Here is the report I promised you guys back in December about the CX889 canceled flight. My trip originated from Columbus, OH. Since there was no direct service from CMH to JFK on AA. I had to go through RDU. I tried to write this trip report in a very short time. Please excuse my writing if I made any grammar or spelling mistake. Please give me some feedback and response.

Dec 9, 2002; CX 889 JFK – HKG via YVR
Depart 10:15pm (Cancelled)

I arrived at JFK from RDU around 8:30pm. I went straight to the BA terminal and checked in to my CX flight. There were many people waiting at the gate and the CX 747-400 was there at the gate already. At 9:30pm, an announcement was made that CX 889 would be delayed for 2 hours due to technical difficulty. After the announcement, the CX F/As and pilots left the plane and went to the food court to buy dinners. An hour later, another announcement was made. This time, the gate agent told us that the plane could not be fixed and passengers should go down to the check-in counters for hotel arrangement. I was the first one who went down to the check-in counters and no body was there. The rest of the passengers were behind me running toward the counters. 15 minutes later, a BA gate agent came to the counters and was totally clueless what was going on and what was her supposed to do. Several more BA agents came after her as well as the BA airport manager. The agents were trying to take care of the passengers whose final destination was YVR first, but they did not succeed because many other passengers ditched in. The situation was pretty chaotic. Me and the rest of the passengers waited for almost 1 ½ hours and the agents were still helping the YVR passengers. While I was waiting, I heard from other passengers that they saw fire truck escorting the CX plane when it landed. Apparently, there was an oil leak from one of the engines. It made me wonder why the BA agents didn’t plan ahead for the aftermath if they knew there was serious problem with the flight.

At 12:00am, the BA manager finally told us to pick up our luggage from the baggage claim and to take the hotel shuttle bus to the hotel (Radission JFK). The manager told us that there was no way they could reschedule our flights because the CX office had already closed (why didn’t he tell us earlier). I was given meal vouchers (dinner, breakfast and lunch) upon check-in to my rooms. The Radission was okay. Basically, it was a nicer version of a Howard Johnson, nothing fancy. One interesting thing was that it was next to a Salvation Army which was converted from a Hilton.

I woke up pretty early the next morning and waiting to call the CX office (it opened at 6:30 Pac. time). I got a hold of a CX agent on the phone and she told me she would call me back later because she needed some time to reschedule my flights. I stayed in my hotel room until noon to wait for the phone call and still hadn’t heard from her. So, I went to the lobby to get some lunch. At the lobby, I asked other passengers if they heard from CX yet. They said they were already rescheduled to a later flight on BA to LHR and onward to HKG. They also said all passengers needed to meet at JFK at 2pm to reschedule and reissue their tickets. Fortunately, I came to the lobby to ask people; otherwise, I would have missed all this important information. After I finished my lunch, the CX reservation agent called me back. She rescheduled me on CX 829 from YYZ to HKG that night. The only problem was I needed to go back to the BA counter at JFK to get my ticket issued and then took an AA flight from LGA to YYZ since there was no AA flight from JFK to YYZ. I told her there was no problem for me to take a taxi to LGA. After the call, I took the hotel shuttle to JFK and waited for 2 hours in line at the BA ticketing counter to get my new ticket. Those BA agents were the slowest and the least efficient workers on earth. It took them at least half an hour just to help 1 passenger. While I and other CX passengers were waiting, the JFK CX manger came out to apologize to the passengers. He told us that this (serious technical problem) had never happened in his 7 years tenure at CX. He also said CX had to fly a new engine to JFK from HK to replace the bad one.

After I arrived at YYZ and checked in to the CX829 flight, I was so glad to see these efficient and friendly CX ground agents as opposed to those lazy and grumpy BA ground agents at JFK. While I was checking in my flight, I asked the CX agent if it was possible to get an upgrade for only CAN 900. She told me this special only occurred when there was overbooking in economy class which it didn’t happen that night.

I don’t know if it is a mistake, my AAdvantage account was later credited with both of the CX829 and CX 889 flights. As you know now, I never actually took the CX889 flight.