After years of considering them the perfect airline, this time around I've found what seems like a huge gap - zero ground support when you need it.

We met them from BA at DXB the other day, and needed b/p's and baggage. At the transit desk, you'd swear they didn't fly there. Finally grabbed a local who told me to go stand in the nondescript general line. We got handled, got bp's, but one of our bags didn't make it. Three days later it's still bouncing around between the Middle East and Europe. No reply from CX, but Thai here is being a bit helpful. Some obvious CX ground staff at DXB would probably have made the problem not happen, as we were late inbound wasted half an hour.

Inbound to BKK, CX was almost an hour late. Not their fault, the airport closed due to "VIP movement" and we made ovals in the sky for a long time. But no one met pax, no one asked about cnx. No CX personnel anywhere visible. So we missed our onward. Someone in bag claim area said Thai handled them. Otherwise that was a big secret too. So we filed our missing bag (ex DXB) with them, they called our onward carrier, etc. Again, the absolute zero of CX personnel or any evidence of them was a huge negative to me.

But the inflight people continue to be well trained.