Cathay1101

Hey all,

With a considerable price gap and the ability to earn OW points on QR; my family have elected that flying QR and the CX codeshare on the return is the most cost-effective manner in which we can get back for the summer in J.

Conscious of the fantastic hard & soft products QR provide, I immediately assumed a well-equipped aircraft would serve HKG, especially considering the calibre which CX push for the route, and I'm sure feeder market share is competitive from a fast-emerging Asian market?!

Anyway, having recently gone onto MMB to input numbers, I was astounded to find that an A332 serves the route. Seriously?! Singapore, Seoul and Bangkok all are fine with a 777 or A359, and they're sending A332's to HKG?

Anyway, I was confused. My question here really is, is there any way to predict whether we'll get a refurbed flat-bed aircraft, or perhaps by June we might see an overall equipment upgrade to the route itself?! Is this wishful thinking?!

Any thoughts appreciated. I'm fine with the A346 to LHR that we're connecting onward, it's a day flight and I expect it'll be perfectly adequate. Just surprised you wouldn't offer a flat bed for HKG!?



Many, many thanks in advance. Excuse the hint of HKG-based DYKWIA Snobbery!

TheDinge

Its impossible to predict whether the A332 would be refurbished or not, but the answer is usually yes.

I think CX limits the aircraft size of QR815 to maintain their own flight to DOH as a condition of letting QR to joing OW.

And also QR is not a popular airline in HK, the European flight market is dominated by other South Eastern and European carrier and EK for some reason. Also 卡塔爾 is so small and unpopular, it also sounds like a scary and chaotic African country in Cantonese lol

I highly recommend you to switch to the 1 hour later A380 flight if possible, the hard product is so much better and it allows you to take a shower in the lounge. I usually sleep for 2 to 3 hours on the second leg despite its a day flight because the first leg is not long enough for a full night sleep.

1010101

I would certainly try to swap on to the CX codeshare if you can.

It's been mentioned that CX are stopping them swapping to a larger aircraft, but the 787 has less capacity than the 2 class A332 that usually gets sent to HKG. There must be another consideration. It may simply be that CX mandate QR must use the same aircraft type as them.

I have my fingers crossed that once Singapore goes to the A350, that spare 787 will come our way.

TheDinge

I really don't want 787 to fly to HKG, it's THE worst aircraft in the fleet

The A332 is usually refurbished so I can't see any problem with it

Cofyknsult

...

That's an unusual commment and certainly not my experience. Any particular reason or justification for this?

1010101

Yes - the 787 is so much better than the A330s and even 777s. Unless you have a peculiar hatred for diagonal seats i cant think of any reason to think otherwise?

purple1addict

I guess it comes down to which class you're flying... I've flown the 787 in J class (one of the best layouts alongside the A380 and A350) and in Y class, which I definitely consider the worst layout of the entire fleet.

TheDinge

Its such a pleasure to have Mr purple1addict on my side.

To justify, B787 has the smallest Y class seats across the whole fleet. Y class is in 3-3-3 layout so window seats are less desirable whereas it's fine on 330/340

zehbra

Completely agree (apart from the "Mr" ), it seems they wanted to go all out in J, but with heavy cost for Y PAX...
there was a time when QR was quite proud to also offer a good hard-product in Y (777 comes to mind..), but i guess even-more-cramped layouts are the way to go for Y, not just for QR.

TheDinge

well...I would choose to blame Boeing because 787 is generally crap no matter on which airline

777 is designed to be about 9.3-seat-wide so only a minority of airlines would choose to round the number of seats up (AF,EK,MU). Leaving QR to round it down which makes the seats wider

787 is designed to be 8.8-seat-wide so only JAL and ANA(I think) chose to put 8 seats across each row, which is quite expensive, the layout encourages airlines to try to round the number of seats up rather than down.

btw I made up the '9.3' and '8.8' but thats close to the truth

1010101

I suppose many on here do tend to forget about Y sometimes, obviously myself included

purple1addict

^



Haha - I wish I had the luxury to forget about Y

I wonder if QR has realised the brand damage caused though (terrible reviews on Skytrax etc about the 787 Y cabin) as they seem to be heavily promoting the "Xtra Comfort" of the A350 Y cabin... Obviously (apart from FT of course ) the travelling public will normally fly Y and 3-3-3 on the 787 is not a 5 star product!

TheDinge

I would be really surprised if purple1addict is female, with top tier with two airlines and actively engage on a travelers' forum...

Can somebody tell me the truth?