Originally Posted by
Platy
But there is an element of discrimination in your argument, if only to the extent that you do not consider that those who have bought these fares should have their contracts honoured. And the reason for that (apparently) is that you expect to be able to access an A class fare personally just when you want and the purchasing of a "mistake" from the airline is a good enough reason (in your personal perception) to put yourself apart from those folk.
Would you extend that argument to other forms of deep discounting - staff travel, a group discount, whatever?
The weakness in your argument is that your access to the A classic inventory is not a right, but rather totally subject to the commercial decisions / yield management strategy adopted by CX of which honouring the mistakes fares is just one element.
In any case, your fears may be somewhat over inflated:
1. The seats sold may not be in the numbers you fear
2. Many purchasers (accepting a strong US based audience of the frequent flyer blogs) may cancel once they confront the reality of two positioning flights, arranging the eVisa, etc., etc.
The latter case may even result in the release of an unpredicted bonanza of A class inventory in due course.
Your perfectly entitled to your position of course.
Briefly, to your well-reasoned reply:
I definitely don't extend the argument to other forms of discounting like ID, etc, and I think that's disingenuous. Why? Because those types of ticketing are well planned for. It is regular. This is a serious, unplanned for upset that significantly changes how I will have to travel this year, because it seriously upsets the way CX has been selling tickets in my nearly 15 years living in Hong Kong and buying these fares. Their perogative? Definitely. Disruptive to some of us very loyal passengers who rely on CX? Absolutely. End of world? No. Highly inconvenient? Definitely. Let me put it another way....there are consequences and losers in this game. I think it is us.
If CX said "we're letting all staff book into A fare going forward," I would expect I am equally in opposition. But that's obviously not what we're talking about here, so let's not stretch to make it so. Otherwise we can really argue anything.
I agree its not our right have A fares. If CX wants to, at any random moment they can sell (X) pct of any fare (Y, R, J, F). But if X = a big enough number to be highly disruptive to HK people's normal travel patterns and way of life, regardless of class, I do think some acknowledgement needs to be made of the disruption and unintended consequences / collateral damage of their decision.
I believe folks in Hong Kong - those of us who live here, work here, and must fly Cathay Pacific at least sometimes - are genuine stakeholders in Cathay Pacific. We live here for the most part, neighbors and friends are pilots, management and flight attendants, and some of us are genuine captives to fly CX a lot. The captive argument is a real one: we loyally contribute to CX, in part because we must(without seriously inconveniencing ourselves). Hell I have diversified a lot of business to JAL, Emirates and SQ mostly, but I still must fly CX to North America in particur if I am being honest with myself and my time.
CX has locked up a lot of HKG slots and also pulled some funny business with things like air certificates to India with the shameless dance with KA (pretending a different carrier), slots in Japan, and keeping LCCs out of HKG for years through meausres which can be fairly described as crony capitalism, at a cost to the local population. Our return for this is in theory a stable airline, nice airport, etc. But the last 6 years CX has really not kept up its end of the bargain, has been totally unstable. The local population, not the intl one (who appears to have disproportionately benefited here) does not pay the price for this poor management for the most part. the Hong Kong captive stakeholders do via fares, decline of MPC/AM, etc.. This is getting a bit out there, but I tink the loyal travelers to CX, particularly those in Hong Kong, have a real stake in CX, like any population does in a local airline that is given a de facto quasi monopoly. ANd this an airline that had demonstrated extremely poor management the last 5-7 years (fuel hedging being the most egergious, and costly measure), for which which stakeholders have all paid for disproportionately via crappy ex-HKG fares, staff who are disgruntled and didn't received wages to match inflation (and those staff don't just serve us, but they live next door and patronize local business), and other things.
I don't expect much sympathy. I am talking about paying for first class tickets and getting upgraded from paid J. But, still I see this as another mark where mostly overseas travelers benefit, at the expense of those (few) of us locals who pay the price. Again. And it's not like we had a hand in deciding this poor decision, but we bear the cost of it. The consequences would be far more apparent if CX accidentally sold half a million economy tickets to overseas travels by mistske for $10 instead of $1000 (instead of mucking up premium classes as they did), since then a lot of HK people legitimately wouldn't be able to fly to see family overseas, and it would be a helluva ruckus. But I see the logic as the same except we are talking about us pampered F travelers being disadvantaged.
i agree with all the rest of your logic and I am hopeful a) some positioning flights are too cumbersome, b) CX doesn't allow changing to other A fares (aka locking people in to the dates they booked), and c) the numbers aren't as high as some were speculating. Hopefully it's a manageable number.