Hello everyone,

I am flying PVG-HKG-LAX in early February, right at the beginning of CNY.

Booked CX882 in PE (E class) now I wanted to gauge the possibility of an OpUp, as it has happened a few times in the past, both as Gold and DM.

Looking on EF shows very different loads depending on the connection.
it varies between everything lower than Y being shown as waitlisted to everything except F, A and O showing 9.

Is this normal ?
How do others judge the situation ? From my experience CNY should be peak travel, especially to the west coast.

Thanks for any insight.
ShanghighX

what is your date?

You have to check the individual flights.

Even then, CX has different availability depending on POS (Point of Sale) so you normally can't really get the "true" picture just by looking at EF.

But if the flight (segment by segment) is mostly zeroed out, then it's a decent indicator that the flight is very busy.

I assume you meant 8/2

Yes I've seen two variants of the seat availability:

(Standalone)

CX 882 0 HKG
08/02/16 16:35 LAX
08/02/16 13:15 77W
Daily
77% / 30m F2 A2 J9 C9 D9 I9 W9 R9 E9 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L9 V9 S9 N3 Q9 O0

(Connections)

CX 367 0 PVG
08/02/16 12:20 HKG
08/02/16 15:20 333
Su,M,W,F
54% / 32m J9 C9 D9 I5 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L0 V1 S0 N0 Q0 O0
CX 882 0 HKG
08/02/16 16:35 LAX
08/02/16 13:15 77W
Daily
77% / 30m F2 A2 J9 C9 D9 I5 W9 R9 E9 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M9 L0 V1 S0 N0 Q0 O0

CX 365 0 PVG
08/02/16 9:30 HKG
08/02/16 12:30 333
Daily
69% / 62m J8 C8 D7 I3 Y9 B0 H0 K0 M0 L0 V2 S0 N0 Q0 O0
CX 882 0 HKG
08/02/16 16:35 LAX
08/02/16 13:15 77W
Daily
77% / 30m F2 A2 J8 C8 D7 I3 W9 R9 E9 Y9 B0 H0 K0 M0 L0 V2 S0 N0 Q0 O0

I would use the reading with the highest availability.

But in any case I think on 8/2 you have no chance of op-up at present.

I've been looking at flights for CNY and I'm surprised that this close in, none of the flights seem all that particularly busy.

Traffic should be coming the other way to celebrate CNY.

You mean to the US? I would have figured people would be heading back to China for CNY no? Well that's what I'm doing since my grandparents are there.

At least for Aus the traffic seems to be all going out of HK before CNY and coming back around 15/2.

That is the date.

From my experience with CNY being the biggest holiday for most people it is the top travel season thus flights out of China are packed, that's why the low numbers on the flight standalone surprised me.
Doing the reverse (going to China at the beginning of CNY) were the emptiest flights I have ever been on.

I think for the high emigration locations (SYD, LAX) the rush period is before - do the 团年 there.

For the tourist locations (Macau, Bangkok) the rush period is after.

Flying to KUL on 2FEB and returning 4 days later. EF's shows the following:
J5 C5 D4 I3 Y0 B0 H0 K0 M0 L0 V0 S0 N0 Q0 O0 HKG-KUL CX791
J9 C8 D8 I5 Y0 B0 H0 K0 M0 L0 V0 S0 N0 Q0 O0 KUL-HKG CX724

CX website only sells business class tickets for both flights,which suggests that Y is sold out,hoping for an op up.