Cathay Boy

Have you notice recently the CX junior crew are pretty.... ordinary to bad? Seriously, the last 2 trips to Asia (with many regional bounces) I have not gotten good services whatsoever from the junior crews (compare to just last year, not even years pass, forget that, even compare from last year it was a huge drop off).

Examples:

1) May I have ice water? Replied: "sorry, no ice here, just water" and proceeded to pour me a cup of water and kept going. Without an offer to get ice for me, or ask me to wait till later when they can finish service and get ice.

2) Do you have Dry Ginger Ale? Replied: "sorry, no" (nothing but a blind stare at me). Er..... can you or have someone get it? Replied: (dropping shoulders as if she's annoyed), "then you have to wait till I'm finish the cabin" and left....

Not to mention pressing the call button at PEY is virtually useless, never got them to come up on first try, 50% on second try, only until third try did someone bothers to come up. And when they did they are visibly annoyed.

On an occasion that I asked for bags of peanuts and chips, it was literally thrown to me.

I saw on FB CX Secrets page a junior crew is whining about closing the overhead cabin door, and say it should be the pax that do that and "it's not our job". This is telling to me, is that the new attitude of the new breeds of CX junior crew?

I am very shock at the level of dis-service display by CX junior crews nowadays. Even mainland Chinese airlines these would not be acceptable....

hphreak

+1 Absolutely

Service level of junior crews are definitely appalling, and most noticeable in Y/PEY due to seniority. Sometimes in J they are also the same! More examples:

- Every time in PEY, pressing crew button doesn't get anyone there until at least 10-15 minutes later, after repressing it. All I wanted was water, and it wasn't during service time either (both long and short haul)

- In PEY I would understand (somewhat) if they just go and say 'chicken or fish' even though it'd be best if they actually spoke full sentences perhaps 'would you like chicken or fish today'. What gets me is I've encountered once in J where a young looking FA asked me the same thing, not in full sentences, nor addressed me by name. (both long and short haul)

- In PEY, father having had an injured arm and unable to open the tray table himself, young FA was visibly annoyed at having to put down the tray of food he had already picked up, and opened my father's tray table. (short haul)

God forbid service level will soon be on par with *gasp* north american airlines!

DernierVirage

I have always found the CX crews to be below the level of their counterparts in KA (J class). I nearly always have delightful KA crews, including the younger team members, whereas CX generally just don't have the same buzz.

Too much travel

I fully agree that the current generation of basically Hong Kong cabin crew doesn't have the natural service culture and professionalism of, say, some of the older crew (with the latter also benefiting from a higher proportion of more naturally service-oriented Filipina, Malaysian etc crew).

In the past, I had hoped that this would change as the current crop matures, but nowadays I am not holding out much hope because - through no direct fault of their own - the current Hong Kong Generation Z intake just doesn't "get" the concept of service. I acknowledge the realities of having to localise the cabin crew, but frankly I think it has gone way too far.

PatrickBateman

I agree. I rarely travel with other airlines on long haul but was forced to take AF on destination that CX does not fly to a couple of months ago. While the AF service may not have been as pretentiously attentive, the crew were more genuine and professional (it is not unusual to see junior CX crew smiles at you for one second and as soon as he/she turns around, their face turns black almost immediately).

I think most junior crew do not treat this as a long term career but more a short-term job to travel around the world.

dw

On the longhaul flights to JFK, I've noticed that the J (more senior) crew tend to be very good... but my last few experiences in PEY have reflected the same complaints here. The junior crew have generally seemed disinterested, and in some cases I think I can say that I'd see more smiles flying with AA.

What was really eye opening was flying PEY on BA recently and being shocked that the crew was actually friendlier and more attentive than on CX in PEY. And like on CX, the same BA cabin crew work both PEY and Y. (On the six hour flight from JFK-LHR they actually came through the cabin several times while people were sleeping to offer water. I have seriously been on some JFK-HKG sectors where I did not sleep and saw water being offering in between meal services only once.)

Fly Me To The Moon

Well, regarding the posts above about the work attitude of junior cabin crew on CX, I would say that this is the attitude of more and more of the younger generation in Hong Kong these days....

yohy?!

not surprisingly really, CX pays junior FAs peanuts and expects gruelling hours from them (sub20k per month avg incl duty pay and outport).

i'd be curious to see how high the churn rate is as they simply aren't competitive with other low skilled jobs people could get in financial services - why would people kill themselves as CC when they can just go sell credit cards out the front of HSBC... in future i imagine we'll see lots more mainlanders coming in rather than hkers

bensonklchan

^^

you see this attitude in the young generation everywhere in hong kong now. Sometimes it's easier to kill them than ask for a glass of water from them

kaka

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Thats the reason. Mainlanders taking up jobs at sub-par rates, pushing down all general salary.

alphaod

I wouldn't blame it on mainlanders taking up all the jobs, but rather HKers thinking too highly of themselves and that being a FA is a low blue-collar job.

jerrywu

We were spoiled, weren't we?

Too much travel

I know that Mainlanders are the subject of much blame - some unfairly, some very fairly - but they are absolutely not at fault for this. The poor standards are I think a combination of: (a) Generation Z attitudes, which are poor in general across the world, but from my experience it seems to afflict Hong Kong youth even more so than elsewhere, (b) the relative absence of Filipina, Malaysian, etc crew who in older generations of CX cabin crew helped bring up the average standard of due care and attention, and more importantly to take pride in a cabin crew role as a service culture rather than a McJob, and (c) the relatively low pay levels and reward/motivation/incentivisation mechanisms due to CX management polices.

jyh189

Completely agree with the comments in this thread, although I just returned on the weekend from BNE-HKG-TPE return and found the service levels somewhat better than before, but still hit and miss depending on the individual crew members.

Good:
- Crew in Y would conduct meal service with "May I offer you the chicken or the fish today?"
- Prompt responses to call buttons and willingness to action request

Bad:
- Crew who would respond to the call button by turning up at your seat and staring at you without saying anything, and then promptly walking off after you asked for something.
- Crew refusing to go to galley for a drink that was on the menu, but not on the cart.

Having said all this, it was all Economy travel so I wasn't expecting very much.

jyh189

As an aside, why is there the prevalence of Filipino / Malay employees in the older crew? I have noticed that as well but it never occurred to me that they are less prevalent in the younger rank.