Two CX sales rep from the San Francisco office came over to our TA office today discuss what we can expect for 2011. They presented a slide show photos of the new business class through an overhead projector, photos which have already been posted here and their discussion with regards to the seat features as well as who and when will get them were pretty much on line with what has been talked about here. They also mentioned about the launch of ORD & RUH along with the additional flights to JFK/YYZ which have all been made public with an official press release from the company. But what was interesting were several other plans which have not been announced to the general public yet but are definately in the cards and likely to be the case which include:

• 3rd daily SFO flight by midde of fall 2011
• 2nd daily FRA flight by middle of fall 2011
• Re-launch of ZRH by end of 2011
• Re-launch of MAN by end of 2011

They did not mention about the weekly frequency for ZRH and MAN but hinted that they may be under the same flight by going HKG-ZRH-MAN-ZRH-HKG. We also did ask them about economy plus but at the end of the day, they were still unable to confirm when and if this indeed a 100% go.

wow third SFO flight!
SFO flight is over-sold a lot again during these students-travel high seasons.
my facebook is flooded with my NorCal friends saying CX offers to compensate them $400 and J upgrade; asking them to come back tomorrow night lol

It is about time that they relaunch the service between two major financial centers ZRH and HKG. There is curently only one daily operated by LX with a small plane (A340) and that is often oversold in premium cabins.
But there must be some "political" issues as LX withdrew from China and does not seem to be able to get Chinese rights anymore.

2nd daily FRA is also partial relaunch (used to have 10/week!)

I believe it is due to LH, nothing political. LH 's strategic planning want to make Frankfurt and Munich a Chinese route hub for LH group (LH, OS, LX, BMI, SN Brusseles...)

rather than a second flight to a severely congested and dysfunctional airport (FRA) wouldn't have been better to get a daily to MUC?

+1

SR withdrew from China before it went bankrupt and became LX. Their departure from China did not go smoothly and created some ill feeling (that's according to the local regional manager at the the time, no personal evidence).
But your LH argument is probably valid. That does not explain why CX has not restored a flight to ZRH.

LX have been flying daily ZRH-PVG-ZRH for a couple of years now, also on an A340. I don't see them having any problems obtaining rights from China.

I'm also mystified as to why CX don't fly to ZRH when they do serve MXP, for example.

SQ fly MAN-MUC-SIN and I could see this approach working for CX, using ZRH as the stopover point. CX would also be allowed to carry local traffic on ZRH-MAN and vice versa.

Indeed, silly of me regarding PVG.

One of the reason that CX made a strong case to offer the 3rd daily on SFO, it could be due to when SQ decided to lower its capacity between HKG & SFO when they stopped flying the 744 back in 2009 Jan & deployed the 77W. SQ HKG Station Manager spoke to me that SQ was loosing revenue on this route long ago, I said to him "How come?" when most of the time I'm onboard on SQ2/1, both F & J were almost 90% full & Y was 100% all year round. Then he gave me the replied was most of the F & J were on redemption, then the Y was codesharing with Air India so SQ had to pay the revenue back to Air India. I told him that it's very pity to see SQ no longer playing strong on HKG & SFO anymore, unlike in the 80's where SQ is offering 1 stop in Honolulu onward to SFO or change another SQ plane to LAX (flight from SIN via TPE).

With a report stating that the 77Ws are to replace the 744s it means eventually SFO is likely to become an all 77W operation as well which is in-line with another previous report that all NAs are to be operated by 77W. So perhaps the 3rd daily will be there to make up the extra capacity that will be lost from the 744.

Well for long haul routes, CX has often been known to increase frequencies to existing routes before adding a new destination. For example, look at how many years they have spent in increasing frequencies after frequencies to the existing NA destinations (all of which have been around for 12 years or more) before finally launching the ORD route.

The difference in pax is only 78, so even if two 744 become 77As there is a 156 seat reduction. The third 77A would still mean an increase of 145 seats or 19% increase.

Wouldn't a flight to MAD make sense also (massive OW hub there)