Cathay Dragon 666

Most of us are businessmen here, and in management. When it come down to layman's terms, there's two ways to manage revenue/cost ratio.

1) Cut back on quality, service - fastest way to cut down on cost, and make the book look better. Obvious drawback - you lose high-spending clients that values quality, but gain lower-spending clients that values low expenditures. Risk: revenues from gained lower-spending clients is less than revenues loss from alienated higher-spending clients.

2) Invest in quality, service - short-term you make the problem worse. Long-term you hope to win higher-spending clients, but at the risk of losing some lower-spending clients. Risk: revenues from gained higher-spending clients is less than revenues loss from alienated lower-spending clients.

So really there's no "sure way" of making money (or else all of us would be billionaires), but I outlined this to show that option 1 and 2 are very different business mentalities on how would one sees itself, and sees its role in the market. Option 1: LCC, quantity-based. Option 2: Luxury, quality-based.

Unfortunately, we know Cathay has opted for option 1, and despite its marketing, is degenerating into the realm of LCC.

percysmith

There's also 3) Reduce frequency and cut tourist routes and anything not profitable on a stand-alone basis or not contributing to network connectivity. However this means abandoning HKG slot hogging and CX may be reluctant to do this.

teemuflyer

Or use those slots for the planned expansion..

insideman

As a regular user of both 'full service' carriers and LCCs, I think it is important to bring a sense of perspective, and avoid exaggeration. While most (all?) of us on this forum have seen a decline in elements of the on board service - notably F&B - I don't think it is accurate to say that an airline that has invested HK8bn (according to results release) in air and ground product in the past 5 years, has great lounges, great JCL and PEY seats, decent (though not world class) IFE, still offers food, bags, headsets, amenity kits etc etc free of charge is degenerating into the realm of LCC.

fakecd

i hope cx survives

only reason is so it creates perceived competition... and that way other airlines whpm i have moved business ro, will continue to offer cheap fares with better service.

JALPak

Actually, JL will do it even if you are a nobody. Had staff waiting for my brother at the gate and ran with him through security to catch his connecting flight. He was originally booked to connect on the CX flight to HKG which scheduled to depart 5 min before the JL flight. He arrived way ahead of time while CX flight was still boarding. Somehow CX decided not to wait and lost the revenue in this case. And the funny thing is the JL flight ended up departing before the CX one.

Anyway, I don't want to make this into a JL vs CX discussion. But sometimes it is CX who made those choices even if we are willing to pay our money to CX. Is it really that hard to treat non-DM or non-premium passengers a little bit nicer both onboard and on the ground?

Happy

This!

We once flew JL HKG-NRT-YVR-YYZ with YVR-YYZ on Air Canada a separate flight. The NRT flight was purposely delayed because they held the plane waiting for a late arrival from India where there were many passengers connecting on the NRT-YVR flight. At YVR there were JL staffers at each corner of the passage helping connecting passengers to catch their flights.

I have never seen CX would go out of its way to help regular passengers.

Sure, treating your most elite passengers above and beyond would earn you the loyalty and the revenue associated with it, but unless CX can survive alone on its elites, CX still needs the majority of their peon passengers to be able to do well especially nowadays companies are no longer willing to pay the huge premiums on the F cabin of the meaty routes hence making the revenues from the peons much more important than any time in the past. Yet CX seems still struggling on how to figure it out.

KACommuter

I don't think CX is becoming a LCC but am otherwise in complete agreement. The last 5 years have seen the senior executives cruise as the rest of the world has caught up.

I just flew AA on HKG/LAX - same seat plus mattress pad and pyjamas in J, equally bad food, IFE slightly worse, lounges significantly worse but far cheaper at just over half the price.

KACommuter

I actually see CX do this regularly on flights arriving late into HK which have lots of passengers connecting to other flights. But CX has gone well beyond this for me a few times when it really did matter.

However you second point is very true, and this loyal customer is now less loyal. And judging from many other posts, I am not alone. So they have not figured it out.

ralphs

In what scenario would you be able to access HKG/LAX AA lounges but not CX lounges? I must be missing something.

percysmith

In hours where CX has no flights I guess

HKGglobaltrotter

I think he might be referring to lounge at LAX where AA Int'l flights depart at T4 (instead of TBIT) which pax use their own Flagship lounge - which is significantly worse than CX lounges or the Oneworld lounge at TBIT...

no1cub17

But AA J pax have access to the TBIT lounge, so ...

no1cub17

Plus individual air vents! Which is the deal maker for me given how hot CX keeps their cabins.

brunos

BA announced a partnership with China Eastern last year.
AA now announces a more intensive partnership with China Southern:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...southern-stake

Is that bad for CX or very marginal?