I have recently arranged for an elder family of mine who is in her 70s to fly J from PEK to MEL on CX391/CX135. but due to an extended 4 hour delay, they arrived at HKG at 8pm, well past the departure time for CX135.

I have personally been on those connections and the standard drill is simply to change us to the following flight CX105 to MEL. but I was surprised when I learnt that they were rescheduled to the Qantas flight to MEL instead. but what was more outrageous is that their original BP was simply replaced by a QF boarding pass in economy!!! without any notice, apology, or explanation. and they were virtually dragged to the gate to make the connection.

during their delay at PEK I did go into MMB to find that they were rescheduled to the next CX105 flight to MEL with confirmed seats and there were indeed plenty of seats in J on that flight. I can totally understand the need of rescheduling someone onto a different airline or even downgrade them if necessary. But really? Dragging two elderly passengers and downgrading them to Y on a long haul flight without even saying a word?

Thank you for all your time in reading this long post and I'm really interested to hear if you guys have ever encountered something like this. And if so, what were the end result? should I send in a complaint to CX for compensation?

It should be in J class. Did u get in contact with your elderly pax to find out what happened? Maybe they insisted to leave earlier and only Y class is offered?

None of that happened. They were simply taken to the QF gate to board the flight without any notice whatsoever of the downgrade nor the switching of companies.

To be honest, I've never encountered anything like that in my dozen years flying with CX. I was really disappointed by how everything was handled in such unprofessional way. As if nothing out of the ordinary have happened. Literally, they wouldn't have known a thing if I didn't tell them that they should be flying in J. And they only realized that they have been downgraded after boarding the QF plane and finding their seats.

There must've been a mix up. U def should write in.
The diff between J and Y should be refunded + compensation

The strange thing is that when I visited MMB during the delay, I did see the itinerary change to the later CX opperated flight in J and a close look at that also indicated that there are plenty of seats available in J on that flight. So I wonder what have happened there to cause them to not only downgrade someone, but completely reroute them to a different airline which I believe is highly unusual with CX

It is highly unusual, Simeon must accidentally screwed up. U better better email CX ASAP. With all the facts and not emotional. They r really good at make good and this def needs to be looked at

Both times that CX rule 80ed me while I was in J, they screwed up with the next carrier and issued a Y boarding pass. Once I pointed out to the agent that I was in J, they both got switched (after a bit of a wait) for me. I don't think this is a new problem, but a continuation of an existing one.