Just out of curiosity, given HKG is only a few hundred miles away from TPE, if they had some 744ER, then they wouldn't need to stop? Although if you are talking about a stop in ICN, then I'm pretty sure even the 744ER wouldn't make it back to HKG unless it glides in.

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 4: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I guess it just not worth another subfleet of like 5 744ER for one route. It's only 1-2 months of each year you have such issue and CX is clear to go with 77W anyway

Then I wonder.

Why SQ and UA do not have such problem?

...no offense, but there isn't much to wonder about. I had it to me once on SQ2 in January 2007, back when they flew 747s on the route (they now fly 777s). Did a tech stop in TPE.

QF is the only airlines that has 744ER.

What I mean is when CX got diverted, why not their competitor have the same issue at the same time?

Route issue or load?

SQ now flies 77Ws on the HKG-SFO route. The 77Ws have the range to do the route non-stop except in the strongest of headwinds.

Neither!! Because they fly 777s (see my post)!

That's the tricky issue.

For the record (based on Wikipedia) - 744 max range is 7260 and 773ER is 7930.

So when SQ 773ER does not have fuel issue, it is understandable that CX 744 need to divert to refuel.

How about CX 773ER does not have fuel issue, but neither UA has (UA uses 744)?

As to why UA 744s never seem to divert, I believe it is due to weight. UA doesn't have PTVs in Y, which makes the planes that much lighter (PTV boxes and cables take up a fair bit of weight). UA 744s also have PW engines, which are slightly more fuel efficient than the RR engines that CX has on most of their 744s.

Yes - but UA has something more (which may balance out PTV) - Mail.

Looks like CX 873 which is the evening departure 744 flight SFO-HKG has done it again on 1/18 (TPE). So twice this week (1/16 and 1/18) so far ...

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/CPA873

Easy....they just simply offload the mail or denied boarding.... they would just decide which one is cheaper...

In the past, CX had cargo on passenger flights as well. I do not know if they do anymore.

In SFO lounge now. CX 879 is delayed an hour so we are told at check in.

Does CX overnight its plane at SFO for the 879 morning departure? If so, what might be the reason for the delay?

We are told that the arrival time would only be 25 minutes late at 7:05PM - yeah I will believe it when we actually depart at 1PM and do not need a tech stop.

As far as I know, CX VDB more pax than UA.