lionelhutz

I flew CX 163 from HKG to MEL yesterday in PEY. I noticed two things.

Firstly, the PEY meals appeared to be the same as the Y meals for both lunch and dinner. Previously, I thought that PEY gets one Y meal and one J meal. I was sitting in the last row of PEY so I could easily see what Y was being served and it was exactly the same.

Secondly, there is new serving trays and dishes for Y (and PEY). The new ones have higher, straighter sides. The cutlery comes in a napkin clipped with a green thing that looks like a tuning fork with the Cathay brushwing on it. I assume it is part of the new rebranding.

I don't think the food itself had changed, we had a bream dish I have had before for lunch and a pretty good Thai chicken curry for dinner.

sxc

Were both your meals served in foil or was one in ceramic?

lionelhutz

They were both in plastic trays with a foil top on the hot dish. No ceramic, and not the crescent shaped dishes you get in J. Also the FAs just wheeled the cart up to PEY and then proceeded back into Y. At least we got served first! I didn't really mind, PEY on Cathay is more about the hard product anyway. But I wonder whether this is a permanent change.

On my MEL-HKG leg a few days earlier, I was in Y and they used the older style tray and dishes. So these must be brand new.

thecurtisw

I was in PEY on 163 yesterday and noticed similar when walking laps through Y, haha. I thought the "tuning fork" was a classy touch. The new blankets and pillows are a very welcome change; those are great! I also appreciate how they have English tea all the time and not just Chinese.

It would be nice to see them up the food & food presentation. QF does much better at this in their PEY.

sxc

That would be a big change if they no longer have a special meal for Y+. They charge a big premium to Qantas and their catering is way behind.

thecurtisw

CX charges "a big premium to Qantas"?! I'm curious as to what routes and times of year, because I have never found that to be the case. CX is regularly significantly cheaper than QF for PEY on flights to Australia. Take this month, for instance. Qantas PEY from LAX to SYD/MEL/BNE has been around $3000-3300. CX out of LAX was around $2600-2800 when I last looked. That's a big difference already. But booking out of YVR, I'm on a trip now that I booked for $1800. Then in a few weeks, I booked out of YVR for $1300! You can't even buy QF Y for that price right now!!

If your experience has been different, I'm curious to hear about it...but my experience has always been the exact opposite.

lionelhutz

Yes I should have mentioned the new pillows and blankets. The new PEY pillow is much larger and more comfortable - I thought pretty similar to the pillow in J. The new PEY blankets are sort of doona type things, not quite as thick as the ones in J but just as comfortable.

Compared to Y I think the hard product is a worthwhile step up, but the soft product doesn't differ much.

I haven't seen a big difference in Cathay v Qantas PEY pricing. For Melbourne to Hong Kong return on either airline, sale PEY is about A$1700, regular PEY about A$2200 and flex PEY about A$2800. I'd be happy to travel either but the fact that Qantas has 1 flight per day vs 3 for Cathay pretty much decides it for me.

G-CIVC

A lot of HKers (well, a bit of myself too, must shamelessly admit) consider catering as a big thing on flights. Especially on our 'premium' flag carrier. It is insane if they cut back the catering in PEY, which means that it is getting closer and closer to a Y+ but nothing like J- experience at all.

That is not to mention lack of dedicated crew, now having to share the boarding line with GRs...etc

sxc

Sorry my pricing comparison was ex-HKG where CX has home market advantage. QF to Australia is regularly $10k whereas the minimum I've seen CX is around $13k and it's usually a companion ticket.

maortega15

Just to let everyone know that new serving trays for Economy were announced along with the new Economy Class for the A350.

sxc

Any links to pictures?

dkc192

The latter is in fact a relative step up for PEY - GRs used to be able to board "ahead" of PEY in the J/MPC queue, whereas they have now been "demoted" to boarding at the same time as PEY.

percysmith

Well they still have "selection of enhanced entrées" http://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_H...omy-class.html . But from here it seems like they've forgotten to update the advertising.

sscywong

Half an year ago when I was on 104 it was also the same cart from PEY to Y, but they have a J main in ceramic in the cart for PEY

So a reduction of PEY meal...

thecurtisw

Ahh, gotcha. That makes more sense.