FlyPointyEnd

I believe hot meals are served during lunch and dinner flights. The rest of the flights gets goodie bags with the pasty.

ernestnywang

Sorry I know it's OT so mods please feel free to move, but being based in TPE I'm curious myself and called the TPECX airport desk (always lovely, only if you can reach someone) and asked for a list of TPE-HKG flights that have full meal in Y and W.

The list is:
CX469 (1000-1205)
CX475 (1115-1320)
CX421 (1210-1420)
CX495 (1320-1525)
and
CX405 (1745-1950)
CX473 (1840-2045)
CX401 (1930-2130)
CX451 (1935-2140)
CX531 (2015-2215)

The agent said that KA flights are not introducing full meals on TPE-HKG yet and she doesn't have accurate information for HKG-TPE.

QRC3288

thanks for figuring out the exact info guys.

Indeed, across the board I'm seeing positive "moves" from CX. It remains to be seen if they'll be permanent and/or sticky, but if I can think of major things I'm aware of since Hogg took over just recently:

*A la carte dining indefinitely postponed: a negative to irregular CX fliers, but definitely a positive if you're a frequent CX flier, as low staffing levels would've made this a nightmare. Great idea but just incomplete and siloed implementation and I suspect it would've been a well intentioned catastrophe. Note to CX: Qatar has higher staff: passenger ratio, and frankly is the sweatshop of airlines. JAL to North America is a better model to follow: first meal after takeoff by cart and standardized, and then a la carte the rest of the flight.

*...but the duvet that came out of the J class upgrade is being introduced across long-haul. Yes!

*Hot meals back on some TPE flights (subject of this thread). Great!

*Crew ID ticket fees reduced - in some cases, significantly - for many of the ID ticket buckets. Crew I've talked to are....confused / pleased. (Confused simply because they've been Pavlovian trained over the past 3-5 years that on-the-job things just get worse at CX, not better). This is simply fantastic. Anything to boost crew morale.

*Own-goal idiocy giving the middle finger to high-yield Y and PEY passengers being reversed. Damage is done, but finger is being stuck in the hole in the dam (someone else made that quote, not me, but I thought it was fitting)...instead of bashing at the dam with a sledge hammer as was the case the last 3+ years. I give this a +1. Serious damage has been done but you have to start clawing back somewhere, and this is the most obvious way to start.

*QR now owns 10% of CX. Granted, I *suspect* this wasn't related to current management.

fish0105

If I take CX451 from NRT to HKG, will I get 2 meals? Only flew direct flights before and I am quite curious about it.

mleung89

Yes, you do. You can have another meal at TPE lounge during your layover.

SLGO

The "full" hot meal is indeed just the main course. Nothing else. No bread, no fruit and even without drinks except water or on request. Sometimes I'd prefer the wrap.

QRC3288

I agree in taste. But the amount of whinging on here and elsewhere tells me putting hot meals back isn't a bad move.

Case in point, I have a specific former colleague who has amassed a balance sheet to last more than a few lifetimes, and he'll occasionally fly in the back to Taipei for reasons I'm still unclear on. A year or so ago he spent a good 20 minutes explaining to our old team at a reunion night out how this removal of hot meals to TPE in economy class meant the downfall of CX. This gentleman is responsible for not a small amount of money and decisions, yet this apparently was a grave concern of his. And for the record, I highly doubt he even eats the hot meals, and by what he does like to eat ("junk food" might be a generous term), I'd bet strongly he prefers the microwave rubbery pastry to the hot meals. But no matter....this is his rallying point about the decline of CX: no hot meals to TPE in economy class.

There is something indeed "prestigious" about getting a hot meal, no matter how terrible it is. Especially if it's on an hour-long flight. Lacking one indicates "cheapness" on airlines I suppose in people's minds. On the OMAATT blog, that fellow routinely brings up the crappy state of US airline meals, and never fails to mention when he gets a hot meal on a regional flight on foreign carriers. It's just a "thing".

maortega15

Due to how short the flight is, it's really hard to provide a full meal service on this short of a flight. There are some instances where the cabin crew are not finished serving and we're already announcing our decent! There are some like @FlyPointyEnd who just order a fruit plate on flights of similar length. I at times just take a nap.

It's really hard to please everyone. But if anything, I think it's more about improving quality first.

Cathay Dragon 666

Still a big middle finger to PEY fliers as Cathay treats them like premium-Y fliers in points given. Is Cathay trying to destroy their Premium Cabin? If PEY is truly "a class by itself" like another poster said, why is Cathay treating it simply as Y?

I was told PEY in theory has dedicated stewardess but that person is usually hiding in the Y cabin, PEY gets ignored after standardized meal services, and PEY E fare is usually doubles (from premium-Y fare) and triples-quadruples (from discount-Y fare) and still gets the same amount of points as premium-Y? LOL

Cathay Dragon 666

I have been on many flights that is as short (if not shorter) and the airline has no problem dishing out quality food in time.

Another issue is staff. Cathay is the one that cuts staff to a bare minimum, and once Cathay does that they lose any right to whine about lack of time to serve quality meals.

Other airlines that fly this route has no trouble giving quality hot meals. Shame on Cathay for claiming to be a top-of-the-class airline and just throw cheap sandwich to passengers paying a premium to fly this route.

ernestnywang

Ex-Taiwan, M class fare and E class fare are very close (as such I can hardly convince myself to use miles for Y-to-W upgrades), and K class fare and E class fare are almost identical. It might be different in other origins, but looking at ex-Taiwan fare it certainly makes sense that K class and E class earns the same number of points.

Sticking to the topic, though, AFAIK W and Y pax get the same food for HKG-TPE-HKG, and I think this is where I really don't agree with CX. At least W pax should get a full meal, no matter what.

I believe I mentioned here once, but for those of you who really want to have a full meal in Y, I travelled on HKG-RMQ-HKG a few times in the past few months, and every time there's a full meal served. Also my friend mentioned that you can get a full meal by requesting KSML (kosher meal) on HKG-TPE-HKG.

FlyPointyEnd

A lot of the problem stems from the lack of manpower. On ultra short haul flights like MNL and TPE It's not as noticeable in J except when the flight is extremely full. Im guessing it gets worse in economy.

Like 33E only have 10, take out the ISM you're left with 9. 4 are doing Business, so that leaves 5 doing the rest of the passengers in economy which is at 223. if an FP is left in the rear galley to heat the up the meals, you have 2 crew doing each side from the start of economy all the way to D4.

How would you do tray distribution and collection in less than 1hr. The shortest TPE flight I had was 1hr13mins, even in F, there was barely time to finish the meal service

boybi

OT: does MNL also get served with hot meals nowadays?

SLGO

Staffing has always been a problem with CX. Otherwise the dine on demand might have worked out already.

Switching ng back to TPE flights, I guess the time needed to distribute Y meals with or without the side dishes are similar, as they are all placed and served on trays. Therefore it seems alright to serve the hot meal with fruits and bread. I agree though the drink service is not possible in such short flight.

LoveHateRelationship

Can confirm, W gets the same service and food as Y on flights to TPE. Those hot pockets! yum! /s