Just seen MEL is getting it next from august 3rd, CX104/105.

But B-KPX has not yet completed installation of Aria Suites (also First Class removal)......

sounds like it will come back on 2aug

I generally despise the trend to touch switches. Not only in aviation but everywhere else too. Nothing worse than having to go through 3 sub menus to turn on the AC in your car…

Winter 2025 77J regional deployment

Sapporo - schedule start through end of Dec 2025 (CX580)
Haneda - from 1 Jan onwards (CX548, no more first class)

CX255 also updated to 77J from 359 for winter schedule but interestingly CX250 remain 359 as of now

CX for some reason seems way more inclined to convert their 77A's first instead of 77K's. Previously I thought they would at least keep a certain amount of frames to protect F on rotations that currently still have them. Guess I was wrong. HND going 77J is another surprise to be honest.

For the record, 77K will replace 77A on CX882/883 to LAX on certain days of the week from Winter 2025. No doubt a byproduct of their aggressive strategy in converting 77A's first. J capacity on the 77K is 13 seats less than the 77A. Premium capacity overall is reduced by 19 seats in total if you account for F as well. Not good news for fares and redemption availability in J...

it sucks, but i unfortunately think the writing has been on the wall since CX basically stopped the "return of F" post covid at just 3 long-haul cities (LHR, LAX, JFK). I think by now, if they were going to roll out F to more destinations, obviously we would've seen it and so it's done until 777X arrives.
I think the rules are (until 777X arrives):
->F is only going to be on LHR once or twice a day, JFK once a day, and LAX once or twice a day (with the LAX and LHR rotations being the ex-HKG midnight departures always)
->With those aircraft rotations above, they will have at least 2 operating 77A birds on the ground idle during HK daylight hours, so can always keep at least two regional turnaround flights in F if they choose, presumably PEK and HND.

If what i surmise above are true, then it means they just have too many 77As, and they need to do something about it. Hence, the Aria conversions. the fact is they are giving up yield by operating those 77A birds to the hodgepodge destinations that have seen F-equipped planes on non-F routes in the last year: SFO, SYD, MEL, many in Europe, yadda yadda. it's a brutal industry and the market doesn't smile on so much money left on the table. Better to be selling the 77J planes near capacity than 77A planes at "capacity" (294 seats) vs. 77J at capacity (361 seats). it's also my guess, see below, that CX is probably reaching for J passengers on those routes and a healthier yield mix might be a few more PEY and Y passengers at the expense of the incremental extra J numbers.

The 77A, esp. when outfitted as a non-F plane, has 59 J seats and only 34 PEY seats. My bet is this is an inefficient premium skew in today's market to most destinations, and that it isn't a perfect configuration for many of the destinations receiving 77A as a 3-class bird. I suspect the 77J, with its 45 J and 48 PEY seats, better serves those markets. it's true 77J has less J capacity, but the whole market has changed, especially PEY is much more well known and popular with customers than it was a decade+ ago, and CX just can't give up yield by flying 77A with so many J seats (including 6 giant F seats sold as J, wasteful from the airlines' point of view), too few PEY seats, and too few total seats. It's bad enough that 77A isn't selling F to these cities but I also think the plane itself is probably still configured incorrectly for most markets in today's post-covid, 787/a350-dominated, "PEY is well understood and perfect for many customers" world.

Not a coincidence:
77A: F + J + PEY = 93 seats
77J: J + PEY = 93 seats

With CX selling 77A F class as J, you can see how the load balances out and these two planes (specifically 77A to 77J) are actually a more straightforward decision than it would otherwise seem. If you're willing to say the blended passenger yield to a given destination of those 93 seats might end up being equal 77A vs 77J (and I think CX may see this as such, in fact they may even see a yield up with 77J over 77A to some of these cities), then CX gets to sell massively more Y seats on the 77J vs. 77A (+67 seats), which of course goes mostly straight to the bottom line. (And even if 77A->77J yields slightly less in the 93 seats in the premium cabins, you still have a lot more extra Y seats to sell. It's hard to see how this isn't a bad bet for CX. The 77A was always mighty premium heavy in J and F, and the rise of PEY has made that plane a little bit of a dinosaur.)

Anyway thats my 2 cents on how the economics look to CX here.

Anyone know why CX is not putting Aria on any US routes? Feel like JFK, LAX, and SFO more than warrant the most refreshed product. At first I thought it's because there's simply no competition on US routes (besides UA from LAX/SFO), but LHR also sees competition only from BA for 1 frequency a day. Why is the US being neglected? Like Melbourne? Seriously?

it’s actually pretty straightforward. it has to do with aircraft types and rotations and economics, which are a far bigger consideration (order of magnitude) than “prestige” ideas about routes and cities that exist mostly in the fantasy world of the internet. It doesn’t have anything to do with a monopoly either, sfo and lax are both highly competitive markets. Served by two airlines each (UA and CX each wirh multiple dailies) with countless others offering attractive one stop competition with top notch products at highly competitive pricing without much of a detour (via Korea, Japan and Taiwan).

as you no doubt know, SFO is served by 2 or 3 flights daily by the a350. JFK is also served by the a350 2/3 daily flights, and that product isn’t yet being reconfigured for aria. 77W is, and JFK gets that plane once per day, but JFK gets F class and CX is not reconfiguring the old F class 77W planes (“77A”) in anticipation of long delayed 777X eventually arriving with a new F product. Blame Boeing for this obviously. To understand this point a bit better, the post just above yours may be worth reading. A question back to you might be: should CX cancel F on JFK to fly the Aria equipped J? Because that’s one of the trade offs that you haven’t considered in your post! For now, CX is siding with “keep F”.

LAX will no doubt get Aria soon enough. But LAX partially overlaps with the JFK problem, since at least 1x LAX flight daily has guaranteed F.

for the SFO rotation that sometimes gets 77W in the “77K”, and the other LAX flights, there is the consideration about aircraft rotation times. West coast flights are highly variable on season vs summer season. Winter flights are considerably longer westbound, up to 15-16 hours on high wind days. This means more complicated rotations are needed to combine with other patterns, or 3 planes (instead of 2, for example) needed to fulfill daily operations.

second to last, there is the point of how CXs first aria configged planes (77J) have a huge PEY section. The idea CX would fly a plane just to some city for a prestige reason, instead of an economic one, is a little silly. And the math of the J vs PEY vs Y split is an important factor in the economic equation. It’s not necessarily just a simple aircraft swap but it may behoove CX to launch the Aria equipped 77J on certain routes first (say YVR, the newest city to get it I think), and redeploy those planes elsewhere, because of how the math shakes out.

and lastly, for JFK I know there is at least some consideration for polar routes / flying over Russia and I’m not sure if all CX planes are permitted to or not. I others who know better can advise.

(it’s also worth just saying there are very few aria planes at the moment).

This is all to say there are a lot of factors at work.

I’ve created a Wiki (surprised there wasn’t one already) to track the aircraft refurbishments, the pace of them, and the routes they’ll appear on

I think 'prestige' (in technical terms, we can translate that to both yield or marketing) does have play here, but then of course I don't deny that there are also other factors like cargo capacity, scheduling and all that.

Otherwise it wouldn't be CTS, PEK etc (over say SIN) for the regional picks.

For CX's long hauls - a rule of thumb is generally 'three frames for two [daily] rotations'. There are 7 77Js now, going up to ~10 by end of year. So you can do the math on how that pans out.

honestly A350 business is really good also, and most people in this site think its better because of how much space you have, and A350 is almost on all US routes, maybe to save fuel. most 777s, are indeed 4 class ones so aria is not possible.

and not to mention the US situation is perhaps playing a part of it, cannot confirm but wouldnt be suprised if that was the case. on the other hand, SYD, MEL, LHR, YVR are all good choices in my opinion, very big parts of CX's network with many flights a day, it makes sense to make the new product exposed to more people on key routes. tho i do think LAX could be coming soon, along with FRA/ SFO, or maybe second daily in some places.

as for regional, PEK is reasonable as how many diamond members fly there. and cathay doesnt fly 77W to a lot of main regional desinations anymore (even SIN, NRT, KIX, PVG, ICN,BKK, CGK etc. have no B77W), so the chance of regional getting the products next is lower. though rumors are it would go next to HND.

finally, i do agree the concept of "prestige" cities is pointless and honestly toxic.

and one more thing, did CX ever say whether current a359/a35k's would get the retrofits down the road? sorry if this has been discussed before (there's 83 pages to this topic already lol)

CX has confirmed they are getting a retrofit, and yes it will be a ways 'down the road' – https://www.executivetraveller.com/n...business-class