percysmith

I remember someone said about min 2 crew to operate an occupied cabin, but have been challenged on this.

tentseller

That is what I heard as well.

Carfield

It has been the policy post-Covid. I asked the staffs at Taipei for the same cabin and the answer was that the "first class" cabin is reserved for diamond members. The cabin ended up being occupied half full with one non-rev. For CX, non-revenue passengers are more important than oneworld elite members. I was disappointed but not surprised. I also presume that Oneworld has expanded quickly and there are just so many Emerald members now. Ultimately if I am a Marco Polo or Asia Miles elite member, I will like those cabin reserved to me too.

But don't worry much as CX will eliminate first class on these 777-300ERs soon, as they put in the new Aria suites. First Class won't come back till 777-9s arrive. God knows when it will become available.

Carfield

Fly Me To The Moon

My friend, and Cathay Green member, just used his miles to book me a business class redemption ticket SHA-HND//HND-PVG on Oneworld member JAL. My Cathay membership number was appended to the booking, and I was correctly recognized as a Diamond/Emerald member.

I then went to the JAL website, entered the booking reference, and selected my seats. The SHA-HND sector was being operated with a 77W with only Business Class service, but also with a First Class cabin. I was able to choose either 02D or 02G in the First cabin. All of Row 1, and seats 02A and 02K, were blocked as unavailable (or taken).

simonjp

I flew HKG to PER in full redemption J two weeks ago, and the two of us ended up in row 1. The original year old booking was A351 but it's now operated by the 4-class 773 [as mentioned above]. All 6 seats were taken. Lovely flight 🙂 (J was not full).
On the return overnight yesterday... not so lucky. Nothing open at OLCI, and at the airport was told no space. In the end, saw 4/6 seats taken. I did get redirected [escorted] to the forward bathrooms when the J one were in use a couple of times. (J also not fully loaded).

littlevoices

I'm mid-way through a fairly simple HKG-PVG set of flights, on 77Ws with the first class seats. It was a business trip so booked at fairly short notice in business class, in both cases about 2 days out I could see (via ExpertFlyer), two first class seats each way were unblocked at about 55 hours out (and four taken). I am OWE (BA), and in the past have had a bit of luck getting these seats at check-in by asking nicely.

I tried asking for help from a DMP calling up on my behalf, alas even then the message was "Diamond Members only" (not some semi-related friend :P), and clearly on a core route like this there will be plenty of DMs. On the outbound even 6 hours before the flight all the seats were fully taken (presumably via OLCI or connecting flights) so pointless to ask nicely even.

So my own experiences would be that this is being limited to DMs only, as more become familiar with this "perk"

CXFlyerBoy

Bear in mind there is also an increase in the number of faux paux burongkuku 840 pointer DMs. Go figure. As a CX GO, I am resigned to 11A on CX 360 this coming weds.

VE105

PVG route has lots of DMs. I guess Aussie routes generally have bigger change for non-DMs.

Runner2024

Hi have flown a few times this year to PER and MXP where CX are operating the 777w 4 class aircraft config but only selling seats up to J class. And each time when booking my flight online, I am able to select rows 1-2. A few times I did forget to seltect my seat and had the ticket issued. Upon get my boarding pass thru the app the day before, I was allocated a seat in Row 1. It does appear its reserved for DM and quite often on each of my flights this year a few seats have remained empty. After checking with the ISM as I tried to have a colleague sit with me, she confirmed only DM permitted.

pf007

inferring from what other users have said here, thought that SYD & MEL were very elite-heavy, esp. given that QF is also a major airline in OW

VE105

From my own experience, OWE yes, but DM no, didn't see a lot of DMs (at least not as many as HND/PEK/PVG/LHR/SIN) on SYD/MEL routes.