Curious to know, for those that have tried both, how does CX F compares to SQ F?

Both SQ and AF now have single row 4 seat 77W F cabins.
That 4 seat AF cabin is the most elegant and best F cabin in the sky, IMO.

I prefer CX and the 1-1-1 cabin. Even without a door, the A seats are very private. And CX catering is better. I had 5 long-haul SQ earlier this year and the food was simple dreadful on every flight. IMO, The Pier is much nicer than SQ's TPR. In the air and on the ground however, both lag 5 star leaders like AF or GA, the only two airlines whose F product I would characterize as spectacular.

That is true. I meant to say that CX used to have eight F seats in their A343s and these are now down to six F seats in the 777s.

Perhaps the 779s will see this further reduced to four F seats like at AF.

Heard someone say only 3 would be kept, basically 1 row same with SQ and AF...Honestly I think 3 is silly...4 would be better.

I only meant I wish they don't reduce it any further...and I agree the F Cabin on AF is one of the nicest, but although old CX F is also nice.

An insider suggested to me recently that over 50% of the F seats occupied these days are Swire Group staff travel. Observation suggests that awards may well make up most of the other half. I'd be surprised if much more than 10-15% of the people travelling in the F are paying even close to the advertised cash fares for it.

wow. that's amazing, although I recently had a Swire executive sitting with me in F....and she ended up with my main course. Awesome. I happened to know the crew on board, who told me she was "Swire ID" whatever that means, supposed to be sitting in J and given a courtesy upgrade to F.

I'd agree it's a low % that pay full cash fares. I do, however know a number of folks who pay for them, and I've done so before myself.

This would go along with my supposition that F should be downsized further from 6 to 3 or 4. The fact that half the cabin is filled with partner awards might be a good survival strategy when you mis-config your planes, but it's not sustainable.

I keep reading this forum about how Cathay is making money off of AA redemption points, and from reading the internet it does seem like Cathay F cabin seats are a favorite for AA members to redeem their points. If that is the case, isn't Cathay *making money* with their F cabin with so many F redemptions from AA points?

In my opinion Cathay F is still one of the most comfortable F cabins I've flew on, especially their bedding service. And this includes the suites that some airlines are offering. I just wish Cathay has a door that can ensure total privacy.

Of course. But that ignores the problem: yield.

Just because a seat is generating revenue doesn't mean it's profitable. There is a limited amount of real estate on a plane obviously. Now there are many nuances here which I'm ignoring but that's the ultimate bottom line. Sell a lot of real estate too cheaply and your airline won't do too well. This is getting to the concept of yield. Partner award cash reimbursement is stingy...numbers thrown around here are something like $750-$1200 USD per segment. When you the customer can buy Alaska miles for 2 cents per mile, and they charge you 70k miles for F (aka $1400 for a segment), you better believe they're paying CX less than that in cash. It is not a lucrative business for CX; it's more like a drug addiction. Definitely not good for the business (or F product) long term.

CX is in a position where they still have too many F seats. The reason CX can't change too quickly is you obviously can't be reactive to the winds of the moment and change your fleet configs around every year. This would obviously be crazy and make a terrible investment case. So point #1: CX has too premium configured planes. Aka, too many 77H (33 of them total) flying too many kilometers as a percentage of total RPKs. So either reduce the # of 77H, reduce # of F seats in them....or just expand capacity like crazy with non-F planes ;). I say the last one kinda tongue in cheek because that's what's happening now....albeit with all sorts of other affiliated problems with super fast capacity growth.

Point #2 to me is this: CX is also just downright stupid at what they do with their F cabin cash sales. I have whinged for years about no priority seat assignments for cash (and MPC) pax. Sure, all the seats are technically the same as far as bells and whistles go, but when I've paid (full fare cash) before last minute I usually got non window seats. And I do prefer the windows. Meanwhile, you've got partners snagging the best seats almost a year out for their annual holiday. A few months ago, my client spent 30k US on a CX F ticket and got assigned 2D. This guy doesn't know much about frequent flier stuff, couldn't change to a window online, WANTED it and was disappointed he couldn't self assign, and asked me "I knew anyone at Cathay to do anything about it". (I picked up the phone, called MPC and sorted it easily getting him a window...). But why on earth can this guy not select a window online after blowing 30k USD? Oh yes, and he landed in HK and mentioned to me CX ran out of the main course he wanted. Hello CX: paying pax notice these things, even if they seem small.

I think CX had made a deal with the devil accepting cheap award pax, and I get the mantra on here "everyone should get the same in each class", but when one guy is paying CX 15k out of pocket for the sector and another is "paying" 1k to CX (with miles possibly acquired via credit card bonus) you may want to consider buttering the 15k cash guy's bread first. Because he may not be very internet savvy, but he notices these things and will make more purchasing decisions in the future! Plus in the fellow I'm talking about case, he also flies a lot of other airlines in F.

Another thing is CX doesn't provide a differentiated experience to F pax. For guys like I described above, they should be getting buggies both way for free, some type of dedicated escort if they have a connection, etc. Some type of high touch service. Again I realize I'm kinds of violating the ethos of flyertalk by saying this but I really don't think CX should give it to the partner awards, because the margin is so slim it is unaffordable to CX to do so. Again, if CX is getting $1k USD for the srctor, what you can profitably offer that pax is LIMITED....whereas what you can profitably offer a 15k pax is not. Of course, if partner awards are a fraction of your business, im all for giving them the max. This is great marketing. But when partner awards are HALF of your F business, it's not realistic st all. Yet the true cash business shouldn't have to suffer a service tailored to a low margin award pax!

When someone drops 30k on a ticket....yes! Do it. And ignore the blogs which will whinge about it because that's generally not the crew dropping full cash fares anyway. You damn well want that lucrative customer to return and you better believe he has also flown EK, LH, AF or others. This is just business 101. These passengers make up a minority of F seats but ALL of the F profits. The rest is either lowly profitable or break even.

I think the story about cash pax above is at the margin but it's definitely real. CXs paid cash pax have absolutely noticed the decline of the little things over the years, meanwhile the F cabins still frequently run full. You can "feel" something is off....if everyone was paying rack rate why are you running out of food CX? Why are your menu choices cut year after year? Where are the ground services? The answer is yield is LOW and CX is cutting costs to improve overall profitability of the cabin. And CX cannot afford ground services because half the pax are on partner awards. Plus the airport is so darn good they're kinda right in assuming it isn't necessary.....but for these lucrative cash pax CX really needs to go above and beyond and do what may seem unnecessary.

And yield is low because the cabin is probably too big and thus filled with low yielding award pax, plus some small stupid things CX does to paying F pax. So I think CX should downgrade the size of the F cabin further.

My sister used to work in Swire Pacific decades ago and she was able to travel on Swire ID. However, she didn't like standby (the chance of not getting on) and usually ended up paying as a regular passenger instead.

There will always be a market for F on some routes, private jets are far too costly and some will want more than J offers. The new 777X will have a new cabin designed to last for a decade or so, by which time the world will be a very different place. F travel may well have bounced back by then.

fair point.

I do think their massive capacity expansion now will serve them well, even if it's painful at the moment for those of us loyal to CX. Service and quality have slipped considerably. It's just brutal to see so much low hanging fruit not being picked. I mainly fly premium so I see it there, but I gotta imagine the problems aren't just F / J - seeing all the threads here, it seems pretty obvious that economy is getting gutted too. 33P is a prime example.

But, maybe Ivan will be canned / reshuffled within Swire, and the next guy will inherit a company with a pretty impressive global footprint. Could be something good to work with.

Like you I mainly fly premium on CX, if the cuts in J and F are that noticeable...I can't imagine how bad it is in EY.

Service has slipped in recent years because of the cuts in manpower, the last good configuration was the 744, it's generally good except in F after they cut 1 FP/BC in F (used to be 3 crew)...on a full flight from HKG-HND on her last month in service, meal service took significantly longer, even with the ISM pitching in to help.

But it's a slippery slope problem. How do you prioritize? Someone who buys a USD $8K AONE4 ticket may well be paying less for his CX ride than someone who buys Alaska miles and redeems.

I do respect passengers paying full fare - they are the ones who fuel more of the plane - but there's another rule called first come first served. To the guy paying less but far advance, it's no fun to lock a date and funds. To airlines advance purchases could help cash flow and steady their loads. However if window seats are indeed available but revenue pax cannot choose it, surely blame the airline for their crappy system.

And I agree that running out of main course in F is very disappointing. It could happen (like loading each entree for all pax would be a waste) but I hope they are not as stingy as loading no more meals than the number of pax in Y?