Originally Posted by
CrazyJ82
I don't understand why people are so quick to dismiss the pax complaint about the connection time. If CX sold that as within MCT, it shouldn't be up to the pax to be savvy enough to second guess it. Most of the world isn't on FT and takes airlines at their word on these things.
Perhaps there's an expectation gap here.
Certainly we here have the concept of "sane" (and insane) MCTs.
But even to the casual traveller, is MCT supposed to mean the airline thinks:
- "we think it's sane. It'll be a service failing of ours if it isn't"; or
- "we think it's physically feasible, provided things go your way. If it doesn't, we'll fix it without cost to you"?
Originally Posted by
CrazyJ82
I'm still surprised after all these years that CX doesn't set a longer MCT for ex-mainland connections since the reliability is so poor. The reason presumably is so that CX can offer a greater illusion of convenience at the booking stage by displaying short connection/travel times to the unwary.
Setting longer Mainland MCT will be explicitly saying Mainland air traffic reliability is not good <-- politically infeasible.
Maybe (quietly) pad PRC flight schedules better like HX moving forward? And revise when circumstances improve. Probably best option out of a bad bunch.
Originally Posted by
CrazyJ82
And since part of the deal with an MCT is that the airline commits to rebooking if you do miss the connecting flight, CX's struggle to do that here with any sort of smoothness or convenience for the pax isn't excusable.
The end result isn't really too bad - OP got rebooked onto next
CX flight, 9 hours away.
OP appears to have initiated both requests for special treatment (lounge and upgrade). I'm not sure any other airline will be more accommodating in practice (definitely not in policy).
And asking for a full refund after a 9 hour delay in a transcontinental trip is quite rich.