yea, 2 crew is an issue. Although technically the same ratio was 9:3 pax:crew on the old B744 vs 6:2 now (aka, both 3:1), the difference is now you only have 6:1 pax crew for most of the flight due to crew rest. Whereas before, the rotation was 9:2 crew on rest periods, because a J class FA would usually rotate into F to help during the period two were asleep. So essentially before it was 9:2 (non meal times), now it's 6:1 on non meal times. Aka 4.5:1 down to 6:1. So you don't hit breakeven until you have 2 empty seats in the current F cabin.

Some FAs deal with it better than others, but when you have 6/6 - particularly on day flights, or during the morning time landing after night flights - service is usually either slow or hurried. None of it is ideal.

Ha yea, I hear you, but I just can't escape the fact that many people do indeed pay full rack rate and they're essentially getting a product that's being catered for a much lower margin F passenger. I don't think it makes sense to say a 15k passenger should get an F product cut down to what a 1k pax is paying. Nowhere else on the plane does such a massive disparity exist between pricing.

It's becoming somewhat common to differentiate ticket buckets in the back - this started in Y, has spread to J, and I don't see why it wouldn't work in F. With such vastly different price points I think it makes sense. It is just good business! Especially if CX doesn't take anything away, but instead enhances services for certain tickets only. I don't think AA award redeemers or Alaska people (or even AONE guys) will throw a fit if CX adds some "above and beyond" services that are only available to full F fare tickets. Or maybe they say all cash tickets. Or, in my pipe dream, cash tickets and MPC/Asia Miles. But whatever, the point is some differentiation and acknowledgement that the cash and value to CX is vastly different on the ticket profile in F class.

I should admit, ever since finding out about these cheap award tickets I've joined the party too and used them a few times myself. So I'm guilty also. If I wanted F, I used to either redeem Asia Miles from J or pay cash F last minute....now, 2/3 times I've realized you can find an Alaska ticket in F which you can effectively buy for $1400-$2000. The result for me has been I stopped buying last minute cash F tickets. That's why when I frequently hear the argument here that "this isn't hurting CX, it's all upside for CX to give Alaska / American / etc. this last minute inventory", it's a little laughable to me - at least in my experience, CX is losing a good chunk of change because once you find out you can buy something for 1/8 the price you were paying before....why not? I can't imagine I'm the only one. And since the service is identical between the two. It has always bugged me that you get stuck with a "bad" F seat when you pay cash 48 hours before departure. Overall I really just felt like I was getting gouged once I discovered you could effectively buy a cheapo seat in F and get the identical situation I got before. So now, if I land in 2D, at least I don't feel bad because I booked through Alaska. Whereas before I might've paid 8k USD for that one-way and still had the same seat and everything else. My point isn't to say a seat selection is worth 7k USD, but it's that when there is ZERO differentiation between the services of the two, you really do feel like you're a moron for having spent 7 years getting gamed. I'm not the only person who feels this way - although some of my peers and colleagues aren't quite as CX obsessed as me, all express similar sentiments to the vibe I'm saying here. And many of them buy full J and F tickets, even for personal holidays and whatnot, and we've all jumped in the camp of "spread the love" to other carriers lately. These are kinda directly linked. At some point CX reaps what it sows. If CX wants to offer a 30k round-trip F passenger the identical product its offering with extremely high frequency and availability to Alaska, AA, BA and whoever else, then it should expect to see those customers slowly migrate elsewhere except on absolutely essential nonstops. And likewise, the cabin gets filled with more and more lower margin F customers, and eventually the services / amenities are tailored down to the lower margin profile. This is just the inevitable evolution I think (and a reason why I think F will be further downsized). The only actual tangible difference between a full cash F ticket and Alaska is I don't accrue mileage on the Alaska tickets. Aka, virtually nothing. And I do love elite status (aka, an addiction!) but I fly enough that I can easily do 5-6 Alaska segments on CX per year and not have any risk of missing out on the 1,800 threshold .

Anyway, I really think something should be given to the more valuable pax. I think it will directly benefit the bottom line. I don't think the redeemers are going anywhere, meanwhile CX could perhaps snag some traffic from its regional competitors if it stepped up the game for full fare pax.

Funny (or not so funny) story, -- a few years ago I was waiting for the elevator at SGS on my room floor. Another American, slightly older than I with gray hair, wearing a suit and generally very distinguished looking, walked up and we started chatting while we waited. He was from California and visits Bangkok every couple of months for a week or so on business. Always stays at SGS. His travel agent has him paying rack rate!! I didn't say anything, but geez....

I doubt I would complain if I was being paid to be there.

That is precisely what they did when I was flying F regularly in the early 2000s.

I don't know about airline alliance rules, but if Cathay has any say in this, up-charging miles required for their F seat seems to be the answer.

Also, the market is at a low right now but I expect it to rebound and F demand will return. I know my company are talking about allowing senior management F privilege and I hate to not be able to redirect that money to Cathay F once that materialized because Cathay abandoned their F (or lack of load).

Just to add -- anecdotally it seems that AA redemptions are dropping significantly. The US-SE Asia F award price jumped ~60% (from 135k r/t to 220k) back in March, and people knew about the change in advance, releasing a TON of pent up demand. People would book random dates with availability with plans to change to what they really want down the line, as the tickets were good for a year.
Well, we're coming up on that 1-year anniversary, and by many accounts, it's quite easy to find single seat F availability looking ahead. These are award seats that would have been snapped up 11+ months in advance before.

Still hoping CX will continue its policy to release unsold inventory close-in for awards, otherwise my soon-to-be husband will be flying in separate cabins / on separate flights for our honeymoon next year! :eek:

There should be enough demand from some companies and perhaps for the HK government (perhaps small) to keep F alive. Another incentive to keep F is to reward loyal customers once a while, e.g. milestone and birthday upgrades, upgrade certificates etc.

Congratulations and hope that you can get the award. (OTHO, and IMHO, honeymoon is such an important event that perhaps you may consider buying the other ticket in case the award doesn't come through. ;))

I agree with you that CX release too many F reward seats to partners.
Maybe CX sould learn from LX that only their own elite members(HON& Senator, similar as MPC DM&GO) could redeem F.

Btw, not only AS and AA, CA also provides fairly low mileages to redeem CX F from HKG to Europe. There must be something wrong when AS and CA could provide better(lower) mileages requestment than Asia Mile does, on route US-Asia, or HKG-Europe.

Agree. Since CX is now so predictable about releasing F award seats in the last week or so, I would do the same thing in your shoes. I fly primarily on miles but buy discounted F if the price and airline are right. Perhaps CX needs to be more like AF, LH, LX or the ME3 (all with arguably better F products) in offering more discounted F fares to fill the cabin thus reducing award seats. On our HKG-LAX flight a couple of weeks ago, the flight departed 2/6 and I don't believe any of the 4 pax were paid.

CX has actually been selling F (A) class out of certain outports at very competitive prices for a while (given it's CX F, it's not the ME3 prices but it's still very cheap). It includes many prime routes like 251 840 806 etc. I hope it works for them in the long run.

You can only choose the lesser evil of the two. First, everyone should be treated the same in each particular cabin. For us as OneWorld elites, we love the nice extra touch by ISMs or FAs when they mark us as MPC or OneWorld elites. That nice touch was close to UA GS. Therefore, CX understands revenue is more important than loyalty, so they gut the program so much that it makes qualifications much tougher than before. What you describe at the end of the day is exactly what UA/AA/DL are doing. GS, CK, or DM 360, which is the exclusive level for elites who are paying house money to fly with them. We love the fact that CX releases F seats. I have paid F, paid J, paid PE, few Y, and redeemed F on CX before, and we love CX releasing F seats to at least OneWorld elites. Now that people think redeeming F is much more expensive than before, they stop doing it, and you can see lesser F seats taken by award snipers. However, if you leave the cabin open, you can very well see FAs/ISMs self-upgrading their relatives/kids/friends/colleagues to F, and I have seen it at least twice when I was in CX F. In UA, you could see people hate the fact that UA kept all the F seats for employee benefits, so the paying customers felt like he's in the middle of UA-crew party complaining what UA did to them so on and so forth.

HKG is, by far, one of the most competitive market in commercial airline industry. All premium airlines with nice F cabin flies to HKG. No only does CX have to compete all of them, but they also have to compete against all other LCCs. In the case of F, yes, Business 101 makes perfect sense for us to treat the customers with A/F paid customers first, but it is going a bit too far to compare award takers and paid customers. At the end, they are still paid, but in different currencies agreed by CX. That is a bit extreme. You also couldn't say the same to people who fly out of the other countries, paid 50% or even less to fly CX F and CX has to treat hub captives better than them. In the eyes of CX they are luring the other customers away from their competing airlines.

Not being able to choose the main course is pretty bad. However, if there are three DMs, two OneWorld Emeralds to pick the main course while the other fully paid F customer just flew CX the first time, it's really pity he couldn't have his first choice, but what can you do? I as OneWorld Emerald couldn't get the first choice of my desert either, but I am like, get over it! It's already a luxury that you can eat whatever you what from the F menu(Not sure if it is still the case :/) However, if you expect CX to butter them first, then there's no point of staying loyal to one FFP, or CX, and we don't even have to continue the threads of 'switching to other FFPs than CX)

So, CX chose the even harder path than BA in TP systems. If you prefer them to better show loyalty based on spend, then it makes much more sense to have a model like AA moving forward in 2017.

It's more of whether CX is ok to take whatever currencies AA/AS, and CA gave them. CX has to cooperate well with CA for obvious reasons.

even then, SQ Suites are getting a bit old compared to EK/EY F...

Good point about lacking ground service for F pax.
Reminds me of my F flight on EK. Although onboard service was marvelous and the suite was nice and full of bling, the airport experience (DXB) was mediocre. In fact, it made me hesitant ever fly EK again.
And yes, I paid cash. No nothing AS Mileage redemption ;)

EK's airport experience (flying QF DXBLON v.v in Y as OWE) is still far better than the same flight on BA with same status.
(admittedly, I flew the BA flight before they opened their DXB lounge, but even from reports, it still doesn't seem comparable to the EK F lounge.)