I've seen both happen - I think it depends on the crew as to what they do (and possibly on the length of the flight).

Crews comments on New Business class service [CX Secrets]
 

#9146 "STOP making crew life Horrible!
The New Business Class Service is a BIG failure! The service takes more than 3.3 hours to finish! Pax were unhappy as they waited too long and wanted to sleep. 10 full size rubbish bags were used to dispose all the plastic covers and rubbish. All the crew uniform were dirty and full of dirt, gravy and oil due to the unrealistic workload, pre-platting and lack of manpower. Crew were extremely exhausted and hated it so much and thinking of the same service again on the return sector.
Crews hands, skin were all peeling off from too much work and their legs were so tired as they walked back and forth! Disaster disaster!
All the J class crew looked like a sad, exhausted , over worked , dirty bunch of CX crew! This is pathetic and inhumane what management turned crew into. "

These people who post on CX Secrets complain far too much for my liking.

I agree sxc that making the meal time longer would be undesirable.

This does not surprise me. I've been involved with timing and labor analysis (those people who are wrongly considered to create work schedules leading to overload, etc: It's not ....). I raised this issue with CX cabin crew overload a couple of months ago.

The basics aren't that difficult: Make a complete movement brake down, use a stopwatch to time, etc. Then you have your overall schedule.
Then you start inserting "resting" moments. Relatively short moments, that the body is given "nothing" to do, specially intended to let the body recover very early in the fatigue process. The big problem is, many people involved with this kind of work, simply refuse to take those micro-rests, with the argument, they don't need it. Those are the people getting into fatigue problems, later on.

Of course, when the designed schedules are abused (later on, after original design), usually by managers, to increase output, or whatever, the whole system collapse, with often pretty drastic and nasty consequences.

Looking at the CX change of the basic dining processes, without seemingly reconsidering the timing and fatigue aspects, this isn't going to last long......

When additional work is added (by de-optimizing the current timing/action optimized work flows), it needs additional staff, there is not doubt about that. More work, so it needs more people to do the work.

Looks to me, CX designed the new, customer oriented processes, without considering (ie timing) the crew consequences.

So, despite a lot of whining at CX Secrets, I consider this one to be quite genuine.......

I think, you are missing the boat completely. The staff is there to optimize safety, to save lives (and avoid injured people), once things do go haywire.

To be able to decide in a matter of seconds, which (pre-defined) action to initiate, etc, does require skills.

And this whole safety theatre needs quite a lot of setups, to optimize the outcome in case, etc.... For this, you need (especially in the bigger aircraft), people able to properly organize, deal with obnoxious customers, who ignore instructions, etc.

In their idle time, the same people are assigned tasks for your comfort and the companies' customer service.

806 HKG to ORD
 

Food looks great. Thanks for the report, MADBOB !

Leave in 3 weeks on 807 in J.
Crossing my fingers things continue to improve.

Crew was not more chatty. They were more stressed in trying to learn the new system. For both crews it was their first flight with this service. Lots of confusion on who ordered what. It will take time for them to work out service and feel comfortable.

I think you're over optimistic.

I highly suspect the FA brought you garlic bread from F. F will retain garlic bread. J, from everything I've heard so far, won't. From your post it sounds like F wasn't full, given FAs were coming back from F to J to help with service.

And...welcome to the CX forum MADBOB! Great first few posts.

QRC3288 thanks for your input.

This was never a thing? Maybe years ago, but unless I'm going crazy I don't think bottled water is part of the gig proactively in regional J. Unless often it's given to DMs, or if you ask for it.

Bottled water used to be a KA thing (even in Y) though.

In my experience bottled water is given if you ask for it (on shorter flights). On longer regional flights (like CGK, particularly on red eyes), they'd usually distribute it...

There was this one time when Himalayan bottled water was given out, which took me by surprise... must have been a leftover from a flight from India.

Yeah, I've never gotten bottled water in my handful of times flying regional J to/from KUL.

No sir. You get it long haul, but not short haul. Never been the case for short haul where they protectively give it to everyone. You may have gotten it by asking for it regionally, or in an extremely streaky set of luck got it every single time you flew regionally, but doubtful. (Unless you didn't fly much regionally, then maybe you just got super lucky and got water a few times in a row without asking, and assumed it was the norm).

Longhaul, definitely yes. Although it's not Evian about half the time fyi....Evian is stocked ex-HKG and for some return sectors. Many longhaul outports stock their own local brand, e.g. Crystal Geyser from most US ports.

The only time I consistently get Evian is on CX753 the red eye from HKG to CGK... the crew distributed it to everyone as they were all drifting to sleep...

This may have changed as they seemed to have started doing a supper service inflight on these short red-eyes, at least that was the case on my last 753 flight (APR 2018)

That was for NRT, which is longish but not the longest.

I've checked older photos for CTS and DPS - none either. I can't confirm CGK as I've never been.

This isn't just limited to CX.
This is more the whole city's culture generally - the first forum I actively read and commented on was icered and whinging about HK Big4 accounting firm working hours anonymously, negatively but not taking positive steps to resolve their grievenaces (like organize) was a recurrent theme.

Crew's criticism here is justified though. It's making no-one but management happy.
Not even customers appreciate the better service - I for one would not object if my J meal was served on one tray Economy-style if it meant my meal is served faster, preparation was better (what should be hot is hot and what should be cold is cold), crew have more time to do refills and clear up quicker. I don't even aspire that their food quality will improve given that is not a USP for them https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cath...l#post30129653

Does anyone know if the new services have been rolled out on other routes yet? FRA? MAN?

There's a planning for the roll-out, FRA/MAN in Sept 2018. See the second post in this thread.
With this screen capture:
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6a5fa9d61f.jpg

Someone posted a video of the new JCL service. its a bit long.

It looks like CX is imitating Air Canada by using the tray while plating the main course.

Too bad they didn't do what BR and SQ does by setting each table individually. I guess it's too much work for those over entitled CX FA.

I think you overestimate how much cathay management is willing to listen to their crew. I'd rather guess it's because they don't want to add extra crew to work on the flight but they know it will literally take hours to complete the meal service under such manpower if they need to also set up the tables. Imagine how long would it take before you can finish eating and sleep/work if service with trays needs around 3 hours already.

Why do you assume the CX FAs are entitled? Do you know the crew-to-pax ratio for BR vs CX J?

Looks like the new services are just same menu with cutting certain items from pre-landing breakfast. While I don't mind cutting yogurt etc since I never take them on the pre-landing meals, I feel the major let down is that there is basically no improvement from current JCL. Not a fan of the menu design neither.

How come, you get this experience, whereas I (and many others) do seem to have different experiences ?

Having less staff for the same number of passengers, immediately does have effects on the amount of "service", which can be provided. No need to blame this on an individual staff member.

Watching through the whole of the nearly 30 minutes, I can only say, this is not the decline many raised and definitely an increase in style. It's different, though, it looks far less "economy" then it was before (think away the white cloth and there is not much difference with economy style, apart from the chinaware). Loading up a tray to the max is "economy" alike. Having more room on there, gives a better impression. Just ask for additional items when you want more and -if available- you can get.

The narrator, a 16 (?) years old teenager complains about the missing breakfast items and economy alike other items. Though, I would rate the current breakfast more to the level of the opposite of "more is better". With the restrictions, the master can be seen. It is low class to eat everything, just because you get it presented. It shows style, when you get a limited set in a not-overloaded presentation and can ask for additional (or other) items according your wishes.

I certainly would "suggest" CX to have cereals with yogurts available as a snack, some people are interested in these items, either as a mid-flight meal, or as a simple breakfast.

Menu options seem to be extended, the hamburger as a main option is very nice. Despite the menu newspaper style, I think, it's a nice item. Again different, different style, people need to get used of it, but a good alternative for the previous booklet style menu.

Complaints about all items placed on a tray can not to be solved, without a significant J class refurbishment, it simply requires a bigger table. Better have the tray, so items don't fall down, etc. So, the food department simply has to work with these limitations.

The same applies to the staff, just a limit, the food department has to live with (at least for the upcoming years).

I imagine some who don't travel often will enjoy being able to keep the new CX J menus.

As a newspaper collector ?

Presumably menu collector, but newspaper collector works too:p

Will be flying MNL-SFO via HKG in April 2019. I am not sure whether the route will feature the new service, but I have mixed feelings about it since the old trolley service seemed to work (for me, at least).

For the first meal service, was that 3 hours from take off, or three hours from when they first started serving?

For the breakfast, usually they will start breakfast 2 hours before landing - was that still the case here?