was booked and paid in First), and the seat I was offered was the pilot rest area which was the first row of J upstairs. It inconvenienced the pilots (which is not a good thing on a 14 ohour flight). i.e. it was not supposed to have pax in it, but given the circumstance, they contacted the flight crew and allowed me to sit there, but with certain rules about when I could be there...

But, my original question, is obviously I am somewhat pissed off - probably more so at the pax who gladly swapped knowing that he had an op up to a broken seat and bluffing - he is probably in some other forum of FT saying how clever he was :rolleyes: but what and how does CX deal with these issues.

So far I explained to a supervisor in the Wing, who showed me the report that LHR knew the seat was broken and the pax was aware, and also wrote on board a 'letter', but was disappointed at when I arrived in HKG there was no recognition of the issue and just given a HKG phone number to try and call at 7am on a Sunday! :td: (not helpful as I was on my way to Sydney and live in Sweden).

Mark
p.s. incidentally on this flight and the one before it in F as well I was not that impressed by the food, has it gone down in quality lately?

Just wondering what is CX's usual course of action or compensation for such an issue. i.e. what procedures should I follow or expect? I do not wish to demand a palm tree ;) but something should be offered for the inconvenience.

Sorry to hear about your bad experience, Mark, and the upgraded passenger certainly behaved badly. He must have seen the staff trying to fix your seat, and not coming over to say something is cheeky.

Fortunately I haven't had this experience on CX, but on a BA flight my seat was broken and would not recline, and there were no other seats in F for me to move to. I wrote to Customer Relations, and they immediately offered me a free F class return ticket to the destination of my choice, which I thought was more than fair of them.

maybe the pax who was op uped was staff and that is why he knew it was broken

I very much doubt it. Staff don't fly in F unless if they are Directors and staff are never upgraded.

Fortunately I haven't had this experience on CX, but on a BA flight my seat was broken and would not recline, and there were no other seats in F for me to move to. I wrote to Customer Relations, and they immediately offered me a free F class return ticket to the destination of my choice, which I thought was more than fair of them.

BA handles this better than CX, from what you say.

I experienced a broken (no recline) First Class Seat on CX a couple years ago. I had my meals in F and went to the pilot rest seats to sleep as J was completely full.

After a battle royale with customer service (and it was a Battle Royale) we finally agreed on a systemwide upgrade from J fare to F class. I estimated the value of the upgrade to have been about US$3000 at the time. I resented that I had to waste any time fighting for compensation as CX should have done the right thing without me asking.

Still, I would have preferred that they had checked the seats before takeoff rather than the inconvenience of the seat not working.

It is disappointing to hear that CX still do not check the seats are working before takeoff. You need to raise this point in your letter to Customer Service and get at least a systemwide upgrade from J to F.

Please let us know how your battle with CX goes and make sure you mention to them that you should receive compensation - you should not have to ask for it!

It is disappointing to hear that CX still do not check the seats are working before takeoff. You need to raise this point in your letter to Customer Service and get at least a systemwide upgrade from J to F.

Although in the OP's case, CX did know that the seat was broken, and the person who was assigned there was also aware it was broken. It's just that the OP who swapped into the seat didn't know it was broken.

That sounds like real bad luck.

I had a similar experience in F when the seat would not fully recline , the stewardess tried to fix it manually but no joy so she shrugged her shoulders and gave up. Not good enough for me I'm afraid and I insisted that she try harder , she called on some small chap who joined from the rear and still nothing. Finally I got the CSD involved as I was sure that if they put some effort in it would work. Low and behold after about 45 mins and four crew working on the seat it was fully reclined. not that the other people sleeping in F were too amused with all the extra activity in the cabin.

As far as your OP Up thief is concerned what goes around comes around.

If CX don't give you a free F return you're doing something wrong. Tell them to put a bit of effort into it.

I actually had a somewhat similar situation a few years ago, on HKG-SYD...I was in paid J and the flight was completely full (Chinese NY's eve).

Right before departure, when I was sitting in my J seat already, some ground staff approached me and said, "Mr tedhl, because you're a loyal oneworld flyer (or CX flyer, I don't remember if I was still CX Gold at that time or not), we'd like to move you up to F tonight, but there's some minor problems with the seat, hope you don't mind".

Since he said it's "minor problems", I thought, sure, maybe it's just some lighting or whatever small problems, and didn't really ask. But once I get to that seat, I found all the seat buttons are covered and so I asked and then was told that actually the seat cannot recline at all (which according to them is a "minor problem"). I immediately asked to get my original J seat back - and they didn't seem to be too happy about it and thought I was bringing them trouble. Then I was like - It's a flight departing 23:45 or sth arriving the next morning in SYD, I bet some 80-90% of the people would be sleeping on this flight, and they did not really tell me frankly in the first place what the exact problem is - and actually tried to get away with it by saying that it's a "minor problem", which frankly I think no one would think is a "minor problem"...

Anyway, I was just thinking...maybe the pax who got op-up'ed didn't really know about the exact problem of the seat either? maybe he/she was also only told there's some "minor" problems...and only found out what it is when he/she saw everyone came and tried to fix it...

I had the pleasure on Sunday of coming back from Manila on an A330 with old regional J (doubly so because it was an op-up :) ) - I had forgotten just how much better that is than the so-called "new" regional J. The seat is wider, more comfortable, you can rest your arms on the armrests (because the AV controller isn't there), the legrests are bigger, and the seat recline and legrest adjustments are manual,, so they don't break. If they are not going to roll the current long-haul J out to the regional fleet when the long-haul gets upgraded then I hope then can find some of the good old regional J seats and put them back in instead of the hopeless new ones.

Thanks for your replies. Trust me I am following this up with CX, but they do seem to operate in strange ways that unfortunately will require that I need to invest more time in it than I would have hoped. :td:

My main annoyance is that while .... happens and the purpose of a plane is to get you safely from A to B, was that (1) the original pax knew about the seat (but again not the full extent, as it was marked as could manually recline whereas the seat could not recline at all!), the personal qualities of the other pax cannot be guaranteed so c'est la vie, BUT most importanty (2) the seat was flagged as broken and crucial communication broke down between LHR ground and the flight crew that impacted on F experience - that is unacceptable, and why I am annoyed.

My last two flights with CX I have certainly been marked as needing extra attention, which is fine but it does not solve the issue as how should the pax know that extra attention vs compensation is. For example, I flew SYD/HKG today and had probably the best service in J I have ever had on any airline, and much better than F on many airlines, and way beyond what the other pax but given space in F (my original booking was F out, C inbound), why didn't they make some apologetic mention at checkin and bump to F?

Note - I now have a bag full of wine and champange that given EU laws on liquids I will have a hard time dragging back to Europe, and I do not have the liver to drink that much in 16 hours. Maybe I should just dump the bottles at checkin and tell it is their problem :p

I leave from HKG tomorrow night and will certainly raise it with another supervisor in the wing - so hopefully customer services will give it a little more attention.

But your sentiments are right in my experience of issues (wife receive food poisoning in F on BA, customer services with CX seem to be a somewhat non responsive).

Mark

Note - I now have a bag full of wine and champange that given EU laws on liquids I will have a hard time dragging back to Europe, and I do not have the liver to drink that much in 16 hours. ...You could sell it via the concierge at your hotel for a few thousand HKD (Krug sells for over HKD 3000 per bottle in HKG, while Lynch Bages was something like HKD 1400 the last time that I checked). Or trade it for some service that the hotel can provide you.

Although in the OP's case, CX did know that the seat was broken, and the person who was assigned there was also aware it was broken. It's just that the OP who swapped into the seat didn't know it was broken.

I can just see it- the guy that swapped with you will end up with an unsolicited J to F upgrade sent to him!!!

I can just see it- the guy that swapped with you will end up with an unsolicited J to F upgrade sent to him!!!

I know, and they probably look at my complaint and see that I was in 2K and not 3G and put it on the confused pile, as I was not (accoridng to the computer) in the broken seat! :rolleyes:

Oh and thanks for the ideas about what to do with wine/champagne. Between my work colleague and I we managed to finish some off :D , and the other couple of bottles can be checked in.

Mark