CX and Hurricane Sandy
 

Hi All,

My parents are flying back from SGN to JFK via HKG on Monday in First Class. They are on the CX 840 for the HKG-JFK leg, which is scheduled to arrive at JFK at 8:15 PM.

There is a pretty serious hurricane moving up the Eastern United States and it is expected to severely impacting the NY metro area by Monday evening. It is entirely possible, if not likely, that JFK and EWR will be closed to traffic beginning sometime on Monday through most of Tuesday (based on the storm surge predictions and JFK's location, flooding on the airfield cannot be ruled-out).

As of now, the flight is expected to operate normally. Does anyone know if CX is likely to cancel a flight if there is an expectation of the arrival airport being closed at the time of arrival (I expect JFK will be operational when the CX 840 is scheduled to depart HKG)? If they do operate the flight, does anyone know if there is a pre-selected diversion airport if the NYC airports are shut down? If this were to happen, how should F pax expect to be treated (put up in a hotel)?

Thanks!

I was scheduled on CX840 two summers ago when Irene hit NYC. CX canceled all flights leaving that day, so you could imagine the chaos. We were connecting from KUL; at check-in the station manager was extremely accommodating of our requests and, long story short, managed to get us onto CX840 the next day. We flew to HKG that day and spent the night there. I assume CX added extra flights to JFK over the following days in order to clear the backlog. FWIW, our party was two SLs in J (on a companion award ticket) and two AMs in Y, and all four of us got out the next day. The KUL station manager could not have dealt with us better; big thumbs up to her and the rest of the ground staff there for handling our complicated booking and being so understanding.

I was in the same situation last year during Hurricane Irene. CX F MNL-HKG-JFK.
All flights to JFK of my day of departure were cancelled. There was a notice not to board the MNL-HKG sector and in fact, not to try over the the next two days, due to the backlog in HKG. "Passengers headed to JFK will not be allowed to board MNL-HKG" or something like that. In short I was stranded. Since I'm from MNL, no need for hotel, but I had to cancel/shorten my NYC hotel stay -- they were understanding, no charges were made for nights not consumed. (No offer from CX to wait in HKG, or hotel in HKG.)

I would recommend giving details to local CX office. They were the ones who arranged for the next available flight, and kept calling/updating me. (CX MPO were useless as they were swamped.) It took about four to five days for things to get back to normal. I was accommodated on a special "extra" flight, three days after my scheduled flight. (Only me in F, so that was great.)

I would also recommend being ready to depart at any time they call. They kept saying "nothing available" then suddenly on the morning of the second day, they called and said, can you be at the airport in an hour?? We have an extra F seat in both MNL-HKG and HKG-JFK! Since I wasn't ready, I had to let it go.

Your experience may vary, of course. Are they DM? Maybe they'll be treated better if they insist? Doubt if they'd get extra hotel though as this falls under "an Act of God."

Good luck...

Thanks guys.

Parents have no status. Just F pax on AA award tickets.

CX has now cancelled the CX 830 on 10/29 and CX 888 on that day will only operate to YVR. As of now CX 840 is still scheduled, but I think it is only a matter of time until it gets cancelled.

Ideally, I would like for them to get to HKG and then figure it out from there, but it sounds like CX policy is to hold pax at their origin until they can get them all the way home.

We'll see.

Any reason why they can't divert to ORD if JFK closes and put people onto AA as needed?

Usually CX divert to YYZ if there is a problem in JFK whilst flight is enroute, although now that ORD is an online station flights can technically divert there too. YYZ is usually chosen as it has a much more similar flight path to JFK especially if polar route is being used.

I think however, ever since the JFK snow storm, CX now have a policy to preemptively cancel JFK flights rather than let them fly and require diversion/long time waiting on tarmac on arrival.

An example can be seen here, CX888 tonight is only going to YVR, and CX830 tomorrow (29th) is cancelled. I guess CX will make a decision tomorrow morning(29th) as to whether or not to cancel the CX840.

For CX it is very difficult to assess the situation in New York because they have to predict what the situation will be like 16 or so hours later when one of their flights is due to land. I think CX is partly choosing to cancel because New York transit is scheduled to close down Sunday night, meaning even if flights can land on Monday morning, there might not be any ground transportation.

Is it too late to reticket to ORD, and have AA add a ORDLGA segment (no extra miles required)? Or SFO?

American on 10/29
 

American has cancelled most of the flights out of JFK and LGA for 10/29. Looks like that if you want to do the ORD flight you better leave today.

With New York starting to close down, and ground transportation gradually unavailable form 7:00pm tonight, I wonder if there is a chance CX may have to divert the currently operating CX840 (arriving in 5h19mins) at about 8:20pm NY time.

If this happens, tonights CX889 JFK-YVR-HKG will get cancelled. Interesting to see what will happen.

Bloomberg has pretty much shut down the city at 7 p.m. tonight. If you don't have a ride, you are in trouble when you arrive to JFK as there will be absolutely no ground transportation. Taxi might not even be available because they are regulated by ground transportation personnel, who are going home at 7 p.m. You might get those unofficial taxis, but they might jack-up the price to take advantage of the situation. I feel sorry for the pax on that inbound CX flight that has no pick-up arranged...

Are you in NYC at the moment? Can I ask what weather situation looks and feels like at the moment? Im wondering if flights will still operate out of JFK tonight including CX889.

Contact
 

Is there any contact number for change of flight. I keep getting the office is closed.

I'm in NJ, closer to the storm right now than NYC. It's cloudy, that's it right now. Actually a nice fall day. Not windy, not too cold. Just...clouds.

UPDATE: CX840 on 29th October has been cancelled
 

CX have updated their cancellations for JFK to include CX840 on 29th Oct as cancelled.

http://www.cathaypacific.com/cpa/en_HK/specialupdates

Cancellations so far:

Sunday 28th Oct
No Cancellations yet, all flights operating normally, but the status of CX840 (arrives 20:20 local time) and the return CX889 that departs JFK at 11:00pm may be in question.

Monday 29th Oct
CX888 YVR-JFK (Flight operating to YVR only) CX889 JFK-YVR Cancelled (The Tues 30th YVR-HKG Sector still operating)
CX830 HKG-JFK and CX831 JFK-HKG
CX840 HKG-JFK and CX841 JFK-HKG

Tuesday 30th Oct
Pending, no cancellations yet, but depending on conditions, more cancellations could follow

Trying to work out an alternative.

My parents want to get to Hong Kong as scheduled and then be better positioned to figure it out from there. CX in HKG is not 24/7 and CX in the USA is not open on Sundays.