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New Business class service - from July 2018 - Experiences and Discussion

New Business class service - from July 2018 - Experiences and Discussion

Old Jan 31, 2019, 5:29 pm
  #211  
 
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Originally Posted by londonexpert

the meals look pretty good what was wrong with it?
The beef cheeks were excellent! The prawns not so much. Plus the prawn plating was lazy.
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Old Jan 31, 2019, 6:05 pm
  #212  
 
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Originally Posted by iluvdoco
The beef cheeks were excellent! The prawns not so much. Plus the prawn plating was lazy.
The greens should have been plated properly...
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Old Feb 9, 2019, 7:04 am
  #213  
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Some delays in logistics and all that will mean that we won't see this new service to Australia/NZ and Tel Aviv until later this year.
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Old Feb 9, 2019, 11:32 am
  #214  
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
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Cx812: Hkg-bos

Flew CX812 two weeks ago. It was my first opportunity to try out the new J meal service "enhancements". I'm not a fan.

Menu
A bit silly looking, but undoubtedly cheaper to print than bound menus.


Menu


Cathay Delight PDB


Nuts and water


The FA took my dinner order shortly after take-off. Sitting at 11K on the 77H, I was among the first to be served. Even so, the meal service took a long time. There was a sizable delay between courses, with the entire service taking over 3 hours. Seemed slower than usual, though Id never timed the old service.

Starter
No issues here


Tenderloin
The steak was cooked medium and was quite tasty. The polenta was a miss, but I'm not a huge polenta fan regardless.


Dessert
The fruit was good, but the ginger pudding was bad. Not sweet and an unpleasant texture. Chalk this up to cultural differences, I guess.



I slept for perhaps 6 hours then ordered a burger. As always, the burger is top notch. The fries were blah.

Burger




Around 3 hours prior to landing, cabin crew came around and took brunch orders.

I chose the congee, which was a mistake. The FA served it and disappeared. The taste wasn't bad, but they didn't serve any condiments with it (ginger, spring onion, chili sauce, etc) and I couldn't get hold of an FA to bring me any. They simply didn't respond to the call button.

Unsurprising given how busy it was, but their processes should be able to cope with condiment requests.

Congee


Some observations:

1. Serving brunch at 9PM is illogical. A light supper would make a lot more sense. Granted, the old service did brunch too.
2. Taking meal orders twice is annoying and inefficient. They should do it all at once to let people maximize sleep.
3. If theyre going to do meal service in this fashion, they should seek to emulate the QR process.
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Old Feb 9, 2019, 6:01 pm
  #215  
 
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Originally Posted by swingaling
Cathay Delight PDB

That's Oriental Breeze not Cathay Delight, which makes sense since you flew 2 weeks ago in January an odd month.
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Old Feb 9, 2019, 8:01 pm
  #216  
 
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Originally Posted by iluvdoco
..... Plus the prawn plating was lazy.
What a description, lazy prawns ......

If you don't like an artistic composition, it does not imply the artist is lazy.
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Old Feb 9, 2019, 8:35 pm
  #217  
 
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Originally Posted by PacificSunrise
That's Oriental Breeze not Cathay Delight, which makes sense since you flew 2 weeks ago in January an odd month.
Yes, you're absolutely correct. It's an Oriental Breeze thankfully. The Cathay Delight is gross.
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Old Feb 9, 2019, 8:41 pm
  #218  
 
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Originally Posted by swingaling
Yes, you're absolutely correct. It's an Oriental Breeze thankfully. The Cathay Delight is gross.
I guess different people have different tastes. I prefer the drinks in even months
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Old Feb 9, 2019, 10:07 pm
  #219  
sxc
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The disturbing thing here is the crew not responding to the call button. Typically CX is/was very good at responding to the bell.
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Old Feb 9, 2019, 10:14 pm
  #220  
 
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Originally Posted by sxc
The disturbing thing here is the crew not responding to the call button. Typically CX is/was very good at responding to the bell.
to the poster above great pics.

yes, manpower during service is an issue. and unfortunately I don't think it's necessarily because of a "bad" crew, per se. unless you just have a spectacular crew, decent chance service levels really drop during meal service. even more than before, and longer than before because of how long the new service is (still) taking.

plus they still have crew untrained on the new service, and you can almost be assured at least one, if not more of the crews rostered on these flights are still in their first few times doing the new service. this aspect will improve over time.

others won't, like how it's cumbersome and more labor-intensive than before, obviously without any increase in manpower.
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Old Mar 2, 2019, 10:08 am
  #221  
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
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service from and to Frankfurt (CX288 and CX289) February 2019

I had the new service in October 2018 (see post 164) and now again. After the current flights I wish to have the "old" style of service back.

On both flights FRA to HKG and HKG to FRA the crew was overworked although the service is already reduced again.
"Reduced again" means that compared to October last year no different starters were available - only one starter which was served from the trolley. For me it is o.k..
However, there was no further drink service while they served the starter and the main which was really disappointing.
I only had "my" ginger ale I ordered in the beginning with the meals served together with the warm nuts. Furthermore, I ordered in both flights without ice ... got both times with ice.
Also the breakfast was reduced again. I ordered the express breakfast, last time they served this together with some fruits and also offered jam / honey which they did not this time.

Sorry to say but this service was not business class like. It takes still too long, the crews has no time for beeing polite or attentive like they were in the past respectively still are on short-haul flights.

drink with the warm nuts after take off


starter (Sichuanese spicy chicken) - taste of the chicken was good, the "bun" was dry and not tasty (I still miss the garlic bread)


main (Tagliarini with truffle sauce) - taste was boring


the big dessert (Chocolate mousse with Valhrona perl)


express breakfast (nothing else offered - no jam, no honey, just this tray and thats it)


Last edited by Christian2011; Mar 2, 2019 at 10:11 am Reason: wording
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Old Mar 2, 2019, 12:13 pm
  #222  
 
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Sorry to hear, this service did not work out / work out less for you than before.

I did have a similar scheme as you, though from a different EU town to HKG (& return) and I have to say, my experience is, the new service does get better every time I get submerged.

Some remarks:
- Unfortunately, my pictures on the return leg failed, seems my camera does have a software bug and overwrites the latest image under some circumstances.
- I did not get the nuts
- CX is known for 'bland" meals, I just ask for pepper & salt every time a main meal is brought. It does improve the taste significantly. Some more condiments from CX might be nice, though.
- The soup crockery is now no longer the rough surface bowl.
- The new service needs more "upfront" attention of the customer, which is less desirable, given the customer "just sits down" in the airplane.
- During J meal service, the amount of crew in J is high (2-3 people continuously serving trays, 2 people floating, 2-3 people (including ISM) in the kitchen.
- Crew still has get used to this service. Items needing attention for my experience:
= Missing PDB nuts.
= Missing milk & sugar with my tea.
= Tea low temperature.
= Soup could be a little more and especially higher temperature.
= Sometimes pepper & salt forgotten.
= Sometimes no spoon provided.
= It needs even more preparation during boarding.
= Be more careful, making notes, a ground based restaurant does do better and makes less mistakes.
= Take care to have all "materials" at the front side of the cabin, so, there is no need to chase for some minor item to the other galley.
= Even when busy, don't walk on a fast pace through the cabin (the A350-1000 does have a huge business class cabin). If needed, have duplicate stuff during the meal services in the front and rear galley.

Suggestions for CX:
- Maybe introduce handheld devices to record the choices & options. I did have a peek in the front A350 "kitchen" and it's busy over there and the whole administration is all "paperwork", 3M gets rich from the post-its they use. That's all manual work, time-intensive and very error prone. Ground based restaurants do nowadays have automated this ordering / order-picking process ......
- Those handheld devices are an excellent way to be more interactive with the customer, making the GO/DM/OWE welcoming less of an obliged assembly line and giving the customer the real feeling that the welcome is also connected to the meal-first-choice.
- The automation would make it very easy to find out about "sold out" stuff.
- Additional choice for garlic bread would be appreciated.
- Where are my PDB nuts ?
- Some more (spicy) condiments from CX would be nice.
- The breakfast serving was finished in just over 1 hour, so the breakfast could start a little later and/or at a more leisure pace.

Some samples, being happy with this meal (mind the pepper & salt):




On the return, I only did have a soup and a cheese plate as express supper, composed myself from the items available on the menu. Good taste, suitable quantity.
And the western breakfast, also OK, though less than the express supper, but still tasty.
Unfortunately no pictures

Regarding the food amount:
- Portions are not that big, thought given the CX intention of upper restaurant style & experience, that's understandable. If you want to indulge, go to a food court.
- If you want a bigger portion, ask upfront.
- For me, the quantity is more than enough, I often do have connecting flights, do eat something in the lounge, etc. And after 3-4 flights in 36-48 hours, I tend to be stuffed, even with the reduced portions and sometimes not finishing the whole meal.
- The express breakfast is "not so much", though I think according what is written on the menu. It's intended as a 5 minutes meal.
- I would expect, if you ask for more items (Jam bread) on the order form, it would be provided, provided the paper administration does not choke up.....

Regarding "refills": I did not really check, though did ask myself for additional some items (forgotten milk, sugar, pepper and some more water, Hong Kong Style Milk Tea, Port), during and before the overall serving was finished, and I was served without hesitation.
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Old Mar 3, 2019, 7:30 am
  #223  
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
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Originally Posted by G-CIVC
Some delays in logistics and all that will mean that we won't see this new service to Australia/NZ and Tel Aviv until later this year.
disappointed to hear this. Do you have more details on what caused the delay?

thanks.
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Old Mar 3, 2019, 7:50 am
  #224  
 
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Originally Posted by G-CIVC
Some delays in logistics and all that will mean that we won't see this new service to Australia/NZ and Tel Aviv until later this year.
I am flying CX100 SYD-HKG connecting to CX 315 HKG-MAD on 22/03. Does this means the new service is delayed to SYD flights? Andy updates?
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Old Mar 3, 2019, 10:29 am
  #225  
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Programs: CX DM, A3 Gold
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On a recent ex EU flight, full load in J. Second meal breakfast before landing.

Two DMs (husband and wife) travelling together both chose the Chinese congee options. Orders were taken with the breakfast card at the very beginning of the flight. Before the breakfast service started, SP asked the husband to give up his choice and let the wife had it. Basically she just wanted to provide one congee to either one of them, asking courtesy from one of them to give up their first choice.

And on the same flight, a GO also ordered congee for breakfast, but she was just being told that because she already got her first choice from the first meal, so she can't have her first choice for the second meal. Crew told her only around 10+ Chinese options were being loaded, and many of the passengers already didn't have their first choices at first meal. Soup noodles on the snack menu were also emptied after the first meal. She ends up eating nothing.
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