Had ex-JFK flights operated the day before or were they cancelled? Since they arranged the cancellations well in advance, it's possible the first post-storm 831 was operated with a plane that had been on the ground in JFK for longer than usual.

For those getting out of hk tomorrow or wed, do let us know how busy/bad it is at the airport. I've got a flight to NRT thursday afternoon. A heads up reagrding the line would be appreciated. I think it was in 2008 when storm passed through either mon or tues and it was still a mess at the airport for my Sat flight. Airport was shut down for 1-2 days but it was also in the summer witht he summer olympic so things was probably a bit crazier then.

Two Usagi related observations:

- SGN check-in was dead calm, and almost empty. I was shocked, as the 7pm flight on Monday should have been the 1st departure from SGN - HKG since they cancelled flights. Check-in agent explained that they rebooked almost all transit pax to SQ, EK, JP & Korea airlines, etc . That;s pretty great, I think.

- I was flying on a upgrade (to J) award ticket, originally booked for Sunday. It was very hard (repeated calls, and escalation) to get off the waiting list on the Monday flight. Must be very full, right? J class was actually about 20% full. Odd.

I think the fact that operations restarted very smoothly is a sign that cancelling flights early worked in CX's favour this time.

For those still yet to be rebooked, according to scmp today -

Cathay Pacific will run one extra flight each to and from Taipei, Bangkok and Singapore and put bigger aircraft on services to Sydney, Tokyo and Osaka.

Dragonair will add a flight each on its routes to and from Shanghai, Qingdao , Sanya and Kaohsiung and fly bigger aircraft to Beijing and Fukuoka.


http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1316341/typhoon-usagi-kills-25-mainland-and-delays-flights-hong-kong

Curious to whether anyone has insight on the potential larger plane to be used for Sydney? A340 or maybe even a 77H?

Rare occasion for anything other than 33G's to be flying down under..

SYD got a 744, operating 138 back at 2155 this evening.

A340's are technically the same size as a 330 - with a different seat config to give about 20 more seats in a 3 class, but less premium heavy, config. Surprisingly, the 77H only has 275 seats, so that would've only given another 33 seats above the 33G normally used as well.

A 77G (340 new seats) probably would've been the best replacement, but CX doesn't have extra 777s lying around like they do the underutilized 747s.

So it's a 74A not 74K so they have to downgrade PEY pax. Also will be the first time the f class suites has flown downunder excl NZ

anecdotal evidences suggest most stranded pax just wanted to get home and the type of seat for a 8 hour flight was possibly least of their concern having slept on airport floor for a night + waiting inside a refugee camp.

Prob not applicable in SYD as I'm sure there are enough hotels to enable the pax to be accommodated.
But if you paid PEY will I be eligible for a refund?

I have been lucky that I have not encountered flight disruptions due to natural disaster until this time. I was able to secure the CX872 Wednesday morning back to SFO after a 2-day unexpected extension of stay in HKG. Glad to be home t last

I came back on CX278 on 23 Sep. Crew confirmed this is the 22 Sep stranded plane.

There were some stranded pax at service desk but I presume all got onboard as there were empty seats on my flight.

That is not correct.
The first CX flight SGN-HKG on Monday was CX766 11:25-15:20 (my daughter was on it). The aircraft used was the big plane of CX765 which arrived from HKG late Sunday and never made it back as CX764 that evening. CX766 was totally full.

I fully agree that having an early decision of cancelling flights departing/landing between 18:00 Sunday and 12:00 Monday made planning easier and reduced chaos. However I am a bit surprised by the general tone here that USAGI hardly disturbed pax and that there was no chaos at the airports. A lot of pax had to wait a day (or two) to fly, quite a few stranded at HKIA on connecting flights or with no hotel booking.

I was booked to fly MNL-HKG-LAX on Monday night, Sept 23.
had checked in a T -48 and printed boarding passes. Checked Monday morning and both flights were operating after resumption of flights.

Received multiple texts and emails from CX warning not to proceed to Manila Airport as they were not allowing connecting passengers to go to HKG. They were quite adamant. (I already had checked in and had boarding passes in hand, and manage my booking was showing the flights with my seats assigned

I decided to ignore them when CX could not find an acceptable alternative via Singapore or Korea as I would not take JAL or Philippine. I had also checked out of the hotel in the morning and not sure how keen would CX be to paying for the Peninsula for an extra night. (This is not weather related, the booked flights were operating on time, it was just CX that wanted less people in HKG)

Decided to go through security at MNL without checking in at the counter and boarded the plane with the BP I had printed. (Luckily no luggage)

No issues. The MNL Airport was not busier than usual, the MNL-HKG flight was perhaps 60% full. The lounge - WING -was not very busy, from 8PM to 11PM, and CX 880 HKG-LAX was perhaps 70% busy - only 1F passengers and many J class seats empty. It appears to me they overreacted and flew some planes emptier... I also question the legality of not allowing a confirmed passenger take a flight, not even oversold, that is operating just because the connection is in HKG.

At the end, arrival in LA was on time and the flight and crew great,

Ooops. My bad.

It sounds like hkg-kix flight this afternoon should be back to normal. I think they fly 3-4 flights to KIX so any back log would be resolved fairly quick.