When Does CX Return to Normalcy?
 

Wanted to get peoples thoughts/guesses/uneducated guesses on the dates for:
When Pier F reopens
When all JFK nonstop flights resume
When masks won’t be required onboard anymore
When new F appears

I know this is all contingent upon how covid goes and if a vaccine is found but can’t help but be curious as I rebook my 2020 travels for 2021.
Also, one other flight service Qs to refresh my memory...
JFK-HK departing at 1A on 9/1...does it have the September catering and wine or the August one because it left HK (with wine for the return, I think) on 8/31?

😳😳😳😳😳

it is a crystal ball question, not even Cathay management can answer this.
IMO, Honestly I would be a bit pessimistic, at least until Dec 2020, subject to situation in different countries.

Unfortunately, masks on flights shall be the "new normal" for a while.

Sorry, can't help.

Like most of the others, my crystal ball is in the shop for repairs.
:p

Not for a very, very long time...

Regards

Vaccine generally available and administered, whenever that is

Meanwhile we have to be satisfied with local travel.

You're here hoping for normalcy while I'm just here hoping that my CX routes won't get cancelled and I'll be allowed to enter HK. Fingers crossed!

2035

2023 earliest, if ever.

Quarantined?!

​​​​​​I think the technicians are.

What was "normal" in 2019 / early 2020 will never be normal again.
Health checks at airports may remain in place for many years or permanently.
Something similar to the yellow fever vaccination and card my be needed for COVID

Aircraft loads will take may years to build back up to the levels of early 2020.

Businesses have learnt that meetings do not have to be held face to face - this means the demand for business travel will not quickly recover. As a consequence airlines will have excess capacity. the airlines have two options
decrease supply - fly less often often with smaller more economical planes
increase demand - Make their airline the one people chose (better bus class product, better FF schemes etc)
I don't think this will happen, but remember the peak of FF schemes and bus class product was when airlines had excess capacity and wanted to fill seats. These have both been reduced as carries fly with high loads.

More airlines and hotel chains will go bankrupt before the COVID situation recovers
This could mean mergers or even just the outright closure of these businesses.

Governments will go into massive debt trying to support their failing economies.
When the COVID situation is over, COVID recovery taxes will be introduced to cover this debt.

I don't think the airline and travel industry will ever be what is was before.
There will be no recovery of the airline industry if there is no vaccine and borders are not reopened.

But that's enough optimism for one day :)

So, possibly never, since coronavirus vaccines that are highly successful aren’t by any means a certainty?

This. Or, perhaps, widespread immunity based on people being infected. But at what cost?

To put it another way, air travel does not return to normal until the economy shows signs of recovery. The economy won't show signs of recovery until there is a vaccine or widespread immunity.

It is all inter-dependent.

Whether there is immunity, and how long that immunity lasts are all uncertainties as well.

There won't be any normalcy as before... We will still be travelling and flying, but it won't be as before. Live with it. But I could see countries opening up sooner than later.

Marchtember oneteenth at 2:65.

Marking that in the calendar now...:D

I'll take the "under" in this debate. A successful vaccine is probably unlikely, and all but the highest-risk elderly folks will be unwilling/unable to stay housebound much longer. My healthy 90-year-old mother is already at wit's end and ready to return to the shops (with mask on). Things will get back to normal, including flying, much sooner than some of these extremely pessimistic forecasts. Meanwhile, some people will continue to get sick and die from COVID. Both things can be true.

So wanted to circle back on this. Anyone want to place a guess when CX F will first begin flying again? It’s canceled at JFK until January but I can’t imagine it won’t be extended until at least April. My question is if its more likely to be as soon as vaccine comes out or wait several months for demand to recover.

I hate to say it, but I think CX and SQ will sadly take the longest to recover given the sole reliance on an international network. So my (sadly) rather pessimistic guess would be somewhere in Q2 or even Q3 next year at the earliest :(

Even as the vaccine comes out it will take time to produce and distribute - and even so, restrictions will likely be in place for a while after

Will there be cash F demand? If not, F won’t be back.

even when general travel demand is back, corporate travel will be still very low. Who are going to pay for those F seats?

A350 can serve JFK perfectly fine.

F isn't staying in many travel policies.
Easily picked on as ostentatious spending.
For executive travel, J will suffice.
For the C-suite, why not private jet travel?

HKG-JFK? I think some corporate travel are in F.

It is anyone guess, so I will add my own for the fun of it.

From my experience, I believe that CX F demand comes mostly from wealthy individuals and awards (often upgrade from paid J).
Top executives still use F if they are in a booming industry; for a short trip to close a deal; if they are significant stakeholder in a profitable firm...
Many reasonably-rich people do not mind spending a few extra thousand USD, for that purpose, even for leisure travel.

Vaccine will just be an additional tool besides other measures like masks and social distancing. Many experts are worried that the 90% number is optimistic because immunity might not last long and the virus is mutating (like the common flu virus). My thought is that there will be increased demand from wealthy individuals to lessen the transmission risk. The motivational role of awards will still be there. Frequent paid J pax are very happy with a periodic upgrade to F.

There is no doubt that demand for travel, whether leisure or business, will be lesser in the coming years, once travel rebounds.. But for those planes flying, a premium airline like CX can hardly remove F. Airlines will be fighting to fill their large number of J seats. That will be the big challenge. Like QR , they might start unbundling their J offer. They will engage in more cost cutting. F still has a place, even if only as a premium-J product.

Just a guess. But that is an issue facing all airlines. And answers might be airline-specific. For example, BA with mostly 14 seats in F, is in a different position than AF with only 4 seats on a few planes. etc...

i think before wondering about F or J, we need to understand how society is evolving.

my feeling is F will disappear, doesnt mean wealth disappears. i think new form of travel, think ride-share of type private jets that routinely does shuttle of key routes will emerge. private jet with private cabins, where schedules are predicted by AI using bigdata, is where i see.

on commercial jets i think J will replace F, Y+ will become more like J-, and Y will evolve away from recent trend of sardine cramp in the new normal. People travel less, airfare goes up. so cx may be back to "normal" but a very different normal

i think i mentioned about 6yrs ago on a thread about cx going 10 abrest will be curse destined to fail. last 5yr was eurphoria/bubble of travels, which has popped and crashed. CX failed to read future or arrange for contiengency (i work in a line of business where i.need to always be prepared for unthinkable, no excuses). they are paying the price now

I agree with you regarding the chartered private jet trends. Actually I've seen ads on Instagram this summer by a European company with a semi-regular charter schedule to 4 or 5 cities and a Taiwanese company promoting the ferry sectors for people more flexible with the timings. Although both are targeting short haul routes at the moment I believe the trend will expand to long haul at some point. And the fact that they are putting ads on Instagram means they are not exactly just targeting the super rich but also the younger market as well.

However I personally think it is still early to tell the trend for Y. The little boom during the summer shows that some people are already used to traveling and won't give up so easily once the situation stabilized. So once the vaccine is delivered, even if it's less than the 90% effective rate currently suggested, there are enough people willing to fly again leisurely. There is chance that future Y will be quite similar to pre-covid.

Lucky for CX that now the 777X is at least delayed, they might have chance to review the future demand for F. For many people not quite there yet for chartered private jets, a good J can satisfy most needs showing by the Qsuite for example.

I don't share the enthusiasm for longhaul charter/private jets.
Anyway, there is hardly anymore F on regional, so that is not relevant.

I have taken a private jet on EU-East Coast US and that was the maximum range. I don't see any private jet business on 13h flights HKG-EU or HKG-America. It will need to make a stop.
If you start getting 4 or 5 pax on some shared agreement, the level of comfort will be well below CX F.
And hiring your own private luxurious jet for longhaul is only for a few super rich.

BA's redoing their fleet such that they'll be 8F max fairly soon. I would imagine they'll bias towards 787-9/787-10/newest 777s with Club Suites J/new F (plus 787-8s and A350s that don't have F at all), dump older 747s (already done)/A380s/older 777s with 14F.

I also think CX will get cut down to a size and network more like BR (probably bigger since BR+CI both serve the Taiwan market, but maybe not a lot bigger)... which I might note has an enhanced/premium J (complete with Dom Perignon and pajamas) as their top cabin, not F.

I fully agree with you that the trend was already to reduce F seat offering on all airlines.

The problem is that airlines won't have the cash for extensively retrofitting existing ac for a few years.

I agree that CX fleet will be significantly downsized.

BA seriously downgraded its F&B F offering before covid. Their route could be to use their current F as premium J, which some consider to be already the case.

But I am less sure how CX could offer a premium J and J- without unaffordable extensive retrofit. Mabe they would use their 6 F seats for that purpose, but that is a small number of seats and not on many remaining ac. They could go the unbundling way of QR. Reserve the front rows of J to premium pax with enhanced service (PJ, better F&B) and the back for J- with reduced service (no lounge access, paid seat assignment, lesser F&B). All solutions have their flaws.

CX could retire their 77Hs and keep their 77Ks as part of their fleet retrenchment; between A330s/A350s/77Ks they wouldn't have any F cabins left. Keep in mind that their order book has them taking A350s (that don't have F) before they get any 777-9s. If they wanted to reconfigure the fleet to just be J+ as top cabin, it might not be that hard to do given that most of the 777 fleet is parked in the desert. Given that they also have narrowbodies in the fleet and on order thanks to KA being a dead letter, they could revamp things quite a bit (again, much like BR, who also flies narrowbodies).