gavinchan180

My return flight on August 2024 will be on the economy class, hopefully with updated IFE same as the ones used on the A350s, when the Aria Suites and new Premium Economy are introduced, the economy class seats will stays the same but the IFE user interface will be updated similar to the A350 ones.

Carfield

I booked a RT flights to London a few months ago for April-May 2024 and a few days ago, I got the dreaded aircraft and schedule change emails.

CX has cancelled a few daily LHR rotations during the supposedly slow April/May 2024 season before the school season is over with plenty of students returning to HK.

CX 251 is changed back to 10:40pm departure for the summer season and the usual later flight CX 255 is cancelled for a few days during the week.
Then the usual morning and mid-morning rotations to London is also cancelled. The post-Easter April is pretty horrible with plenty of changes and cancellations.

Most flights are also reverted to Boeing 777-300ERs - some 3-class and some 4-class, with only one flight still listed with Airbus A350-900s.

I really think government regulators need to issue some rules regarding these kind of schedule changes, which are getting closer to date of travel than ever. My flight is April 17 and if you send me a schedule change six weeks before flight, I should afford more rights for a full refund and flexible change. In my case, CX is actually fairly flexible but they don't have any flights to change me to. Very frustrating process!

Carfield

PS my flight is for April/May and I don't think there is any chance for an Aria Suite flight.

KhemaneyBoy

Looking at the timetable for April and May, there are several days with only 2 flights, and quite a few days with only 3 flights from HKG-LHR. Find that incredibly strange considering it's 5 flights a day, every day in June. It is still possible that the actual number of flights haven't been finalized yet.

thomas164

I cannot comment on some other statements he made, which probably included some false statements. But I’ve read some analysis/speculation that 77K business class is updated first as opposed to 77A, because first class will only be available on 779 in the future, and 77W will not have first class after the delivery of 779.

I don’t recall where I’ve seen it (hopefully not here by the said user), but definitely makes sense in that regard.

thomas164

It’s definitely quite weird. I tried to make a booking HKG-LHR for May, and is very confused by the flight timetable. Some sources stated 5 daily flights from March, while some others suggested June.

Anyways it’s slightly confusing on how they determined the number of flights each day, and which ones to keep. Previously I thought midnight departures from HKG are most popular, but I guess for some days CX tries to have flights more spread out?

CarefreeBA

Heathrow operates an 80% 'use it or bin it' slot scheme. In essence, you have to you use you slot 80% of the time, or risk it getting taken away from you. Cathay has 5 daily slot pairs in/out of LHR. However, whilst it can easily fill 5 long haul planes worth of people during peak times, that isn't necessarily the case at other times of the year. I've done some maths:

20% of 365 days = 73 days per year where they can not utilise a slot pair.
Assuming CX operate a full schedule for 4 months (equivalent) of the year during peak times: 73/8 = 9 days per month for 8 months where it doesn't need to operate and still retain the slot.

Of course, Cathay will have done the maths and decided when to/not to operate and maybe (probably) that operating more than the minimum 80% is more profitable.

This is not specific to Cathay or to London. It's an (ex)-EU rule that has been preserved over the years. It seems like CX can operate 3 midnight flights with them being forced to operate CX239 on Tues-Sat for that slot pair, even though the departure time out of London is the CX256 in all scenarios.

Anyway, this is just one plausible reason for this. At the end of the day, a lot is taken into account when operating an airline.

oldchinahand

It would be incorrect to indicate that major airlines loose slots if not used 80% of the time however there is a slight risk (seldom used) that an airline would have costly slots taken away unless they remain unused and unleased for a very extended period.
Cathay is not in any danger of loosing slots that cost as much as US$75,000,000 to purchase (American Airlines). The average cost of a slot is however looks to be over 20 million

To be precise Cathay holds 74 weekly slots at LHR Slots held’ is the total number of individual slots for the entire winter flying season divided by the number of weeks. Two slots are required per flight. Cathay leased 10 slots (five departure and arrival slots) to Emirates during the 22 week winter season. So it means that on two days a week Cathay will be maximum x4 daily.

I believe that Flights CX 239 and CX 256 have been removed from the inventory (Cathaypacific.com) for Cathay’s winter LHR-HKG-LHR non-stop however schedules can be quickly changed as needed.

NZflyer777

It's not that surprising that CX cannot fill even 5 flights a day to LHR year round anymore.

RALcobet

I think one reason why the schedule looks quite confusing is that CX currently links the schedule tool to the inventory booking tool - so if the flight is full (i.e. no inventory) it won't appear on the schedule...
To my understanding from Summer season (end of March) on most days CX will operate 5 a day - but there are days they will only operate 4, probably.

oldchinahand

CX have always reduced flights to LHR in the short very low season as I suspect that you well know
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CarefreeBA

To a degree yes, but which schedule tool are you referring to? I believe this is the case for most airlines; if a flight is full (in all cabins), there will be no way for you to pull it up on a search for an airfare. It will, however, appear on the flight status page as departure day approaches.

Most days CX will be operating 5 daily flights to London. On some Saturdays, there will be 6 due to CX239 and CX237 both operating (as mentioned above) and some days there will be 4 with even the odd 3.

RALcobet

I think we are talking about the same thing. The only annoying part is that while other airlines' schedule/timetable tool will show the "full schedule", CX schedule page ( https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_...timetable.html ) only shows what's still available for booking... Yes it does say explicitly "View the most up-to-date information about our current and upcoming flights with seats available to book for the next year. Please note flights that are full will not be displayed in the results below." but in my personal view still a bit strange...

Yes I think the flight status page shows the full schedule which is around 5 per day to LHR,

thomas164

Interesting! I never thought CX schedule page doesn't show the "Actual" flights, but rather those available for booking.

Just an example below, originally I was surprised to see CX is only operating 2 daily flights to LHR on certain day (eg. 19/5), but now maybe they're operating a bit more than what the schedule indicates. I definitely can't tell whether the other flights are not operating or simply full already.

CarefreeBA

A case of both. Some flights are full and are not showing (specifically CX251 14Apr). Some are showing as 0’ed out on ExpertFlyer but will be operating. 19May will have 3 flights as the CX255 will operate, but currently is not showing as available to book.

US HK UK flyer

Just some experiences flying out of LHR in Y:

- On check-in/baggage drop: most employees (ladies standing around) extremely helpful, even proactive in coming up to me several times asking if they could help. However, the person manning the desk for passenger enquiries seemed very flustered in dealing with everyone in line to the point of basically telling everyone he couldn't help them with basic baggage/seat requests. This was despite most people using the machines for automatic check-in/bag drop and not even giving him much to do.
- Flight was completely full, and the staff on check-in told me that every flight recently was the same way. However, it's Easter holidays in the UK which may have an impact on this. One of the FAs was surprised by how busy the flight was which may indicate that this hasn't been the case recently (although maybe he didn't always fly this route)
- FAs were very nice/polite especially on boarding and deplaning although I can see how someone not used to HK service standards would understand their curt efficiency at times as somewhat gruff
- The food, while not always *looking* appetizing (presentation is never a priority in Y!) was surprisingly good
- Mealtimes, which were something complained about on this forum, seemed reasonable - maybe a little more than about an hour after the nighttime takeoff from LHR and two hours before landing in the afternoon in HKG
- There was no problem with availability of types of meals that I heard/experienced
- Bottle of water available in the seat
- One major problem I had was the first drink service, served in a paper cup. I used the fold-out cup holder to avoid having the tray out but the cup was not strong enough to hold wine and it leaked a little bit. It also swished around a lot when there was turbulence and risked spilling out of the narrow cup. They should go for the wider cups on this service, and maybe another material (yes plastic is not as environmentally friendly but there must be a material that doesn't leak as easily)
- Flight time was only about 11:30, an hour less than scheduled; have they found a route with better winds or was I just lucky?
- Nice to see the comeback of the in-flight magazine, something I haven't seen even on other airlines post-pandemic! Made me feel like I was back in 2019..