Originally Posted by
tedhl
I'm also doing a trip there this coming weekend, Sat morning HKG-MNL and Sun afternoon MNL-HKG. I often read here how full the MNL flights could be and DM can easily get upgraded. but all flights are like F4 J9 Y9 the whole day both ways...very empty. maybe I didn't get the right flights, maybe Friday night and Monday morning are more full ?
I am not familiar with the MNL flights. However, I found that F4 J9 Y9 may not always mean difficult to upgrade.
For J9 Y9, Y can be full but there may still be empty seats in J that CX/KA wants to sell to Y - you can probably tell if it says Y9 B9 H0 K0. I got that several times on flights to TPE and PEK. I suspect the situation is the same for MNL. In fact I do not often trust why I see. There was a recent TPE-HKG flight that was J9 C9 D9 I9 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 M9 ... a few days before the flight. Then it became all 0s the day before (there may be a change in equipment). I was supposed to be on a later flight. I arrived at the airport early, and managed to waitlist on this one at check-in. I got on - J was half-full, and from what I could see, Y was full.
F4 J9 is a different story. There is still a chance if it is F4 J5. Flights to MNL are short enough that it probably does not matter.