Winter 2011 - reduction in CDG flights?
 

I noticed that from November onwards Cathay schedule shows only one daily flight between HKG and CDG (CX260/261). Other direct flight CX278/279 will be discontinued and also CX270/271 will stop doing the 3 times a week visit to CDG.
I was suprised to see this, because was under the impression that Cathay needed extra capacity to Paris, hence the CX270/271 addition to schedule.
Did not find any info about this in Flyertalk but still hope that this has not been discussed here earlier.

Indeed, only 260/261 seem to survive after Nov 2011. The French website used to advertise the news of two daily flights, but that has been removed. I heard that the flight via AMS was not a success (AMS seems to be keeping daily 74A), but why remove the additional A340 (thrice weekly)?
VERY bad news.

Sorry to interject again. But the reduction from the current two daily HKG-CDG to only one daily in winter is a great (unpleasant) surprise. Anyone has insight on why this drastic cut in capacity. Any other information on changes in winter longhaul schedule???

Maybe CX is moving the aircraft to more revenue-generated routes like North America? Seeing how CX lost a bunch of money this year that they could be desperate and wants to tap the lucrative NA market now rather than wait for the delivery of new 77Ws

CX278/279 was served by two class A340-300, so not itself useful for NA routes due to lack of first class, I would guess. Maybe some other route will get A340-300 to release 777 for NA-routes, how knows? As Brunos said, Amesterdam still have 747 for winter schedule.

Rome FCO is getting less flights too...
The 25 years old daily flight will see many scheduled cancellations during the upcoming winter season :(

I wonder if that has to do with Milan MXP being daily now...

Yes it is a shame to see FCO being cut to 5x weekly. I remember not so long ago, the 747 was used during peak seasons. Im sure this is correlated with the increase in capacity at MXP. I heard that some people who used to take the FCO flight, originated in MXP, so now they have nonstop, no need to come down to Rome. To be honest, Milan benefits from the big fashion industry, the tourism and all the business traffic to and from MXP. FCO I think is mostly a leisure destination.

Rome really needs to clean up its image. I was planning a Europe trip and everyone with experience in tourism in Europe told me to stay away from Rome!

Also FRA only one daily flight nowadays. Schedules are good from HKG aka night flight but the 1pm departure time from FRA really inconvenient. Would much prefer an evening departure around 8pm.

Yes it would be good if CX would increase FRA up to 10x weekly.


On another note, I think most extra capacity to Europe is cut during winter months. Im sure CX will bring back capacity to CDG in peak summer season. Perhaps just up to 10 or 11 x weekly. It will be interesting to see though, if Rome will come back to daily this summer, or if it will continue to remain a very thin 5x weekly route.

i totally disagree with this!
what you see in rome is the same in many parts in southern europe as well (aside from tourist spots)!

I'm afraid that CX has been losing markets share at FCO, and quickly, as a carrier towards APAC. In W11, FCO will have a steady growth towards this region: new routes / new carriers / additional capacity. Traffic is increasing fast but competition is really tough and basically the only airline stepping back is CX. For instance, I wonder how many pax to Australia they lost to Emirates, Qatar, MAS, etc...

I don't think that MXP is the issue: it's just an additional issue. It has barely half of the traffic of FCO, and pax for business ar just a fraction of those at FCO. But for CX, MXP is maybe a sort of safer harbour, with less competition and more cargo.

Furthemore, CX belongs to Oneworld and this alliance is very weak in Italy. The CX local marketing&pr is very poor in Italy and when it's focused on business, mainly targets exporting SMEs in the manifacturing industry - good luck nowadays!
With the start-up of the new route, the marketing of the local team - mainly based in Milan now - focused only on this route and totally neglected FCO. Not surprising at all, it's a tipical local approach over there...

Seriously, it's much more common the Qantas logo in Italy, and QF only codeshares with CX, than the CX logo itself!

If CX doesn't change something or somebody in Italy, I see issues for the time being, unfortunately.

AMS capacity reduction
 

Latest slot allocation list of AMS shows A343 3 days a week (and the return flight to HKG has been re-timed and leaves approx 1.5hrs earlier than original)

D AMS CX270 30OCT 23MAR 0030507 283 343 1135 HKG HKG
D AMS CX270 31OCT 24MAR 1204060 379 744 1135 HKG HKG
A AMS CX271 30OCT 23MAR 0030507 283 343 HKG HKG 0550
A AMS CX271 31OCT 24MAR 1204060 379 744 HKG HKG 0520

Very interesting news. Cathay booking still shows 747 every day, but first class not available on wed,fri and sun flights so it really looks like reduction in AMS service as well:td:

I'll be travelling Cathay first class AMS-HKG-AMS in november. Luckily 747 service remains on the days I am scheduled to travel. Hopefully no more changes coming up... I have not yet received any info about the new departure time.

On the flipside services are being ramped up to south west Pacific in line with previous nothern winters. Extra frequencies to both Perth and Auckland; and Adelaide and Melbourne get a small jump through Adelaide being delinked three days a week to create separate HKG-ADL and HKG-MEL vv returns on those days.