midlevels

It seems that from end March onwards, when the winter schedule is over, all India flights that previously had PE (BOM/DEL/BLR) will switch from 77W/359 to 333 and will lose PE and will be operated by 2-class aircraft only. This seems to be a permanent change.

Any clues as to why PE is being permanently dropped from India?

This actually happened many months ago but I was sceptical and thought that maybe schedules were not fully loaded. As we get nearer the time it now does seem to be actually happening.

percysmith

Because 33Ks (long haul J/PE/Y) config is being phased out? I only see 33E config for India now.

midlevels

Possibly but I'm not sure what the driver is. Is it:

1. 77W/359 has too much capacity so they change to 333 and as a side effect, PE is gone?
2. They don't want to offer PE at all so they changed to an aircraft type that doesn't have it?
3. Something else?

Hard to say, I wonder...

midlevels

It seems to me that with so many USA transit pax flying to and from India/USA via HKG, there would be healthy demand for PE on India routes.

jagmeets

Similar case with SIN (and from cursory look, BKK/TPE as well- though those seem to currently be scheduled with a mix rather than all longhaul planes like SIN is, at the moment).

That’s a fair bit of longhaul plane capacity freed up from the schedules…

I have a couple of flexible R class tickets that I will use this summer, and like midlevels , was half expecting/hoping for the schedules to be updated..

If I rebook now, they’ll be booked into R+B (for the short leg)- and I absolutely don’t want to be calling/explaining/convincing an agent to reticket the second segment of a married booking from B->R if/when they upguage close in (hey- the Club Points count! And they do eventually make the change, but it is a pain..)

midlevels

I'm in exactly the same boat as you, although in my case they were already booked into R+B (but with underlying PE fare code) so I was hoping that eventually when PE got added back (which now looks like it won't happen), I could call up and rebook into PE instead of Y.

And yes, the Club Points count!

CXFlyerBoy

Chill. The 333s are placeholders. At least for SIN

NZflyer777

QR /EK/ SQ send their best product to India. Q suite or A380s.

Bom/del/blr losing the a350/777 would mean an inferior and uncompetitive product apart from a loss of market share to competitors.
Del really shoud be 3 daily and Bom twice daily.

Just flew the A350 from BLR and it was great, miles better than SQs A350

PE was full on the BLR flight and Business 80% full btw.

And literally everyone seemed like they were in transit to another flight at HKG.

On the plus side this means more long haul flights later this year

TomYoung

All part of the plan to turn CX into a low cost carrier I'm sad to say.

midlevels

Maybe, just maybe, the plan is to take these 77W out of service first and send them for retrofit of Aria (and new PE seat) and then return them to longhaul service. While the retrofit is ongoing, it makes more sense to cut PE capacity from shorter routes rather than the longer ones.

Once the retrofit is complete, maybe these routes get PE again.

A wild guess.

csycsycsy

Is there so little demand for O/D for mid haul routes in W a few months out such that CX does not lose out on revenue from pax who would have booked W but booked Y due to the A333 being still used as placeholder? Or demand for W only materialises in the last month's, just in time for CX to put in the actual equipment/release W for sale?

For hub model, at least from ex-EU there is no other carrier that can do W to W, it's always Y SH to hub then W LH, this is the benefit of CX, if the mid hauls retain W. By releasing W mid hauls so late, CX thinks it's W/Y combo is as competitive and pax would book anyway even if there's no W/W, so no loss of revenue? Personally I find this a PITA.

jagmeets

I’ve done this thrice now- got them to change a R+B booking to R+R. And atleast twice, a ’regular’ rebooking would not have worked because R was sold out (married/on the long leg, but available on the HKG-SIN or vv sector).

Painful variation of a quick sensible chat (worked once), firmness - ‘it’s been done in the past, if you don’t know how to, please escalate’ (one of the 3 times), and when an all failed, a DYKIA the last time (some 45 mins into the call, ‘if that is how MNL call centre treats a 13th year DM, perhaps Ronald Lam needs to know- who does your supervisor’s boss report to, or signs the contract with’- felt real ashamed to say that, but, it got things done after another 5-10mins on hold).

Don’t want to do that again.


PS: and yes, I got rebooked to R+B a while back, save for 1 ticket, which is ‘open’, courtesy their CS’ incompetence (good for me, gives added flexibility, since it touches the US, and the DoT is involved..)

jagmeets

Happened last year too, when I rebooked a bunch of flights in Q1. CX’s schedules were way more. volatile then- but, longhaul planes were put back on the SIN schedule a lot earlier than this year.

CXFlyerBoy

how so, in your wisdom

CXFlyerBoy

it happened to me in 23 but the other way round where i booked when the flight was a 333 then upgauged to 4class 77W. Happy camper did an initial upgrade Y to J when it was still a 2 class 333. They honored the upgrade when the flight changes to 77W and I snared 1K after.

That being said, W load SIN to HKGvv had been paltry the three times I flew since Christmas. First two flights were 40% full round trip. On my most recent 710/715 flight last weekend, W was 6/28 on the way up to HKG and 7/28 on the way back. In fact for 710, load was 3/28 at T-2