daniellam

Every time I fly CX F from HKG, I find that the First Class side of The Wing to be always crowded and I can never seem find a place to sit (except if I am lucky to get a cabana or find a spot at the sit down buffet restaurant), especially during the late evening. I've also noticed that most of the lounge guests are not actually flying first class and but are Oneworld Emeralds (AA, QF etc.) and CX DM who are flying business/economy class!

Perhaps it is time that CX provides a lounge just for their own First Class passengers (make the First Class side of the Wing F Only) and maybe some "higher than Diamond" members?

BA has been doing this at LHR with the Concorde Room.
LH has been doing this at FRA/MUC with their "First Class Lounges/Terminal"
LX has been doing this at ZRH.
SQ has been doing this at SIN with their "Private Room"

Maybe it's time for CX to do the same?

QRC3288

I agree with the spirit - F lounge overcrowding - but not necessarily the implementation. CX has heaps of long-haul flights now without F. Middle East, Australia, Newark, YYZ, YVR and half of Europe flights come to mind. They made this decision with 33G and 77G. Not the pax fault!

If the point in CX's eyes is to entice high spenders, i'm not sure what you propose (cutting all non F pax off) works. Being honest, a lot of J fares ex-HKG are more expensive than the partner award fees CX collects in F or from A fares. I understand POS but it seems a little dumb from CX point of view to be handing out exclusive F lounge privileges to AA award travelers who pay 65k miles or whatever for their ticket where a Cathay DM J class pax to EWR mightve just spent 5k usd one way on his ticket but not be allowed in. To me, as a businessman, this makes no sense to reward your less lucrative, partner guests while discriminating against your own more lucrative elites. CX's bread and butter are HKG based corporate clients who pay an arm and a leg for J fares. CX fills up incremental J and F demand with lower priced tickets, but I don't think CX elite pax should be punished simply for flying to a non-F destination. Anyway, I think this is the business case for why you can't just do that. It is also an opinion from one loyal CX traveler who has little but no choice - I fly to almost every destination in CXs network, including heaps without F! What about the business traveler who could fly to LHR in J or F, must choose one timing due to a meeting, but that timings config is 77G only? This lucrative passenger shouldn't be discriminated against in this arbitrary way, at least in my view.

Perhaps CX could so something whereby a certain spend / year gets you in, like BA does with TCR I think (is this correct?)

LchChester

I would rather CX expanding the lounge area (both F and J), if possible. Or make the Wing an F lounge (including the current J area), and invite J pax to the Cabin.

Kachjc

if CX really wants to sort crowding etc

I;d rather the convert/ expand G16 or something else to dedicated F or vice versa

instead of downgrading MPC and making it like every other airline program

who even goes to G16? CX should do something to it

or upgrade G16 and divide the J passengers to these 2

keep the Wing all F

sscywong

G16 helps to divert passengers from the noodle bar... Especially in the morning...

But yes G16 can do better to share more passengers...

hamburglar

LH First class terminal/lounge is available for HON members in addition to first class members.

Nonetheless, cathay F lounges are quite a bit busier than it should be.

nldogbert

Hi,

I admit I'm not one that flies first using the lounge, but in my eyes the main reason is the space is just to small for the size of the airport and traffic. Hong Kong is a main transit hub, with not only CX but ac able bunch of oneworld partners. I have no idea why they did not take this into consideration when renovating it last year.

Now that QF eliminated the first lounge, I think everyone is just streaming into the wing.

I think as mentioned, F traffic is limited so maybe CX does not want to have one that's only filed during certain of the time.

Just my two cents.

Cheers!

AC*SE

The loss of the F lounge at the Pier has had some impact (notwithstanding the added space on level 7 of the Wing).

CX is in a very different place than BA or LH when it comes to F pax. They offer it on a smaller number of routes and the offer a smaller number of seats. How many true F passengers on CX are departing from HKG daily. How many passenger hours of lounge time are required? How much real estate is required to provide quality services to these passengers?

Given the size of the terminal, where do you put a dedicated F lounge, given that people may be departing from gates over a km away? What do you lose if, for example, you covert the Cabin (the most central of the lounges) into a dedicated F space and have the wing revert to a OWE space?

Given the choice between Concorde Room and BA F, or the Wing F section and CX F, CX wins hands down. Travelling is not about the lounge, it's about the hard and soft products in the air.

Cathay Boy

From reading this forum, and talking with airport managers, there are few true revenue F paying pax. Most F pax are either primarily AA-award (only 160K miles round trip!), award-upgrade, or op-ups. If the argument is CX should "award true F paying pax", having their own F lounge doesn't fly.

Then there's the fact that only a few routes have F seats. Seems like more and more routes are without J. By having F only lounge, CX is punishing loyal premium flyers that sticks with CX by flying J to these no-F destinations.

There is always the argument of true revenue generated for CX. Someone that flies frequent to non-F destinations at 5K-6K a pop in J, are much more valuable then someone that flies on occasion F at 10K a pop.

The real easy fix that CX doesn't seem to want to do is issue capacity control to OWE. Something BA has no problem doing against other OWE flyers.

Guy Betsy

So how about a lounge that allows only F ticketed passengers and MPC DM members only. Everyone else (OWE) can be regulated to another lounge. The LH/LX First Class lounges also ferried passengers from this lounge to the aircraft in private cars.

That's what daniellam wanted once upon a time ago with CX , if I recall !

daniellam

I guess that would at least be better. Maybe OWE flying business class as well?

Everyone else (OWE) flying Y should be regulated to another lounge.

Guy Betsy

No, if you want the true LX/LH experience, then even OWE flying J will be grouped in with the OWE flying Y too. (Holding a F ticket but on an aircraft offering J does not count as flying F either).

Only CX MPC DM, DM+ and F passengers will have accessed to the lounge. But hopefully if CX decides on doing this that the current promo of Amex Centurion members worldwide getting the DM card would have run out by then. So only true DM members who earned the status by flying would be allowed in.

QRC3288

concur....although I really prefer Guy Betsy's proposal above.

Not holding my breath though, unfortunately I think it's wishful thinking. CX seems addicted to the lounge revenue that partner elites generate every time they enter the F lounge. The F lounge is packed all the time, and I don't think they care about it given the revenue they're presumably pulling in. This has been an issue for years, even when there were two F lounges.

What CX really needs is a completely separate equivalent to something like TCR, which would allow in F pax and DMs only. Maybe even no guests for DMs. It would be a great benefit for DMs. Then there could be some other F lounge (like BA Galleries F in LHR) that would be happily packed with all the EXPs in there doing mileage runs with upgrade certificates on the midday AA flight. I have a US-based EXP friend who recently came to HKG for exactly one day. Why? Apparently he thinks it's a good value to do a mileage run on the DFW-HKG flight!!! Here's the best part: he estimated he was one of THIRTY EXPs on that flight, at least some were presumably doing the same as him as he saw them on the flight the following day!

AC*SE

I don't see any merit in offering this up to DM's. Maybe DM+ and DM IN, but not the rest.

brunos

Please don't get me wrong. I am not trying to be sarcastic or aggressive. And I am biased as I am not DM.

However, I find the suggestion that a newly created F-only lounge (lets call it "super" lounge) be also open to DMs a bit self-serving. it would defeat the exclusivity purpose of the super lounge, and hence the costly additional services. Like the other examples provided, and AF Premiere lounge in CDG could be added, this is targeted to the own-airline F pax. These exclusive lounges are reserved to F pax and possibly a few high-end pax, such as CCR cardholders for BA or Solitaire for SQ. AF Premiere lounge might be the epitome of service: you are met at the kerb by a porter who checkis in your luggage, you have an escort to take you to the Premier lounge where the escort takes your passport and do all the police formality for you, you are driven by private car to the plane. But AF never allows any Plat cardholder in the lounge.

I do see on this forum that some DM are frustrated to find in the CX F lounges other OWE or OW F pax. But that is OW rule. If a CX super lounge concept, with additional services (e.g. better food/wines/liquors, spa... ), was implemented then DM would not have access as this would run against the very concept of F exclusivity and cost. Maybe DM+ would be allowed.

But I doubt that the concept makes sense for CX. As noted above, they offer much fewer F seats than BA or LH. And many of those are used by awards. They do not even offer free buggy to F pax, so why would the feel the need to further improve F service on the ground?