nsolitude

Wow, that must have been unpleasant. May I know if the crew was LAX-based? (I've heard many rumours of scary LAX-based ISMs...)

HKGglobaltrotter

The crew are all HKG based

CommittedLurker

CX 879 SFO-HKG
July 10th
Business

2nd meal service normal before landing

cxlabase

Cx885s are always operated by hkg based crews.

sxc

I just stepped off CX899 from EWR and the J menu said that the second meal would be served before landing. However, when they handed out the menus the FA told me that the meal would be served mid-flight.

I wasn't happy about this as I prefer to sleep through the whole flight and the meal service is very disruptive.

I spoke with the ISM and the FA separately about this asking why they served the meal mid flight, and they said because everyone is awake on these long flights and they are hungry. She also said to me...look at all the snacks we are preparing now even though we served the meal mid way, and I said well that this is why there are snacks, and the FA was like....yeah well...


So in this case CX wanted the service to be "normal" but the ISM decided to change the service.

To their credit, when I asked for something to eat 30 minutes before landing, they offered me the burger, but when I asked for some pastries, they were able to serve this and some fruit.

flyingstudent

CX898 930am HKG-LAX in J on 7/14. Mid flight meal service. The cart movement woke me up for breakfast and then I couldn't fall back asleep.

SeeBuyFly

No activity on this thread for a while...has CX stopped its mid-flight madness or has everyone just gotten used to it?

I have a flight coming up soon, hence the question.

QRC3288

it hasn't stopped unfortunately, although the flights where it's possible are up in the wiki. One thing that seems certain is that if you're on a late-night departure, whether ex-HKG or outport, the crew pattern is meal-rest-rest-meal. ditto for flights where you arrival early morning.

i made an effort to log most of the meal times on my 19 TPACs in the last year. With the exception of ~5-6 flights in F, the rest were in J. Have flown to or from every outport in North America in last 12 months except YVR.

ISM (and SP) have discretion, no matter what the technical rule is, and they modify the meal timing frequently. at least 3 of the 19 flights changed meal times, but roughly 10 of my sectors have been midnight sectors where meal timings don't change. So more like 3/9 were changed meal timings. These flights were ORD, ex-LAX and and ex-JFK, all midday departures. Excuses were: "snacks ran out" (meal pulled forward), "passengers were hungry" (a bit of the same), "flight departed for ORD later than expected so we thought we'd treat it more like a night flight" (flight was delayed, they were apparently supposed to do meal-rest-meal-rest but swapped to meal-rest-rest-meal to my relief), etc. I've also flown on a few flights this year and in years past where J meal timing is out of sync with the EY meal timing.

it seems like the flights where you're at risk for the midflight meal are the ones where they're daytime departures and non-early morning arrivals. if you have a midnight departure, or early morning departure, it seems guaranteed you get meal-rest-rest-meal.

GE90-115B

While it may seem that day flights are more prone to the mid-flight meal timings, there have been rare reports on this thread of midnight long-hauls having the mid-flight meal too. I think they were on CX899 and 845 if I recall correctly. It's just simply hard to fathom why they do it for long-haul red-eyes since most passengers in J would conk out for about 7 hours straight, especially when it would very likely be already 4am local time by the time dinner service is wrapped up completely.

I chatted briefly with a junior FA a while ago and she said that there could be instances where passengers complained of being hungry during the flight, and hence the meal timings being adjusted to the mid-flight fashion even though others may have preferred to have it served about 2 hours before landing. She added that its hard to please everyone onboard so guess this is where the discretion of playing around with the meal timings kick in. Still, serving breakfast on midnight flights with 8 hours to go is bizzare, and I doubt that its down to passenger complaints. The crews on those flights must have something up their sleeves and decided to disrupt the sleep of almost every pax onboard by serving breakfast midflight for their own benefits...

Anyone could report from CX825?

QRC3288

My lord, that would be brutal. I would be furious if that happened.

I am always shocked at the stories I hear about bizarre behavior of other passengers. Although I haven't witnessed it myself, I have heard multiple stories of passengers getting enraged with FAs for not having a proper mid-flight meal, which usually is the catalyst for unscheduled mid-flight meals. Admittedly, these were all daytime flights....for the obvious nighttime flights like CX845, CX899, CX873, CX889, CX881, CX883 etc., I would be so pi$$ed if on account of some angry passengers the FAs launched into the full-blown breakfast service 7 hours out.

Global321

I agree 100%. I think the one thing most FF want... consistency/predictability. Even if it meant breakfast in the middle of the flight, I want to know about it ahead of time and plan accordingly. When you change the plan on a whim - or the loud voice of what is probably a minority of passengers - you are bound to anger a lot more people. For that reason, I blame the FA's as well. Stick to the policies. If passenger(s) do not like it, complain to the airline.

sxc

Yes as per my post above I have had this happen even when it was printed on the menu when the meals should be served: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/23386093-post275.html

I wrote into complain about this and I received 5000 miles as a goodwill measure. If thIs happens on your flight please write in to complain so they get the message to inform the ISM not to use discretion on these midnight departures

QRC3288

all I can say is WOW. I missed your post originally. I am floored. While I've always known there is significant latitute by ISM and SP to change timing, never did I think it would happen on a midnight departure and early morning arrival. That is complete crap if I'm allowed to say that. I thought timing on those flights was sacred.

The daytime flights I can see where the times are so screwy maybe an argument can be made. I dont like midflight meals but i do understand for say cx885, or cx830, etc. Those types of timing. But it is crystal clear ex-North America TPAC.....when takeoff time is midnight, most importantly that's also equivalent to afternoon/late afternoon/evening HK time. Aka, you feel like going to bed, and it isn't that hard on the body clock because they timing is configured that you're basically just going to bed really late / early. the flights line up perfectly for being a sleeping flight and it's just a long night.

Anyway, man I'm sorry to hear that and it rattles my concept that those midnight ex-NA TPACs are always meal-rest-rest-meal. By them giving you compensation I think that's tacit admission the ISM committed a party foul. I've never seen that in my life and I've done a lot of midnight TPACs over the years. Bummer.

pacificboot

CX898 (HKG-LAX 9am) - Sept 2014 in J - Normal Service (No mid-flight meals)
CX899 (EWR-HKG 1am) - Oct 2014 in J - Normal Service (No mid-flight meals)

NZZO

CX897 LAX-HKG, 0940, dep 10 October. The menu stated that the second meal would be served mid-flight and it was. At the seven hour mark the lights came on and the trolleys came out. I was in the mini J cabin and the only person awake when the lights came on. I didn't hear any grumbles but 2 people slept through it.