QRC3288

Great point.

The current regional biz product is such a failure. And I guarantee CX is losing yield from pax like me - decide our spend - on account of it. It's possible I'm irrelevant in the scheme of things, because HK-based corporates will just pay for J. In this case the Managing Director, who has little discretionary power of his own but has been guaranteed biz class in his contract, has been given what he is "owed" by his bank, who no doubt negotiated a nice corporate discount. In this case where the "customer" (the MD in my example above) doesn't really have the actual say in "his" spending decision, the product is destined to be not as good. But it doesn't explain everything.

If I'm forking out a thousand or two USD for biz, I've been picking SQ down to SIN (at least for my last two trips). I buy CX for the cheaper seats, aka a discounted J fare or Y. Seriously. Their pricing isn't very different yet SQ offers a superior regional seat apples to apples, and most importantly guaranteed longhaul J and F if I decide I want that (SQ2/1 on 77W in the morning/evening, the A380 flight midday, and another 77W roundtrip each afternoon, in addition to somewhat more variable 772, A330 and A359). CX cannot guarantee you the longhaul plane.

So....You must just assume you're getting CX regional J. And how is that even a choice at equal prices?!

Ironically, I remember my first trip or two in new regional J. I liked it. Power ports, superficially looks good, etc. Just shows how misleading a single impression or two are. After now far too many flights to count, I feel very comfortable saying this is hands down the WORST CX development I've seen in my 10 years flying them. I've seen the new F rollout (awesome), coffin J (good idea, perhaps not ideal), fabric issues with coffin J, Cirrus J (excellent), old "new" regional business class which was halted (you know that seats with the electric controls vs manual ones, this was a failure but the "improvements" so incremental that I don't call this a catastrophe as much as it was just sorry), shell Y (bad, but I give them credit for trying something innovative, and admitting their mistake. It wasn't a terrible idea in theory and I like how they tried), the "new" longhaul Y which is now pretty rolled out across the fleet and seems good to me (admittedly, I am only familiar with it short-haul), the rollout of PEY which I think is a solid hard product, and now 35G, with its new Y seats, new PEY seats and refreshed Cirrus which has manufacturing issues. Anyway my point is:

All the good and bad in the paragraph above, I think this regional business class is easily the worst development CX did in ten years. Part of it is made worse that it doesn't seem to be a high agenda item. At least with the fabric on Cirrus J, or this 35G biz seat issue, the complaints are at a fever pitch and picked up by the media who help amplify, and CX addressed and fixed the issues. These regional biz seats are just quietly bad and....2019???. I watch my own spending, and I do at times pick other regional carriers in J just because I can be guaranteed a nicer seat.