Cathay Dragon 666

Wow, I just saw an ad from US to China round-trip at less than $600?!?!?! Cathay must be really desperate to fill their seats now. My colleagues have always complain about how they were forced to pay a mid-range price for Y tickets because they want to maintain GO and DM. However, after the new system they realized they can only earn SL, so they either give up any hope to make higher tier and simply buy the cheapest fare, or they give up Cathay all together and seek better postures elsewhere.

The biggest irony is Cathay is losing C flyers as well. Cathay thinks it was a good idea to cut expenses by not cutting staff (now is too little too late), but rather cut everything their C flyers hold dear: catering, quality of on-board services, phone services, reduced elite benefits, etc. They have successfully ran away a bunch of C flyers that sought to seek better pastures elsewhere too.

So now Cathay is hanging on to dear life by offering $500+ roundtrip tickets to USA? Amazing.

kaka

Racing to the bottom with a high value name is a holden route to death.
either the board is stupid or, its bloody china stakes playing up in the cx boardroom.

Kacee

They're just trying to compete with the fares offered by other carriers on those routes.

One of CX's biggest problems (IMO) is they are often not price competitive. By a large margin. It's a rational move for them to drive volume by competing on fares.

cxfan1960

CX may be losing NA flyers, but they are probably gaining PVG/SHA/PEK flyers.

andersonCooper

Believe AA (and/or UA) both had similar deals last year, around $500.

fakecd

i find recently they are trying hard with promotional fares... but they F*** you hard when you really need them, on a busy flight i wanted to take at las notife they wanted to rape me with 12k on economy for what is usually sold at 4k.

this is not how u win customer, go mega sale when times are tough and blatantly rape you when you need

and no i didn buy CX i found other routing/career

percysmith

Happens to me all the time. Hong Kong's airline my [insert four letter word here].

watery

Always thought low fares are to keep the frequencies running so high-paying pax could throw $ at their most preferred timings in whichever short notice?

percysmith

Yes but O&D passengers get their wallets as well as their shoulders squeezed.

maortega15

Cock?!

G-CIVC

It's not as bad as it used to be. A roundtrip to MAN in J was selling for $39k. 'Not very big of a difference,' said my dad when QR was charging $20k. 'You won't get shot down and catch MERS, and I don't know how to do transit anyway, such a waste of time' So tons and tons of O/D people would still be happy with CX's reduced ex-HKG prices nowadays I suspect.

QRC3288

yea, this is a good point. The ex-HKG fares have gotten at least a little more reasonable in the last year. Nowadays, even with a little advance notice you can score long-haul J tickets for about $5k USD to Europe or the US. In the past US tickets used to be more like $7-10k in the window I normally book.

Aus106080

Chinese airlines even charge less for a direct flight .

Aus106080

It is a trend.

Cathay Dragon 666

Some of you are missing the point. Yes there's downward pressure from competitors charging less. HOWEVER, Cathay has always been able to get people to PAY MORE flying with them because they OFFER MORE. Some quick examples:

1) People (in the past) have always been willing to pay a mark-up of 10-20% more (vs. competitor prices) because they know they will get quality all around flying with Cathay.

2) Under the old MPO system, many "Econ-GO/DMs" are paying a good mid-range Econ fares (i.e. 30% more than the lowest fare offered) to maintain status. Cathay has lost them too.

3) Downward death spiral - to cover for lost revenue, instead of cutting needless staff or returning to the old winning formula, Cathay decided to cut quality of their product all-around, at the point even C flyers are abandoning them.

4) Instead of offering friendly mid-level prices that are reasonable all-around, Cathay decided to throw around deep-discounts at selected times and dates, but still only offer ridiculous fares on other times, i.e., making it impossible to stay loyal to Cathay to fly whenever, however, one wanted.

A 5-star quality airline is not about stooping down to the lesser competitor's fares. I would still pay Cathay 30% more against any China-based airlines IF AND ONLY IF Cathay was the old Cathay, i.e. high quality service, products, etc.

Cathay wanted to stoop down to the levels of China-based airlines and compete against them that way? Just disband now, because this strategy has only one result: bankruptcy.