Originally Posted by
ritesa
From March 24, 2018, the only routes with F availability to HKG are HND (CX549) and NRT (CX521). [MENTION=155338]QRC3288[/MENTION] stated that "CX only guarantees short haul F to/from HND on CX548/549". Does this mean that NRT is much more at risk of being swapped?
CX520/521 is another pair of guaranteed F (4-class 77W)
I have a theory. This may be part of a big change in CX short-haul equipment allocation.
CX is having an excess of longhaul J equipment (namely the A330s coming off Australia and South Asia duties), while some of the B-LA* is leaving the fleet. The very expensive long-haul seats that they carried would likely be handed down to some other regional A330s. (Quite unimaginable if CX just give up these expensive and perfectly good seats)
The regional A330 is becoming a very small fleet in CX, if the speculation on their receiving hand-me-down seats becomes reality, coupled with a few transfers to KA, the regional A330 fleet can be completely gone in a couple of years.
Sampling quite a number of post-March A330 regional schedules, I see that a majority of them are scheduled to carry the longhaul J seats. They do not seem to be mere placeholders as I can still see some regional J A330 rotations and some 772/773 there. This can be indicative of CX putting the longhaul-configured A330s on a large number of regional runs.
Although this is just some wild speculation (CX is just so famous for last minute equipment swaps), hope CX can be sensible and make best use of its excess longhaul J seats.