I flew CX 884 last week for the first time in about two years and was aghast at the change in the CX First Class product. These comments will be a little detailed but let me recap the experience. Admittedly some of the issues are small, some more material.

On boarding I attempted to hang my jacket in the suite closet only to find it stuffed with bedding. Asked a passing FA to please hang my jacket. She took the coat, jammed it into the closet, crushing it in the process, slammed the door and walked away.

The next conversation was not "Mr, jrussell may I get you some champagne" but a brusque "do you want something to drink". I was brought a glass of warm champagne, no nuts or olives, which was served on a flimsy paper napkin, no CZ padded coasters in sight.

Catering: I asked that my meal service be delayed about an hour but was told this is a short flight so meal service will begin right away.

The caviar plate consisted of less than a teaspoon of caviar and two paper thin slices of salmon the size of quarters. This was all consumed in two bites leaving the cold potato behind.

The soup was lukewarm to cold and the pasta burnt on one side. The dinner tray contained no salt or pepper and no water glass, only one glass for wine. I had been previously given a plastic bottle of water, which I placed on the dinner tray and drank from throughout the meal. This produced no notice (and no water glass) from the FA.

Dessert was listed as berries or hazelnut cake. I chose the cake , only to be told there was none, that only two had been loaded and since there were 5 F passengers, the cake was long gone. I was offered berries or a plastic tub of ice cream (presumably from economy).

The breakfast "freshly scrambled eggs" were somehow also burnt on the bottom like the pasta and the side dishes were not what was ordered. One cold croissant was placed on the tray but no butter, no jam, no honey. I asked for coffee but was told "I'll have to see". (The seat belt sign was off). I never got the coffee.

Cloth towels are long gone from the lavatories, having been replaced with coarse paper towels of the kitchen variety. The lavatories were never serviced throughout the flight.

Hot towels were offered at the beginning and end of the flight. There was no other towel service even before or after meals.

The language skills of the FA serving First were so limited as to make a conversation in English impossible. Communication was accomplished by pointing at the menu item and the FA would then hold the menu next to her order pad until she found a match.

Finally I waited 45 minutes for luggage at LAX. A CX baggage service agent finally found my First/Priority tagged bag in a pile of off loaded economy bags.

In my view, the experience was an embarrassment to CX and, to an extent, an insult to First Class passengers. (the last time I looked CX was asking USD10,800 for a one-way F ticket on this flight).

On this trip I flew QF (380,744), BA(773) and CX (773) long-haul First and QF wins by a mile, BA, with its dated product a very distant second, and CX isn't remotely in the running. What a change in two years time.

This goes against every single review of CX First class I have ever read, including very recent ones.

I would write to CX if I were you

+1 I've flow F on SQ, BA, LH and UA, and rank my recent CX F experience as the best. Sounds like you got a lousy FA or crew. I suggest writing CX about this.

+1, pls write to CX, have them looked into it. Or else someone will be suffering sometime.

Were you served by LAX-based crew? In my limited experience, I found them not on par with other CX crews.

I would just forward this thread to CX - that's just not a 5-Star airline service in F.

If they were LAX based, their English skills would not be that bad.

In any case, wherever the crew might be based, the service level in F should not be like that. I would write to CX.

I thought those eyesore encounters on the LAX route were limited to J & Y class as my only two excellent experiences on that route was when I flew them in F. But now even that eyesore could spill over to F as it has for the OP (albeit the OP's encounter could just be an isolated F incident).

Regardless of whether it is Y, J, or even F now, the complaints directed at CX on her LAX route keep piling on (from myself and others) with this just coming less than 3 weeks after someone's "What do you do when the cabin-crew has a bad day?".

Nonetheless this does nothing but reinforces my stand to avoid CX's LAX flights at all possible cost. Definately cannot underestimate the power of complacency when an airline has the monopoly on a particular route.

And it is more than just the where the crew is based at. My (and others') poor run-ins on this route goes way back before the establishment of the LAX-based crew.

Well LAX based F/As consists of a mix of crews from other Asian countries, but English competency should not be an issue. Given that - Hong Kong based F/As have suffered decline of quality as well!

Ice cream service has long been discontinued in economy class, so that ice cream tubs are for first and business class passengers.

No more nuts to go with pre-takeoff beverages! That has long been happened.

Catering flexibility - it is part of the CX F experience and HKG to LAX is not a short flight. It is just unacceptable.

Just curious why don't you call on the purser and discuss the list of issues?

I hope you are writing CX a letter!

Carfield

What a joke, you should write them. I personally had the worst-ever experience on CX earlier this year flying LAX-HKG (in J), with a HKG-based crew. Can't remember where I wrote about it but it was a disaster, and they were very rude.

I have found with LAX flights that there are number of usual suspects who almost every single month swap their flights for LAX routes. I had the same ISM on two LAX-HKG flights this year and asked her about it. Apparently there are a number of HKG-based (senior) flight attendants (SPs and ISMs) who have significant extended families in the Los Angeles area, and it's widely known among the CX FAs that they always will swap for the LAX flights. This confirms what I've heard from other employees at CX. Thus, given this plus the large amount of anecdotal evidence from posters here, it is possible that the LAX flights have a self-selecting bias due to this relatively limited bunch of FAs (my bad experiences on LAX flights have been dished up by HKG-based crew), the lot of them whom on average presumably offer terrible service. And since they're in a senior capacity, they influence the service on the entire aircraft.

I'm also amused how could CX884 even possibly be construed as a "short-flight"? It is I think the third-longest CX flight ex-HKG...I think JFK is #1, YYZ #2, and LAX #3 (although maybe with the winds LHR is #3)? LAX-HKG is indeed the third longest flight in the entire network (after JFK and YYZ).

Taking nothing away from the OPs problems, but I don't see how this is relevant. Do you think that management makes a decision about service cutbacks on one particular route because it has a monopoly? Do you think that the FAs know that there is a monopoly?

I have noticed this has become more common in 2010. But you can ask for more...

I am certain there are many cabin crews who are familiar with which carrier flies on what route. It has also been reported several times here and there that LAX is one of (or the most) hated long haul routes among the crews to be rostered in.

I have flown the 4 NA routes (the only exception being JFK) countlessly over the past 10 years and my experiences along with others who have reported back have confirmed that there are a lot more complaints and dissatisfaction on the LAX flights than the other NA gateways. My final nail in the coffin came in June 2008 on a HKG-LAX sector in J where the FAs were downright surly and meal service totally disorganized. After this incident I vowed never to fly the LAX flights again as my sample size of being a pissed off customer on this route became too big to ever risk another go. And my CX numbers between July 2008-Present proves so on the number of NA flights I have taken:
YYZ = 12
SFO =16
YVR = 4
LAX = 0

Sorry but there is just something not right when the complaints of onboard experiences exist a lot more on a particular route for a particular continent compared to other routes for the same continent so one can't help but speculate what can be when there is a monopoly.

As recommended by several posters, I will forward my comments to CX if anyone can direct me to an email address to Customer Service or a Senior Customer Service Manager. A thorough search of the CX website produces only a telephone or fax number.

As to other poster's comments, complaining to the purser would not have worked since the Purser was part of the problem. First was staffed by a Senior Purser and an extremely junior FA (with the language problem).

As to asking for things, if I had pursued this I would have had to ask that my jacket not be crushed into a closet already full of bedding, asked for nuts with my drink, asked for a water glass, asked for salt and pepper, asked for an adequate serving of caviar, asked for a adequate dessert, asked for a warmed roll, asked for butter and jam, and asked multiple times for a cup of coffee.

I suppose the point of my comments can be summed up by saying there was a time when one did not have to ask for anything in Cathay First.

Guy Betsy would you kindly handle this matter. In addition to the above post I have received a threatening, highly abusive and obscene PM from the above poster.