G-CIVC

The rumors have been brewing for a while, but it’s still heartbreaking to learn of the official news...

ORD will be served by 351 effective June 1 2020.

2nd FCL axing after ZRH in recent times.

Really sad my home port lost to Milan and Boston to be the victim of the cut. To be frank tho the ground service at ORD has deteriorated so much these past few years, I almost intentionally route elsewhere nowadays.

anaggie

I got hit with this change this morning.. was booked in F on an AA award ticket from HKG-ORD on June 24 and got the email this morning that I was booked in J instead of F

Found availability on June 24 in F to JFK instead and found all mileage saver domestic flights to ELP from JFK also .. so all in all it worked out.

jagmeets

ouch!

That’s a frequently used, easy to clear BUD gone for me..guess the ease of clearing the BUD explains

l380

Seems like there won’t be F to and from ORD anymore. My flight in July got changed from B77W to A351.....is the demand that low to ORD?

l380

Argh. Same here. Need to look into other options now.

sparkj

Will they be offering F to a new place or an extra F flight to an existing destination?

Coathanger

Disappointing as I was hoping to snag an award seat in F on this route.

Will be interesting to see where these 4-Class 77Ws are redeployed.

londonexpert

Or converted to 3 class

Arbeysix

Many of them are being returned to lessors and so will exit the fleet.

Coathanger

Shame, but understandable. We need to enjoy F while it is still around.

QRC3288

It is unfortunate, but hopefully necessary to ensure the health of F to other destinations. It was never sustainable for routes to be filled mostly with partner award travelers!

A while ago, people on here posted that at least 5 of CX's original 53 77Ws were being returned to lessor. I know at least one or two already went back. That F capacity was already removed from short-lived DUS, ZRH, and now ORD. But I also think there is slack in the 77H/A fleet, if my math serves me correctly (long-haul F destinations following the upcoming schedule change will be JFK 2x, LHR 2x, LAX 2.5x, SFO 1x, BOS 1x, FRA 1x, CDG 1x, MXP 1x). Although CX884/885 would seem like an obvious candidate for a cut, especially since 77G/K has served the route before, I think one reason it remains is that it does "alright" if not great, and has an unaligned timing (early evening arrival) which helps make the rotation more efficient. Most of the F-equipped planes are early-morning arrivals. Those planes are lower density / lower yielding than other birds on regional routes, because CX doesn't sell F. Yet another reason 77K/G and the A350s are better for CX, in this new world where F isn't sold or bought regionally, 3-class longhaul planes are more efficiently sold for the daytime regional routes too. Since they don't waste a whole section dedicated to massive F seats which are unsold, or used as J overflow.)

The 777X is going to be badly delayed. My parlor-room suspicion is that while CX may return F class planes to lessor as the leases expire, CX isn't going to convert the 77H/Ks to 77G/K. I doubt they're anticipating flying the 777X meaningfully until 2022 or later.

percysmith

I wonder is CX F financially profitable on any route, even LHR or JFK? Or is it really a matter of building aspiration / loyalty rewarding / fringe benefit?

s0ssos

I thought nobody's F was profitable. Wasn't it the Emirates chief who said it was all about aspiration and allure? And they, of anybody, should be earning money on F.

Unionruler

Iirc he said that referring to every airline running F except EK, and proceeded to claim that ~90% of EK F pax are revenue pax because of the huge following that EK has, including in the media industry.

QRC3288

F is indeed profitable. This is one of those myths that gets bizarrely amplified, and I don't think it's accurate. For an airline like CX, F can be highly lucrative especially in a booming economy to a place like JFK and LHR, and also to other cities. I'm certain that the break-even point is around 2 and <3 seats sold for a US sector and that assumes A fares, sometimes which don't yield a whole lot; for people paying full F, it's closer to 1 seat sold. And then they clean up free scraps with the remaining seats on our Diamond certificates, Asia Miles redemptions, ID passengers, and partner awards, and overselling J at full price. Although as noted seasonality is a major issue and different for each city pair, obviously not all cities are the same (as evidenced by cutting ORD but keeping other US cities, for now), and there's the big problem (this holds true for J class too) if the economy goes in the tank, you can't just reconfigure a bunch of planes for 18 months and wait until demand recovers. So you're stuck with a prolonged period of time with a lot of airplane real estate being very poorly utilized and that's a major opportunity cost for a big bird like the 77W. Reconfigurations are very expensive. So a lot of airlines have just said J class is good enough and don't worry about the hassle. But this myth that "F class isn't profitable, all this wasted space is just for bloggers and the media and people to build up an airline's aura" is totally crazy! It conveniently allows some folks to inflate their relevance. It would be one of the most useless and expensive marketing campaigns in the history of the world to waste that much square feet, for decades....particularly given whereby every route with F CX operates either as a monopoly or duopoly!

Take what Tim says with a grain of salt. He's a superb executive, and that includes saying what he needs to make the media pump out any misleading message that might help EK.