Seating Blocking in F?
 

Flying CX F for the first time on the 77W SFO-HKG in November. Just ticketed my flight, but when I went to reserve a seat online, only seat 2D is available. All of row 1 is open when I do a dummy booking on the website. Is there any way to get one of the row 1 seats? 2D seems like the least desirable seat in the cabin (yes I know, first world problem).

Did you check to see if it's the baby bassinet? They wouldn't release those for us.

Nope, looks like 2A and 2K are the bassinet seats. Row 1 readily available for selection with dummy booking. I'm flying 77W J as well on another leg and they always seem to block the first row of each cabin/mini-cabin. Any way to get around that too?

Good luck let us know how it goes. I suspect you'll have success in the F cabin moving around there are a lot of threads here describing people having success doing that.

I'm not sure how it works on 77W in J, but I can tell you I kinda hope it isn't released to the AA awards train...sorry! (making an assumption here). Regardless how it works out though let us know how it goes. There are so many seats in J and frankly, all of them are quite good. But indeed, in my book 11,12/A,K are my favorites, and I prefer A and K overwhelmingly as I travel solo.

My reasoning: I just swapped into an LAX flight (>72 hours out) that had just two or three seats left, I'm on a cash ticket in J, and I noticed that 11A/K were "occupied". However, without prompting MPC immediately called control, and row 11 was released to me as one of the last seats, and they specifically said "they're releasing it to you as a DM". I was very thankful, otherwise they were going to give me 24D (I'm traveling alone). It's a nice perk when it seems other benefits of being MPC are lost or diluted! Especially in J, it would be such a shame (in my selfish opinion) to be farming out those seats to enterprising AA members, especially since the marginal difference between, say 11A and 25A is very little, and it's a nice gesture towards MPC members to save 11A/K who are probably throwing cash CX's way at the last minute.

I just changed the date of my flight so the seat was unassigned- equip was originally a 744 and the new flight is on a 77W.

Everything except 2D was showing as unavailable. Checked expertflyer which showed 1K, 2A, 2K and 2D as open- called the MPC line and they selected 2A for me without any fuss.

Why, you don't want the unwashed masses in your preferred seat?

Not quite. Kindly read the rest of my post.

More like, it's a nice benefit for MPC (Cathay's "Marco Polo Club", their FF club) members to at least have some seats held back for either them or last-minute cash pax. What I'm proposing isn't exactly groundbreaking, BA does it in F (allocating certain preferred seats to their own members). It just doesn't strike me as completely fair that pax who book partner award seats 180 days out get the same inventory as someone from Cathay's own FF program (or last-minute cash pax). I'm not trying to be rude, it's just the way it is. If you were in Cathay's own program you'd probably have similar sentiments.

Cathay's F cabins don't seem to have seats held back, but in J on the 77W they do seem to sometimes not release 11A/K (which is what Iceman77_7 refers to, and what I'm talking about). Presumably it is for this reason (saved for MPCs). Nothing to do with "unwashed masses".

If by yourself row 2 is way better its got more room

Just having some fun... I love CX and choose it over AA (both in paid business and award F) whenever possible. I'm in the AA program for practical reasons, and will make EXP later this month with over 100K bis.

However, I am looking forward to my upcoming award trip in July: ORD-HKG-BKK R/T in F and J! ^

ironically, all my "wishing" for that seat 11A was completely eliminated with a flight to LAX yesterday.

I forgot that 77D now has the "soiled linens" bucket immediately ahead of 11A/D (right behind 2A in F), and there was a constant stream of flight attendants flying past my seat yesterday (11A) depositing linens in that bin. I have flown on 77D in F and elsewhere in J (my preferred seats have been 24-26A/K), but this was my first time flying the mini-cabin on a long-haul flight in 77D. This will probably be my last.

While you can sometimes hear FAs depositing the soiled linens through the curtains when seated in 2A (annoying if the FAs are rather clumsy), the constant stream of FAs past my seat 11A was VERY noticeable. It was an endless train that turned around right at my seat. I expect it to be worst for 11A and D, and bothersome for 12A/D as well. Nothing like the bliss of long-haul in the mini-cabin on 77A, where the soiled linen bin was behind (galley side) of 12A...a massive difference.

Interesting. I never have, and I've sat in 2A more times that I like. (My preeferred is 1A.) I was unaware of this issue until I read about it here on FT.

The first time I sat in 2A on 77D, I didn't know what "it" was but I became aware of something different as I was standing up and an FA's back end came through the curtain. The second time (admittedly, after reading it here) I figured out what was going on and was more aware of them rustling around behind the curtain. Frankly, it's not a huge disturbance in F.

Where I really noticed it, however was a few days ago in 11A. Wow! Granted, this was my first time in the mini cabin on 77D for a long-haul flight and maybe my crew was overly disorganized in throwing linens in there (it seemed like every flight attendant on the plane was making multiple trips up there). I normally choose the last few rows in J but this time the flight was packed, and CX control had blocked off 11A for last-minute (or MPC) tickets. I was looking forward to it going in (having many fond memories of long-haul mini cabin flights on 77A). But it was enough of an experience so that I will never select 11A/12A/11D/12D on 77D again if I can avoid it; I'm going right back to the last few rows of J class. They're good enough and were far more peaceful than 11A.

I can't help but feel bad for CX...the design of the new seat (IMO) is excellent, and yet somehow they were stupid enough to put the linen thing in a ridiculous position. Just really bad design. I guess they ran out of space by the galley?

Is this soiled linens bin a fixed, stationary thing which can not be moved? Seems like a very bad idea to place it where they did!

Yea, definitely cannot be moved. It is located on the "D" side, immediately in front of row 11.

Never mind, answered my own question with some more research.