ultrawin

How about YVR-based flight attendants? Are they being "move beyond" as well? YVR-based ground staff is gone already.
I am surprised they will reduce YVR asHX may not have any long haul routes next year. I hope they will keep the red-eye CX865/889 from YVR to HKG.

drvannostren

DL runs YVR-JFK seasonally in the summer and there's days where it's packed, meanwhile CX will have like 90 joining passengers. The price was always an issue, but I wasn't aware of the other rule.

This is exactly what I was thinking. I'm begging someone to open some new long haul routes that aren't just mainland China routes. I've long thought YVR could take a MIA route especially during the winter, maybe daily doesn't work but I do think it could work. I was literally looking at GRU and I'm not 100% sure they could make it with the range, I'm sure someone better in the know than me could say for sure. But I also thought maybe SCL to line up with a LATAM hub. Maybe there's just no demand between HK and Latin America though. Maybe someone could tell me this...let's say CX decided that LHR was a good option (forget the slots and stuff) would they be allowed? Obviously flying HKG-YVR-LHR makes no sense for a passenger, but with BA/AC already flying maybe there's enough demand for another. Then flying LHR-HKG makes sense, so rather than a triangle flight it would be more like 3 one way flights.

I also wonder what the new flight sked would be if they opt not to do something more interesting. Currently all the night service at YVR is in around 1700-2000ish to allowed for partner connections, then back out again anywhere between 0000-0300. I don't know about worldwide, but letting the plane sit for 5-6 hours on the ground isn't something Cathay has ever really done here.

No sir. Philippine Airlines USED to fly both YVR-YYZ and YVR-JFK, neither of those flights exist anymore now that they've gotten their 350s. Those flights have been gone a while. Back in the day PR used to fly YVR-LAS on a 340 just to keep the plane making money, though it seemed like way too much capacity and they couldn't keep the prices at a point where they made money on it.

Smiley90

say whaaaaat, not sure how I missed that... damn. That means it's gonna be down to just YVR-EWR on AC, boo.


on the former note - maybe something akin to CA running IAH-PTY, which is one of the more confusing 5th freedom flights?

brunos

The article never mentioned a regional seating, just the 340 777 which is 77G in CX parlance. 773 is a generic code for all 777-300.

That decision makes sense to me. Since AC added a nonstop longhaul 789, competition was even harder on the money-losing YVR-NYC.. And adding nonstops to NYC is good news.

dkc192

I, too, am curious about the broader fleet/schedule implications of this. On the fleet side, perhaps YVR will maintain one F rotation, and the 359 freed up from the cancelled frequency (likely CX856/855) will be used to operate the new JFK frequency.

On the schedule side, would CX be willing to try a similar schedule as CX888, albeit nonstop, to pair with CX841--something like a 2am HKG departure and 5am JFK arrival? IIRC CZ has a similarly timed flight for its CAN-JFK service. Otherwise, you're right, they'd have to park one of CX840 or CX846 overnight to operate CX841 at its current time.

The article previously mentioned a 438-seater 773. Seems like they've edited it to correctly refer to the 340-seater 77G/77K.

CS300

Sometimes the aircraft needs to sit and wait for the optimal arrival time in Hong Kong.
If the flight leave before midnight, it will arrive into HKG way too early.
Similarly, European services sit at the airport for around 5-7 hours before heading back and making a early morning arrival in HKG. They have been doing it for years.

hl176

This sucks; means that either have to fly to EWR in order to have a lie flat and it's so far from the city with uber (not to mention the poor arrival time into EWR) or fly in a recliner on DL into JFK for direct options. Neither or which are ideal

Markie

I am booked YVR-JFK for February 2020 and am glad I will have a chance to try it before it goes.

MEL-World

The 787 AC flight YVR to/from EWR has good timings in each direction and is the only NA carrier offering a coast to coast wide-body (or so AC CSM told me). The flight is always overbooked as it takes all the Asian and Oceania pax arriving early morning and continuing to NYC - as well as NA pax who love the larger aircraft.

QRC3288

Wellll...here's my bet for the new JFK rotation:

*A second ex-JFK midnight departure, like CX already does with SFO and LAX.
*A new ex-HKG midnight departure, very late night. Like 2am. Would put the arrival at JFK around 5am.

The quoted article says the 4th nonstop to JFK will be A350. By my math, that means either CX840 or CX841 will have to switch aircraft type to A350, because they will be in rotation with the new yet-to-be-announced flight.

Rotations?
CX846 -> CX845 (stays same)
Dep HKG ~19:00, Arr JFK ~23:00
Dep JFK ~02:00, Arr HKG ~05:00

CX830 -> CX831 (stays same)
Dep HKG ~09:00, Arr JFK ~13:00
Dep JFK ~15:00, Arr HKG ~19:00

CX840 -> CX(XXX)* (JFK-HKG new flight?)
Dep HKG ~16:00, Arr JFK ~20:00
*Dep JFK ~01:00, Arr HKG ~04:00

CX(XXX)* -> CX841 (HKG-JFK new flight?)
*Dep HKG ~02:00, Arr JFK ~05:00
Dep JFK ~09:00, Arr HKG ~13:00

sbs2716g

The problem is the new direct flight is 4 times per week. Not daily. So how they are going to swap the plane?

cheung.chunyuenc

I think the biggest problem is the slots in HKG.
it is not easy to speculate as CX is using different types of aircraft for the new arrangement.

QRC3288

No, I'm confident this isn't the biggest problem (or even a problem!) at all. CX has the most slots of anyone at HKG and even if not granted, can retime / reclassify / change one of literally hundreds of flights to accommodate. They do it all the time! And schedules change constantly, with minor retimings, cancellations, etc. Plus CX is going to definitely have some consolidating and flight decreases coming as a result of the situation in Hong Kong currently. They don't just give those slots up. Anyway, if this was someone who only has a few slots at HKG, I could see it being a problem. For CX, it's not.

(But anway, the times I mentioned are actually still pretty open for slots. You'll right that you'll struggle to get a new slot allocation from call it 9am until about 11pm at HKG. But you can still get an early morning arrival slot, and a late night departure.)

I think a bigger issue is what the other posters says and I didn't think about, which is what happens to one of the flights that's only 4 days a week.

QRC3288

good point. If it's not daily, then I think that flight would have to have a consistent rotation

I think in this case:

CX846->CX845 goes to 4x weekly as A350.

The rest stay in the rotation I mentioned, with two new flights replacing the old YVR sector rotations. It's gotta be that way right?

CX846 was the last addition to the nonstops (CX830 was first IIRC, followed by CX840, then CX846), and is/was sometimes cancelled on one off days in the schedule. So I could see it being reduced.

derek2010

YVR should retain F class for sale in 1 of the 2 daily flights.
so as to position HKG-YVR route as:
CX -> Premium pax / connecting pax / some Hong Kong emigrants with Canadian passport
HX -> Leisure pax / some Hong Kong / Mainland Chinese emigrants with Canadian passport
AC -> Mainland Chinese emigrants with Canadian passport (due to AC's membership in *A)