Originally Posted by
david_oz
Sorry, but I disagree. The point isn’t whether or not I need a flat bed for a two hour flight. Nobody “needs” to travel in business class at all, let alone in a bed. The point is that CX loaded their schedule months in advance with multiple A350 flights advertising a certain standard of product (lie flat beds, brand new plane). Now, precisely zero of those flights will be with the advertised product. If they aren’t prepared to deliver on that promise, they should load their schedules with 777 and A330 regional business class instead. This seemingly goes way beyond a swap from time to time for operational reasons, there are six pages of comments on this thread!
the disappointment is that I had multiple options for this flight, and chose CX for the A350 business class product. Being based in North America, I’m pretty used to crap hard product, so this was supposed to be a rare treat. I’m not saying I won’t travel Cathay Pacific again, but I will only choose them if they win on price and schedule, because I won’t trust that the product I book is what I’ll get.
You live you learn.
EF or having equipment "loaded" in the schedule is irrelevant. Occasionally the bloggers seem to imply you can predict it too (writing trip reviews and saying they picked this and that flight for the product) don't help either. The reality is CX has always, for the decade I've been flying swapped regionally except the flights to/from HND, and prior NRT.
Personally, the equipment swaps regionally drive me nuts. I've moved most my Singapore business to SQ as a result.
I still fly CX a lot. But I know they don't protect the product regionally and buy accordingly. It's a lot easier once you don't expect it. But they certainly don't owe anything to you since they loaded it months in advance. It's just live and learn. I think they are dumb to do it but they don't seem to share my view.
Search around here for threads about people not getting regional F. They are abundant. Same situation. We also have a wiki Google doc with info about which routes have guaranteed longhaul J. See the wiki.