Redistributed Crew Duties on Cathay Pacific
 

For those who have flown on Cathay Pacific since 2021, you will notice some changes to the staffing on board.

1. Inflight Service Managers and Senior Pursers have assumed new roles as section leaders. ISM will take over the role that used to be done by the SP while the SP now will go down to Premium Economy and Economy as the Section Leader (A post used to be done by a Flight Purser). First Class will still have an SP and FP.

2. ISMs will no longer be able to "float around" the cabin to assist Passengers, specially Diamond/Emeralds on special request. ISM will do the service on the aisle on the port-side as what the practice was when the SP was in charge of Business Class.

3. On Narrow-body aircraft, SPs will act as SCCM (Senior Cabin Crew Member/ISM) for the flight and will take care of the Business Class together with an FP.

4. Diamond Greeting (plus OW Emeralds) will be done together with the standard greeting for all passengers on the ground or before the 1st meal service. In PEY/YCL this will no longer bye done by the SCCM/ISM, instead the Section Leader/SP will assume this responsibility together with the delivery of the bottled water.

5. Business class manpower has also been cut from what I understand, I heard meal service is taking much longer now specially on full flights.

FPE What you post is possibly correct in theory but not in my experience in practise. I have 3 flights this year already and 7 last in Bus always the ISM has introduced and looked after any issues. Crew say no numbers cut in J.

There is/was some minor crew dispute and a few unhappy crew perhaps posting negatively.

ISM will still have to do introduction/greetings, but i think he/she will greet everyone as was the practice by the SP in the past when handing out menus, i think on short haul flights menus are pre-set on seats. In the past the J cabin can count on the ISM to help out, specially on short flights like TPE/MNL but i think now that she is really working thats 1 less person they can count on.

Overall crew has been cut by one but on the 77K and 77A. for J you are correct it didn't really change as the ISM is now working full time. However in PEY/Y, 1 FP was taken out as the SP is now doing that role.

Like pre-pandemic, an extra BC maybe assigned to J during meal service on ultra short-haul and ultra long haul flights.

5. Business class manpower has also been cut from what I understand, I heard meal service is taking much longer now specially on full flights.

I flew CX J short haul 7 times in late 2020. The service procedure changed. Instead of a cart to passengers, They have to hand in their meals one by one for the galley. The service flow is significantly longer than before.
This makes your meal time (especially A35K last few seats) less. From my experience, you might need to wait for your meal for 20-30 minutes longer than usual.

Also, manpower was reduced compared to KA. For a normal KA A321 flight, they will usually have at least 6 and up to 8 crew members.
CX A321Neo is now assigned at max 6, I flew to DPS in December, and they got 5 only for a full flight (A321Neo requires at least 4 crew).
(FYI, KA A321 has less seats compare to CX A321Neo)

All part of the elevated lifestyle experience.

I flew CX251 / CX252 on the 4-class 77W. Outbound I was in PEY / Inbound I was in Y.

From an Y/W pax perspective, I think the new service flow works well with the senior Purser now section leader for the Economy cabins. I observed closely both flights and there was consistency in both the team work and service flow across both flights which made for a very efficient and well executed meal service. It was my first long haul CX Y flight since Nov20 when we were still deep in the pandemic. I thought, wow, CX has really come back to how it used to be - excellent service, printed menus, good food, lots of inflight snacks etc.

As an Emerald, the greeting both times was conducted by the Senior Purser. Whilst I spotted the ISM once briefly, she did not come back to the Economy cabins to participate in any greetings or service flow. Whilst as a passenger I can't comment on individual crew workload, it looked like the flow of service was much better, with the Senior Purser actively involved in managing the Economy cabins - if anything this autonomy and responsibility might be a nice thing for Senior Pursers.

The Senior Purser was located at the mid cabin galley by door 4 during meal service. On both flights, they were active in replenishing trolleys with drinks/meals and helping at the end with early tray pick up / trash etc.

There is a post by the CX flight union comparing the number of crews for 777/A350 etc for CX against other airline such as EVA/SQ. CX have the least crews

And it was reported that CX only deploy 4 crews to serve Y cabin of 288 paxes for flights to Japan in Jan.

I spoke to someone who had a conversation with a CX manager who did say that since post-pandemic they anticipate people who used to fly business may need to fly economy or premium economy, CX wanted to move the Senior Purser into economy cabin to level up the premium experience. I suppose on these 2 flights they were successful.

On the other hand, as prices for tickets have increase dramatically, I don't know how removing someone from Business will make people who paid more for Business feel more premium.

It seems like CX is staffing their flights with a minimum number of crew or just +1. I heard they seems to have a problem with hiring enough FPs and BCs, to the point that when you are on standby theres an upwards of 80% chance that you get called, and theres also a chance for senior crew members i.e. ISM and SP to be downgraded to FP or BC role.

on my recent flight back from Osaka, 2 SPs were deployed to EY due to shortage of FPs and BCs.
on their 321, total 6 crew deployed, 2 in J and the rest in EY on a full flight...premium service?

their recent recruitment at CX city, i saw fewer than 10 people lining up. later in the day, personnel was just sitting there

at HK$9000 I'm not sure who would want to apply...

yeah and I don’t think they have activated their London, Singapore, and Bangkok Base Crew yet.

i don't think they have those bases anymore

and I wonder where you based that on
for SIN the 711-658 rotation is always operated by SIN based crew. And this flight is restarting.