ChemicalWoody

Was in the T5 Galleries lounge at lunchtime today, and watched as fire engines surrounded a Cathay Pacific flight at the top of the Heathrow main runway, holding up several planes behind it for about 15 minutes.
It was eventually 'escorted' by the fire engines off the runway, and Heathrow started working again.
But poor old CX 252 seemed to be stuck for some time, and is now cancelled.
It's a flight I do a lot, so I'm feeling sorry for everyone on the flight- what eventually happened? Why was it aborted?

ChrisLi

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

According CX website it shown as departing tomorrow 09:30

Make me want to revise my flight on Monday morning to a non 747.... Increasingly not reliable plane?

CX828

Must have been some type of engine or fire related issue? Probably a reason for the fire engines as a precaution.

Hopefully some passengers were able to get on CX250/CX256/CX254 rather than wait nearly 24 hours before going to HKG.

ernestnywang

Below is the information accessed from Abacus:

Cathay Boy

People, as much as we hate to see these Queen of the Skies go, they really need to go. I'm sure 747s on average is a very fine plane that can last a long time, but it just seems these bunch that CX has have are having lots of problems lately. It's like my Toyota. On average Toyota is the most reliable car in America. But someone the one I got is just having one problem after another, and it's not a maintenance issue as I maintain my car religiously.

People in assembly plant can tell you, sometimes it just happens two things coming off the exact same assembly line with the same design, one can be excellent and another can be junk. Not, CX 747s are NOT junk, but they seem to be running into a string of bad lucks lately.

I personally am avoiding the CX 747s.

Sam7

As one of many passengers getting stuck in Kazakhstan, I'm avoiding the metal at all cost too....

garykung

Since no one is doing it, I will defend for Boeing.

It does not seem it is Boeing's issue at all.

I believe it was CX.

1. If it is a manufacturer's issue, I am sure Boeing will issue service bulletin, and more airlines will be affected.

2. AFAIK - CX 747s came from SQ (as CX is so cheap not to buy new planes). So it may suggest that the aircrafts may overused.

3. Maintenance issue - it is not the first recent incident regarding CX aircrafts.

CX828

1 - Its just a fuel leak.... these things happen to all aircraft.
2 - The planes are old, so for sure, there are going to be more teathing problems than a new aircraft. CX was not cheap to buy the Ex-SQ 747s. At the time of purchase they werent extremely old and in good condition. CX needed large capacity aircraft quickly, and this is the only way to do it. The 747-400 was not available to purchase new, + any new aircraft would have taken years to arrive.
3 - I think CX has excellent maintenance, but with all old aircraft there are going to be problems. CX is not the only airline having multiple mechanical related problems to their aircraft. It happens everywhere, its just in HK, the media will print about CX, as it is the national airline.

It is true, though that these 747s need to go now, because they are old and are causing frequent delays and disruption to passengers. I think 77Ws are coming in faster than we expected, CX251/CX250 is going 747 -> 77W in April. Its only a matter of time before they are phased out, and Im sure CX feel just the same as passengers, re wanting the replacment aircraft to come as soon as possible.

JClasstraveller

In relation to no. 2, that is plainly incorrect. CX has only bought 3 pax 744's from SQ 2nd hand. The others are new builds (with RR engines) from Boeing. It should be noted that a couple of the SQ birds are younger than the oldest of CX's RR 744's (though I am unsure as to cycles).

These things happen with 20 year old planes, look at QF's 744's and the issues they've had.

JALPak

wait till you read about the news of HND-HKG flight.

http://news.mingpao.com/20120129/gnd1.htm

Dr. HFH

What makes you think that?


Um, no. See accurate comment upthread from Classtraveller. It's easy to tell by looking at them. Nearly all CX pax 744s have completely closed engine covers (remind me of hair dryers, not unlike the engines on 343s). These are RR engines, and are original CX aircraft. The ones from SQ have open covers for bypass, they look very different. These are P&W engines, IIRC. As far as CX being cheap, you have documented your personal hatred of CX numerous times in other threads. It's worth noting that the entirety of your CX lifetime experience is two flights within the past six months, ORD-HKG and HKG-ORD, as you have indicated in other threads here. In fact, most of CX's aircraft acquisitions have been and continue to be new aircraft.


True, it's not the only recent incident. However, it's not at all clear to me that this is the result of lax maintenance or any type of maintenance failure.

Awesom Andy

Sounds like media bashing to me. Having 5 flights going tech in 2 months from a reasonably sized fleet of up to 20yo planes isn't all that bad, I would say.

garykung

My bad...in the data...

(I checked with Wikipedia and Boeing - the actual number is 4.)

Let's just say that it is your "excuse" in framing me on something like this out of nowhere.

My hatred against CX is one matter. They have maintenance issue is another matter.

And personally, if my goal is too smear CX, I can simply create a story out of nowhere to do so. But in fact, my involvement to those incidents (or CX Bad News) is commenting on them. So do you really think my hatred affect CX or CX should look at where they stand now?

Remember - my word is worthless - unless they are really the true. And seriously, do you work for OW or CX?

1. Swire owns HAECO.

2. HAECO does aircraft maintenance for CX.

3. It is not news that HAECO is pissed because of Swire's treatment.

4. If there is any major issues with 744s, Boeing/FAA/JAA will advise airlines for attention. But so far, there is none.

So if it is not Boeing, not RR/PW, then who else do you think should be responsible?

B-HXG

my friend is on the flight, and they have a 30-hour delay

cathay251

Ah yes, your numerous/ smear of cx is absolutely worthless, I am for sure will keep flying cx and their routes that operates by their 744. I am sure millions others will continue to do so.

Creating story? Not sure if that's really wise.

And any evidence of that to pt 3? It's not made up, I hope