Originally Posted by
kaka
...
You have a decent shot of getting that WL cleared. May is not a very busy month for LHR.
Sadly, since QF/BA moved their flights from SYD/MEL to T3 from T4, the immigration queues have been very long in the morning. I use IRIS which gets me through in about the same time as the e-channels do in HKG. I'm not sure why you're so stressed about this point though...
CX255
may have a mixed HKG and LHR based crew, but only in Y and never in premium cabins. CX253 is 100% HKG based crew. And no, it is highly unlikely that there will be a last minute aircraft substitution for this flight.
If you could fly CX F then by all means go for it. I'm sure the C product on NZ is very good, but remember, at the end of the day, F is F!