Nope - so pretty likely CX hasn't fully evaluated any of its new routes yet

Was flown out of CSX on a 333: agent told me that both J and Y are oversold, hence the equipment swap. I guess there are some volatility in the load here.

My last flight to CSX was super light load with less than 60 pax on board, and my return flight back to HK was full load in both J and Y. Seems it varies quite a lot.

60!? , this must be a very big loss on this flight .

Unless the cargo in belly is able to justify the cash costs.

A friend of mine recently flew HKG-CGO (A321neo route) with 44 pax onboard, and 0 cargo onboard apart from checked-in bags. Some of the Mainland China routes appear to be facing very volatile demand, but CX cannot be cancelling flights which might be loss-making... it would really damage their reputation, especially after what happened in December 2023.

if CX can't succeed on mainland routes that's just customers avoiding CX.

The market is large and there is plenty of demand.

44 , is not even enough to pay the fuel .
cx is just too kind to not cancel the flight.

I recall a decade ago I flew UO to CGO for HKD 862 roundtrip (hand carry only). That route was eventually cancelled. Are there more international routes out of CGO now?

Sorry, when I said they "cannot" cancel flights, that's not exactly what I meant. I'll be more precise now :)

CX will have many flights to various destinations with a load factor (and cargo load) low enough to justify a cancellation, but if they did this every time there was a loss-making route, they'd end up cancelling so many flights - that would significantly harm their reputation as well as their flight reliability. Sure, it may make more sense to scale down ops to certain destinations during certain seasons, which is what CX have been doing over the last few years, where there are flights to some cities missing on some days during periods of lower demand.

I certainly think that the subsidies you mentioned would also be having a significant impact on CX ops to cities such as CGO like I mentioned, and capturing connecting traffic is a big part of the business model, so there would be many flights which may appear to be loss-making but actually aren't.

+ I have seen CX cancelling flights, but those are very reasonable cancellations. An example is say a flight to TPE in the morning - from time to time those flights are cancelled because there are many flights departing to TPE around the same time, and the pax and cargo from the cancelled flight can be reaccommodated onto the other TPE flights without leaving people totally stranded.

If CX cancelled a flight every time they were losing money on it, their reputation would be down the drain, and cancellation rates through the roof (Awful for reliability ratings). Most airlines are forced to fly loss-making flights, but for the sake of their brand and image, they don't have a choice. I am also assuming that the return flight had a slightly better load, because 2 25% full flights back-to-back is pretty rare.

In my opinion, the observation from one flight is not enough to justify a routes performance

Whether you see the plane empty or full, it doesn't mean the route is performing good/bad. Only the people inside the airline know this

Same thing applies for flight experience, just because it was amazing once on a airline doesn't mean it would be next time

Seems to be the trend in most tier-2/3 city services: outbound Chinese students and holidaymakers take up a large share, and demand is volatile. I have been hearing that the CSX route has either been full or very empty.

Speaking of that, if CSX is indeed axed, I will very much miss those outbound J fares...

I completely agree with you - it's just that I am not commenting on the route's performance... I am pointing out that CX shouldn't cancel individual flights if the load factor is low on that specific flight on the day.

Of course, I don't think a route can be judged on a sample size of one flight in one direction on only one day... I don't think CX would have increased CGO from 4 weekly services to daily flights if their load factor was usually that low. Only CX knows, as you said.