PEN is the hub of many Western multinational semicon factories and regional SMB Asia HQs. Demand for J tends to be high, so I'm hoping CX indeed does take over the PEN-HKG route, and keeps the same route timings.

Just curious, what was the reason it was transferred to KA in the past? I only moved to KL in 2018 and KA was already in service, so I don't know the history on why it was changed from CX to KA.

DP:
A friend who working as KA ground crew in KHH, Taiwan revealed that KHH would be operated by CX.
Although I am sorry to see KA being discontinued, it is good move for me.
IMPE, CX's onboard service is better than KA's.

There was a time, prior to CX's take over, when KA offered a consistently better service than CX. A time when the pain of travelling up North was eased by friendly crews, clean aircraft, and the feeling of being pampered for the last 2 hours (even in Y) before the door openned on the smelly, smoggy and long immigration qeues at PVG. A time when setting a foot on KA's A330 or L1011 at the time, was the first breath of HK service, a fresh dose of non censored news in the form of an SCMP copy, and a 2 hour relaxed and comfy flight out of mainland. A time when the "Elite" benefits, even as a blue were superior to anything CX could offer in to China. For frequent travellers to China, the CX integration was negative in most senses, with worse service, fewer and diluted FFP benefits, and a downward pace all over....
The old KA was and is missed....
Long live KA!

I'd agree, it would not surprise me to see several destinations where there's a CX service in the 'peak hours' favoured by business travellers and going up against a competing full-service airline, with a UO service in 'off-peak' hours and aimed at more price-sensitive travellers who can be more flexible with their timetable, and potentially going up against an LCC on the same route.

I used to fly a lot HKG-KUL as businessman.
The idea of "rush hour" is a bit fuzzy on a 4 hour route. A flight departing early morning from HKG will return mid-day from KUL (off-peak). A flight getting business travelers back from KUL in the evening needs to leave HKG early afternoon (off-[eak).
Business travelers need frequency and flexibility. With traffic jams in KL, I often took a later or earlier CX flight. KUL entertained many daily flights and KUL-HKG had significant premium traffic.
UO is a true LCC, sardine seating, no lounge,.... No one paying a high CX fare will be happy to spend 4 hours on UO.
Mixing CX and UO on any of the few important regional destinations seems to me destructive.

Now this is assuming that traffic returns to 2018 levels. For the next couple of years, it will be survival planning and anything goes.

Forgot that PEN was also served by CX before. I remembered flying CX once on a 77W, and the J-heavy front was full (not sure how many were paid pac though). So this should be another reason why PEN would go to CX again as I believe.

Back in the day, some flights used to be tagged with KUL (can't remember if it was a triangular routing). I suppose that was how CX maintained multiple flights on certain days. The crew absolutely adored the PEN nightstops.

Yup, it used to be a HKG-KUL-PEN-KUL-HKG routing, with a mid-afternoon departure from HKG (an hour or so earlier than KA729) and an early morning departure from PEN/KUL (similar to KA730).

PEN was a tagged flight from the beginning when it on itself couldn't support a direct flight.
Later on, direct flights to PEN were added (around 2005/06) on a 3x to 4x weekly basis. On those days with direct flights to PEN, CX721 terminated at KUL.
Finally, KUL/PEN were de-tagged completely when PEN went direct daily.

Any thoughts/insight into CNX? KA flights were regularly full, even some A330s on the route occasionally.

Hoping this continues as a CX port with A321s rather than the alternative

Gut feeling is that CNX is not premium heavy and so there are possibilities for UO to step in. Anyone know if there are many transit pax on this flight? It may have certain effect on whether it will be KA or UO.

Does anyone know if OU will provide connections to CX flights? Surely that's the big decision maker in what AOC gets deployed?

Unless of course this was just a way of bringing down costs in staffing? I thought OU was built on Air Asia, EU LCC type model, point-to-point and no connection.

I think they will make it happen if they decide to substitute UO for KA. Otherwise CX group would just lose the transit business on those routes.

good point, I only know from my ground and in the air observations but I assume higher % transit pax than usual based on ad-hoc conversations with the crew, and the people in the (small!) TG lounge at CNX, Anecdotal observations though. J cabin always seem full, ex HKG business fares are rarely cheap.