I fly CX J several times per year between SFO and HKG. It is one of my favorite airlines and one of my favorite flights. I think the service is excellent, I like the herringbone seats, and appreciate that they acknowledge my Oneworld Emerald status (though this can get annoying as the third or even fourth person stops by my seat to thank me for my business).

What is incongruous is the challenge of getting a glass of wine refilled. Pre-dinner cocktails you get one "glass" which is actually a thimble, with no refills. OK, I think, they are busy getting dinner ready, they can't do refills (though even crappy AA somehow manages this). Appetizer, they fill the wine glass and after 5-6 sips it's empty again.

On my last flight, I asked if I could have the wine in one of the larger blue water glasses and the flight attendant just laughed as if I'd told the funniest joke ever, covering her mouth and then running down the aisle while I pondered my thimble of wine. It became sort of a game for me to see if I could outwit the system.

Finally I asked the lead attendant about the "featured wines" stuck into the menu and she brought me a thimble of one of those, a really nice Tuscan Chianti, much nicer than the other two options (California Cab or a French something). I told her how much I liked this and she said they had a "special" wine downstairs for first class and she brought me a thimble of that. An OK Malbec but the Chianti was better.

So, happy ending, so to speak, plenty of wine flowed after meal service, but it definitely took some work on my part.

I of course will continue to fly Cathay and will continue to ask for my thimbles of wine, just wondering if anyone else has noticed this.