Yea, 0pct chance I'd book that if I needed to be somewhere. I'd just chalk the experience up to a relatively infrequent flier at least for this type of itinerary.

It's tough from all angles. There are passengers who legitimately have no clue and expect everything to work out because the airline sold the ticket.

​Then there are others who know damn well 50 mins is tight, sXXX can happen, but book it assuming they can play the card in the paragraph above because the airline has no way of distinguishing who is phony in their argument and who is genuine. I could see more than a few family members making a dumb connection like that.

I definitely feel for the OP that reroute sucks, although CX did a good job proactively offering the free hotel and rebooking to CDG, which as implied above is definitely the fastest reroute given the circumstances. MAN is nearly the last longhaul of the night.

i don't really know what could be done better. For ex-China flights I think it's a real shame the MCT isn't increased. Mainland China is simply a joke with delays. But for most other routes, CX is very good about keeping schedules, although sXXX happens from time to time.