It saddens me to say it, but yes CX does seem to be losing the consistency that it had in First from 2000 (when I first had the pleasure) until perhaps 12-18 months ago. Personally I am writing up my experiences for CX and sending them in every few months because being HK-based and with no plans to move elsewhere I really have no choice so I need to try to help them get back to where they were.

I'd be curious to know the background of the crew you had. I have to say that I think there are two key factors in the decreasing consistency (and hence average quality):

1) The rushing in of the LHR base and crewing whole aircraft from it. This means that you get crew in the F cabin with only a few weeks on CX and many of them simply don't get what the CX F experience is supposed to be like. Previously, F would only be crewed by people with several years experience in CX.

2) In Asia CX now only recruits HK Permanent Residents for cabin crew. In my view this is a HUGE mistake. It is absolutely clear to me that a large proportion (probably the majority) of the really good F crews that I have had the pleasure of being served by over the years were from places other than HK. Most of the Japanese were superb, as were many Filipinos, Indians, Singaporeans and others. I'm not saying that HK Chinese can't do a great job - many of them do, but somehow, particularly when you have a team which is entirely HK Chinese (which is more and more common these days) the whole experience is just missing something. I really don't know how this could be fixed: I understand that the decision was driven to some extent by a tightening of Immigration rules in Hong Kong, making it hard for CX to justify recruiting non-HK Chinese and basing them in HK, although for some reason they don't seem to have the same problem with pilots. Maybe we should be writing to the Immigration Department as well as CX?

Regrattably I now seriously consider BA and QF on the London run when possible (schedule- & price-wise) - if you'd told me 3 or 4 years ago that I'd be doing that I'd have said you were mad.