chut

All of the new A350s have no F cabins.

The current fleet of 77Hs have had cabins trimmed down to six F seats.

Does anyone have any information on whether CX will continue to offer a first class product? It's hard to imagine a premium airline without first class.

Then again, CX has invested heavily in new first class lounges in several cities.

Will there be an A350 v2 with an F cabin?

ajeleonard

It will eventually disappear, but probably one of the last to do so.

sscywong

So far, no
http://www.ausbt.com.au/cathay-pacif...rbus-a350-1000

G-CIVC

There will be a new F some time later/(soon?), heard some DM/DMPs got invited to test it out and they have already revised the design multiple times...

Hopefully someone here has more intel even the most senior ISMs don't seem to know a lot about it.

kaka

Smaller cabin. I reckon first will last another 10 years.

nagisayaka

777-9 is going to have F seats, isn't it?

GE90-115B

The 777 cabins have not been "trimmed down" to six F seats, it has always been six seats.

FlyPointyEnd

^

I hope they don't trim it down to 4 like AF.

djsflynn

CX is definitely planning a next-gen F suite for the 777s.

FlyPointyEnd

Yeah the question is how many suites would they have on the 777-9...

derek2010

I hope CX can have their new First Class seats identical to the Suites on SQ, but in CX colors (around 8 seats is okay)

Moscowflyer

It will continue for at least one more generation of seats I think. As noted above seat testing with consumers has been going on for a while now and designs get revised over time (although with CX "critically reviewing" its business who knows). It went from 9 on the 747s (where BA has 14 seats) to 6 on many of the 777s and 0 on the 350s so as the 777s replaced the 747s there are fewer FC seats on sale anyway. And the routes it gets regularly sold on seem to be (quite understandably) those which are willing and able to pay FC fares - which not all of them are. Australia lost FC quite a while ago, I don't think Canadian routes always have FC, some European cities don't get FC at all, even some of the London flights don't get FC. The main destinations with FC seats seem to be NY, USWC, most London and some EU destinations who will pay the very big price difference for a better product but one that many question the need for given how good business class generally is. There are clearly people out there happy to pay for FC in cash, which means that if the demand is there and can be met profitably, we'll still have a FC cabin! It also, of course, enhances the brand to have a FC product (and we just had the CX survey on how the CX brand is perceived didn't we?). But that could be too forward-thinking of the current CX management.

KrazyTrain18

The 777-9s will be the only aircraft getting the new F cabins, it's yet to be seen if the 779s will have two configs like the 77W or if all of them will be fitted in the 4 class layout. I think its safe to assume that product will likely be one of the last all new F products CX put forward. The 777-9s will be operating all of the flagship routes for CX including JFK, LAX, LHR & YVR.

FlyPointyEnd

However the A350 was positioned to replace many routes formerly serviced by the A340 like AKL and FCO. Routes which didn't have FCL in recent years. I think its also good that they have a relatively smaller jet than the 77G, freeing those up for the routes where CX sees more demand (like AUS routes) but unable to increase frequencies.

Most likely the 779 will replace the 77Ws which have two configurations, most likely we will see the 779 have both 3 and 4 class configurations in the foreseeable future.

QRC3288

my bet is on CX absolutely keeping F, but shrinking the cabin further. I have no more information, but it seems to be a trend these days. SQ has an F cabin now with just 4 seats, and I think I've seen it on another airline too.

There are two "problems" with F class as I see it these days, and both of them deal with yield in a way.

1.) There are two distinct yield profiles: you've got high-yielding North America F routes, and you've got the European routes which all have competition. The US routes can charge as much as 2x even the most expensive European F fares (LHR, FRA, MXP, etc.). I'm not sure the precise dynamic, but I do know that on most CX routes to North America there is zero credible F class competition. AC and UA either don't offer it or are phasing it out (competition for ORD, YVR, YYZ, NYC and SFO), AA is a joke anywhere near CX's price point (LAX), and CX is a monopoly to BOS. And let's face it, UA's "Global First" is a royal joke anyway prior to the full phase out....I've had the (dis)pleasure of sitting up there my fair share of times. It's only "desirable" because their current J hard product is terrible. And count me in the crew that thinks the new Polaris thing is glorious marketing for what's basically a 2nd-tier business class hard product. I gotta imagine the marketing budget is nearly as much as they've spent designing the service itself....anyway I digress

The only genuine competition CX has for a "real" F class to North America on identical routes is SQ's daily nonstop HKG-SFO, on SQ1 and SQ2. That's it. So with the exception of this SFO flight, IMO there is really no competition if you're not budget sensitive and want to fly F. I see this with our own spending patterns as well as clients and peers...none of us want to buy American based airlines in F. Presuming you want a nonstop flight. I mean, maybe if we find some cheapo fare that's the same as business class for AA F class, but no chance we're paying 10k+ for any one of our team to fly on AA F. That's just idiocy. On CX, it's okay.

So let's go back to Europe. I know we gripe, but at least BA offers a "real" F class (compared to their North American compatriots!), even if the hard product is very close to CX J. Air France offers a lovely F class on some of their planes, I've flown on their 77W before which is spectacular. Lufthansa, I don't have too much experience but my few times were superb. Swiss goes nonstop to ZRH. All of these guys compete with CX to Europe. CX has real competition to Europe for F fares. And on top of that, QR and EK are there to pick off people connecting to secondary European cities; unlike North America, where CX doesn't really compete with the Middle Eastern airlines due to the routing not making sense. So I suspect these are some reasons the North American fares are higher in the F cabin. Anyway, it certainly doesn't make sense to me to send 6 or 8 seats daily in F to some of those European destinations, particularly at the (relatively) cheap prices compared to say a JFK or LAX F class cash ticket. I mean even LHR, I'm amazed at how "cheaply" you can fly to LHR in F compared to prices we've paid to JFK. It's just a huge differential.

2.) Award travelers....I have to imagine CX doesn't want to be giving away as many seats for the cheap rates negotiated between partners. Of course, you can't reconfigure planes all the time so when you have an over-abundance of premium seats you want to capture that operating leverage. But in the long-run, we've seen CX's steadily cut F service to many destinations, and we also saw them reduce the # of F seats from 12 and 8 (B744 and A343 in "old" F configs) to 9 and 6 (B744 and B77W in "new" F configs) to just 6 (B77W only, since B744 is now phased out). So the seat count is clearly on the long-term decline. I don't see any reason why it would stop here, when I can still sometimes find an abundance of F seats on routes last minute.

Of course, CX seems to be rather inept at revenue management and managing their award inventory well, so I imagine they could do something internally to increase the yield on those seats. But overall looking at the competition cutting F seats on planes, and seeing CX's own trend, I don't see any reason why maybe we won't see an even smaller cabin like 3-4 seats in F in the new B777X when they're delivered.

F is definitely still demanded on those routes, I see folks pay full freight somewhat regularly. But 6 per flight? That I'm not sure about. And if CX is regularly handing out 2 or 3/6 seats to award travelers, config F smaller, make J class bigger and try to sell those seats at a lower price point. Just my two cents.