i think its likely there would be a A330neo order at the end of the year, as they said. CX really does need smaller widebodies.

CX has mentioned long haul routes are doing really well, Ive seen almost every 7+ hour flight full, but regional ones have plenty of competition, so maybe they would try out some long haul port that is very underserved but has high demand, like MIA, BHX or JED.

Well, the yyc-hkg component of their fares would need to be low enough to compete with KE, CX, BR, CI, etc (i.e airlines that don't have to worry about interlining).

Spot on there. Which MNL flight did you do CX901/913 Mid day Dusk CX903 early evening CX919 late night CX939 morning CX907? Time to time these MNL flights get something like a B-LRx B-LQx A359 A35K B-LXx B-KPx B-KQx that did BOS/JFK/YVR/SFO/LAX/YYZ-HKG for MNL.

They have enough planes now but the bottlenck is shortage of pilots. The utilization rate of A330 and B77W is quite low while A359 are put on regional flights.

I will say with more pilots, B77W/B779 will replace those A359 on premium long-haul destinations, (just like what happened to YVR/LAX), A330 replace A359 on regional routes, and use A359 to restart service to tier-2/3 cities.

The size of A359 is quite fit for tier-2/3 cities. BCN/MAD looks good. The belly cargo capacity is also a bright spot.

Looks like British Airways is suspending one of their daily flights from LHR-HKG from W24 onwards. Big blow for HKIA but would that further increase the chances of additional CX flights to LHR or a resumption to LGW?

I was on 918. Being retired and sharing my time mainly between Hong Kong and Manila I like to take lunch in the Pier and then float down to Manila with a Negroni. The early afternoon flight is hardly the great connector, particularly on Tuesday afternoon, but there it was, bursting at the seams.

UK traffic is quite seasonal with holidays.

Not only does BA seems to discontinue one flight, but the remaining is operated by a small 789 with old seats.

Well aware of that. Still surprised BA didn't keep the service for the December period though.

I think BA really is giving up on the Asian market. Transatlantic is a infinite money glitch for them. But that means more passengers on CX, so that's good

Frankly, I'm amazed that more European airlines haven't thrown in the towel now that the Chinese have finally added enough capacity to have a meaningful impact on fares.

Not too sure if they're giving up on the Asia Market, they're resuming flights to KUL and BKK in W24. Either way, it looks like they've been struggling somewhat on their HKG route.

As bad as BA is, many would rather fly them or any western carrier than mainland airlines. Ex-LHR the mainland carrier prices aren't as bargain bin as they are from continental Europe either. With 5x CX flights from LHR a day that are full every time I take them this is the fault of their own terrible product.

Although it may help CX having less competition, the HKer in me is sad to see BA decline on the route. Just a short few years ago HKG-LON was a goldmine. CX had 5x daily + LGW, VS had a daily service, BA had a 1x A380 and 1x 777-300ER.

To me this signals a macro level change in flying demand to/from HK/ Mainland China. Western carriers have not added back capacity into HKG like it was pre-pandemic. I think we can get very easily caught up looking at the airport and CX flights being so full but I guess we need to look carefully... what is this passenger profile? Is it ex HKG Leisure / VFR? Long haul carriers in particular rely on corporate contracts and high yielding business traffic. Fundamentally a lot of this has gone or reduced. It is making it difficult for these foreign carriers to add back the same number of seats as they once did.

We don't have the numbers but the reports are that the front of the plane is more consistently full than the back on the CX flights, I believe. The back has always been full in my experience but I also tend to fly the route more during school holidays. Still, if CX can field 5x and BA not even 2 I think it says more about BA not being competitive than the route. If these airlines were equally competitive we might see BA increasing to accommodate more demand and CX reducing instead.

Also, a lot of speculation on these routes will center on demand but it's important to remember there are large costs involved in avoiding Russia overflight as well which has been an additional cause of reduced western capacity to China and by extension HK. These include not only potentially increased fees for overflying numerous other countries, but extra fuel costs, reduced willingness to fly these routes because they now take extra time, and reduced competitiveness vs. non-direct carriers that now take not that much more time, like ME3.

it doesnt help BA sends their really anti- modern and bad quality B787 at least once a day, so maybe BA did bring it on themselves. I think almost all asian markets (including KUL and BKK) gets the old product.

This route is also really cheap on QR and EK, and combined with CX's much better products and high passenger count I think BA could only give up. Not to mention the pandemic changed everything, and now HK'ers seem to travel more to japan instead of any other place.