I'm currently waiting for a friend to arrive on CX393, and the CX website shows that the "actual" departure was at 20:20. However, my friend informed me that the actual departure was at 21:30, closer to what FR24 shows, for a total of a 3 hour delay on the tarmac. I understand that delays happen, but shouldn't the CX website be more accurate in terms of when their planes have taken off? Especially for such a route that CX deems important enough to be the launch route of Aria.

Departure time is the time that the flight pushes back from the gate, not the takeoff.

Further ground delays after pushback, a need to return to the gate or a variety of other factors could account for the difference you are seeing between the CX website and the takeoff time reported by other sources.

I think CX site shows the time when doors closed to doors opening, whereas flightradar24 shows pushback to touchdown time..

I believe FlightRadar24 shows actual take-off to touch-down times.

This is correct. It's wheels up to wheels down.

Instead of FR24, use sites like https://www.flightaware.com/live/fli...050Z/ZBAA/VHHH

Gate Departure
08:20PM CST
Scheduled 06:40PM CST

Takeoff
09:30PM CST
Scheduled 06:50PM CST

I decided to research their system while on CX410 HKG-ICN this morning. Boarding was scheduled for 8:45am, and I was one of the first to board at 9:00am for the 9:25am scheduled (gate) departure.

At 10:35am, the captain went on the PA and said that due to rain, and we would need 45-60 more minutes. The IFE stated that the estimated time to ICN would be 3hr 6min once in the air. During this entire time and after the captain's speech, the CX website said that the flight was "On Time" and that the estimated gate departure was still somehow in the past, at 9:25am.

We eventually did the pushback at 11:55am, and even for a few minutes afterwards, the website still showed the 9:25am-2:05pm "On time" status. I've attached a screenshot at 11:59am of the website (newly refreshed) showing the 9:25am "On time" status.

Shouldn't this entire system be better?
- Is there a better way to prevent people from boarding the plane when significant delays happen? The captain mentioned it was because of rain, luggage wasn't loaded yet. Can't CX allow boarding only when 90% of bags (for example) are loaded?
- At 10:35am, when the captain said we'd need another hour- why was this not reflected on the status page as "delayed" ?
- Can't the system detect that if the flight requires 3 hours and 6 minutes, and it's past 10am HKT, then we would miss the 2:05pm KST eta and the site should show "delayed" ?
- At 11:59am, a few minutes after the pushback, why was the website's last update on the flight at 11:54am? Shouldn't it be easy to know when the plane has left the gate and update the system?


Strangely, I have gotten email to provide feedback on my recent CX flights as soon as the plane was on the ground, but got no such email after this flight.