I think only MH widebodies have lie flat, all 737s have some of the worst products yet with no TV... to HKG is also on those planes

Regional lie flat was announced a year ago, for implementation in 2026:

https://onemileatatime.com/news/cath...usiness-class/

Regional and long-haul C swaps?
 

Hello! I am booked to be on long-haul C on an A330 for flights for MNL-HKG and HKG-KIX (and vice versa) this winter per seat maps presented at the time of booking. If I may ask, what is the risk that CX may swap out this "long haul" A330 for a "regional" one with 2-2-2 configuration? I am fine with it for the MNL-HKG route but I chose to pay US$770 for a lie-flat seat on the longer HKG-KIX segment.

I'm unsure the risk, others will know better. Sometimes it's a virtual lock there will no swap unless extreme circumstances, other routes are more common.

Just fyi your quote isn't right from CX's perspective. On regional routes, CX sees themselves as selling you 1.) a specific flight at a specific time and 2.) a J seat with J service irrespctive if that's long-haul J or regional J hard product on regional routes. You're not going to get a refund or something if the plane swaps.

On regional routes, they don't see themselves as owing you the seat-type. That's just how it has been as long as I've flown CX, which is nearly two decades. We consider ourselves lucky now, because CX used to pull aircraft swaps on ME routes like DXB and even Australia way back in the day, 7-9 hour flight lengths. Fortunately those days are behind us for 10-15+ years. That was also when CX didn't have enough long-haul configged A333 birds. CX takes a similar approach with new products. They had a few product innovations that were a huge gap, the first was "old old old (slanty bed) J" to "old old (Olympus) J", a conversion that took place around 2007-2009. This was a non-flat bed to lie-flat, and of course was for long-haul flights. The second was old F to current F in the 2007-2010 timeframe (basically, although current F has been refreshed same "bones" still). Old F was a flat bed but new F was just so much bigger, more spacious, and private. Once you had the new one it felt like a huge downgrade to go back. That was truly a lottery until the whole fleet of 747s were reconfigured.

Besides the two regional F routes (HND and PEK) just once a day, the shortest destinations to truly guarantee yourself long-haul J are most of the India routes and CMB. KIX is unfortuately in the "regional J acceptable" umbrella.

CX has not yet finalised its winter schedule, so there's some risk for sure.

I have renamed and moved several posts into this thread. Please use this dedicated thread for further scheduling discussions.

CWB

CX has yet to finalise the winter schedule. The long haul 333 you saw was just a place holder.

For KIX route, which flight would you be on? For morning HKG and evening KIX departure, I would say there is a high chance 773 (regional J) would be deployed alongside with 1 to 2 long haul frames (long haul J). For other times, 333 is likely and it’s purely by chance whether it’s regional or long haul.

It has been confirmed in the flight timetable that there is one daily A35K to KIX, going as CX596/561. 596 is the 8:20am outbound from HKG. Most of the schedule still seems to be filled as 333 by default, but that one flight has been confirmed as A35K, presumably because CX would have wanted to confirm the schedules of their long-haul aircraft further in advance.

I am taking CX976 (MNL-HKG departs 05.45), CX502 (HKG-KIX departs 16.40) both on 11 December, and CX503 (KIX-HKG departs 09.50) and CX903 (HKG-MNL departs 16.15) on 15 December. For HKG-KIX, I booked a seat at row 21 as there is no regional A330 that features a C seat at that row.

Yeah I saw a regional 773 (not 77W) from HKG to KIX at 08.30.

So if it says there A330, then it will likely be an A330 and only a question of whether C is regional or long-haul?

If I may ask, what is that 33A which features a mix of two rows of long-haul C and the rest as regional C? Do some Cathay or OW members get priority over the former or are they sold as F in some circumstances?

Once sold as KA F before COVID-19 but not anymore. CX DMs can reserve them in advance. Not sure about oneworld Emeralds. Others can only try asking at the airport.

So far I am getting a "long-haul" A330 on all A330 flights of the day. Is there a chance that this could be swapped not just to a A330 with a regional configured C but also, a different aircraft type altogether (e.g. 777s or A350 or even A21N)?

They are definitely still placeholders. CX puts the 39C configuration as a standard for every A333 flight as long as the schedule has not yet been finalized. I have looked at several other A333 flights on 11 Dec and they are all showing the same configuration. At some point (I would think soon) there will be changes. It seems that so far only the 77W/359/35K operations are more or less loaded as they are expected to operate.

So so far it's fair game whether it's an A330 (regional or long-haul) or the regional 773 on those flights marked with a "long haul" A330 as placeholder? I saw an A21N flight already loaded.

I think most A21N flights have already been loaded into the system and have been for a long time - other flights are still subject to change. As of now, the only confirmed 773 operations are 1 daily flight to KIX via TPE, 1 daily to NRT via TPE, and another daily nonstop to NRT. CX obviously has more 773s than that, so there are still changes to be made to the schedules. These changes will most likely be confirmed within the next 2 weeks since the new scheduling season takes effect during the last week of October.

For sure that A333 with 39C is a placeholder and while it could still be a regional 773, I would say based on the history of that flight, an A333 is more likely. Also if you look at the past couple of days:

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d87dc3ee1e.jpg

the flight was operated with a regional A333 with 24C on 10 flights, with a regional A333 with 42C on 3 flights and with a longhaul A333 with 39C on 1 flight, so that gives an idea of what you are likely going to end up with.