Load in premium cabins
 

Happy New Year to all FT-ers, especially CX fliers :) I was on HKG-SIN on the 77A in J (11A of the mini J-cabin) this afternoon, first time onboard the new plane. Flight was overbooked at the back, but very few paid J customers. In fact, many non-status pax were upgraded to J, resulting in an almost full J cabin.

However, the most shocking thing (at least for me) was that there was 0 out of 6 in the F cabin, for this traditionally full New Year Day flight :rolleyes: The signs that hard times are coming for CX? In fact, I was hoping for an upgrade to F if J turned out to be full as well, but, no luck today :)

If they were expecting an empty F cabin for this flight, they should perhaps substitute this flight with a 2-class only regional plane, instead of opting for the new plane? Just wondering.....

As for the other leg I went on, TPE-HKG, it was expectedly full in both Y and J for the A330 regional-config plane. Similarly, there were lots of op-ups for that flight.

Let's see what will the load be in my return flight to TPE on 4th Jan. The first leg to HKG will be on the old 3-class config A330, while the second leg is again another regional 777.

I wouldn't expect planes at this time of year to be busy in premium cabins and definitely not on the routes you are on. It is a leisure time of the year, on routes that would be typically leisure traffic on these dates.

CX doesn't normally fly 3 class planes between SIN and HKG any more, so doubt they even sell F fares.

They used to have 1 flight a day SIN-HKG with a F class (the 18.30 flight) but stopped offering F on this recently when they stopped flying a 744 on the flight and changed to EQV (though usually 777 with old or RBC biz class)

I was speaking t the pursor on HKG TPE tuesday evening. In a loud voice she was saying to all the C class cabin "buy one get 3 seats free", she was obviously in a jolly mood. There was about 8 or 9 passengers in total on the flight. During the flight she was telling me that the yeild is falling fast on HKG TPE and they are now beginning to see it. She told me that as most people in SE Asia work during Xmas this should not reduce too much the yeild. She went on to tell me that the flight I was on is actually going on to Tokyo and this is the only reason they keep it going as they get good traffic from TPE to NRT and they are able to compete with CI and BR on these routes on price which is key to getting Taiwanese to fly with them.

I was on CX 104 from MEL-HKG on Boxing Day. I was the only passenger in first. It was quite surreal - I had my own cabin "Welcome, QF Lad, you are the only passenger in F so you can sit anywhere", my own toilet, and 2 flight attendants to look after me. Except for when I went for a walk around tthe plane (J and Y had reasonable loads), I did not see another passenger. I (almost) felt royal!

Yesterday from HKG - DEL I was one of 3 passengers in J (there was no F cabin).

I know that this is holiday time, but these loads from these 2 flights in the premium cabins are very low.

I was doing a family trip to MNL in late Nov, and my wife and I were the only 2 pax on the whole upper deck for HKG-MNL, served by 3 flight attendants 100% dedicated to the upper deck, on a Sat morning (the return flight was quite full in J though on Sun evening).

and just a week or two ago, on a PVG flight, there's only a couple of pax out of the whole 24-seat J section, while Y is like 80-90% full - a situation I haven't seen for years; for PVG/PEK flights for the past few years it's always much much more difficult booking J seats rather than Y.

the last time I saw this it's SARS - when at that time I found myself often to be the only J pax (or one of the 3 on whole upper-deck J on HKG-JFK served by 3 FA's)...

I took many times HKG-CGK-HKG in FIRST (using an upgrade) and I was the only one flying FIRST.

HKG-JFK CX888 on 01JAN
 

Just got off from CX888 and was lucky enough to be op-uped to F (paid K, miles redemption to U). While talking to the ISM, she says that only about half of the passengers in F and J are those who actually bought F/J tkts, and about 20 people were op-uped (Y->J or J->F) as a result of overbooking in Y(HKG-YVR). In YVR-JFK, I was the only passenger in F, and since this is the first time I try the new CX F, it was a fabulous experience.:)

Well, they still do sell F-fares for my return trip to HKG (priced at S$2,557 one way). On the 4th Jan, they have the morning flight at 9:10am (A333) and the afternoon flight at 4:25pm (A343) with F-cabin.

I noticed that KA cancelled one flight to PVG yesterday.

I just had my flight today Jan 1st HKG-YYZ. The bookings were full from Jan 1st-8th, but then at the last minute there were empty seats left in Y. They didn't give me an op-up.

Just want to ask, is there a difference between check-in in the last minute and check-in 1 or 2 hours before departure when hoping for an op-up?

hope you had a great flight. if you do search on cathay there's now empty Y seats to be sold on almost all days. I think this is due to people reserving seats really early on and then changing dates last minute. that's probably what happened in your case, and the last few Y seats didn't get sold eventually i guess.

Loading are down big time in C and F. They are forecasting at best 50% after CNY. Prices will go down for sure.

I won't bet on it. Contrary to common sense, the CX Management decided to raise price and by A LOT. This was documented on another thread and is widely beleived to contribue to the drop in the premium pax traffic on CX right now. Coupled with serious downgrade on soft products, not many people are willing to go out their way to pay to fly CX F or J these days - I know I definitely won't but just booked NH F yesterday for another transpac. The fact that CX doesn't have a very strong FFP where Marco Polo Club doesn't give generous elite bonus or upgrades, CX really doesn't have many backbones to support during a soft economy like this one. It's no wonder why it is experiencing such tremendous difficulty in filling its front cabins.

Even with the very low loads, they are not releasing seats for award travel. I have been told that to save money on some of the key routes, the will not release J or F space, rather they can save money by flying the plane with 0 in F and few in J, rather than give the seats away for mileage awards. :td: