brunos

I understand that CX has a lot of problems, especially with HK policy in crew quarantine.

But I am getting very upset. I had a trip to Europe early June with HK return September.
I now had three cancellations/postponements in the last five weeks and another is looming.
Facebook QR quarantine group is full of people who had their CX flights canceled from about anywhere. Hotels are full and extremely hard to book. Hence, a cancellation weeks or shortly before departure many a lot of trouble.

It seems that CX post a schedule testing the waters. They open the flight for sale, even to partners awards. Then they reduce availability to full fare in J and Y. After a while they decide to cancel.
I am not talking only about cancelling many months ahead. I am mostly talking in the coming month.
I guess that they do it because the flight has very low load and uneconomical to run. But by doing that they alienate customers. Many airlines keep flying, especially QR, even with low loads. Hence, I am now doing all my bookings on those and cancelled my CX booking. It's a chicken and the egg problem. As the rumour has spread among expats that CX is unreliable, they get fewer bookings.
I know that HK quarantine is a pain. But my family is not going to stop travel for the years to come. CX is also losing transit pax.

By the wa, is there an update on HK policy for airline crew.

Apologies for the rant.

cmiller11101

The problem is, CX is a business and one which needs money to operate. There's a balance between the inconvenience you (and all of us) experience from cancelations and the risk that operating more flights would place on the business. If they operate too many flights at a loss, they will literally run out of money and be forced to shutdown.

It's still a matter of survival at this point, especially given the restrictions in place by the HK government, among others. Given their current operating environment, your post sounds frankly like a lot of whining to me. No offense.

-Chris

brunos

As I said, I understand that all airlines are losing money and that CX is in the worst position of all.
I do understand that it is difficult for airlines to plan in the curent fast-evolving covid situation.
It is a matter of survival and it could be that CX, without direct and indirect government support like SQ, has to only keep flights with fairly-high load to survive.

But there are consequences.
I am experienced enough to have plans B, C and D. Actually one alternative was to fly SQ. My concern, and the reason for this post, is for the future of our beloved CX. HK is small. A needed market for CX is transit pax. CX might become quickly forgotten as a viable alternative. Testing waters and then cancelling, even in the short run, according to loads might be justified from a survival viewpoint but hurts its future.
As you said, this policy might be required given HK entry policy, quarantine and lack of huge government support for its flag carrier.
That is Sad.

sbs2716g

if you are returning to HKG, you can’t take SQ as they are not taking transit pax to HK because they don’t want to get suspended again.

Once again, one of the stupid rule from HKG.

Seem like SQ is doing better in scheduling. From what I know they don’t cancel once the schedule is firm up (at least 2 months ago). There are flight from LAX or FRA or JFK with less than 10 paxes.

garykung

Time to blame the victim.

OP - while the exact reason for your travel is unknown, you chose a time that is basically the worst time for traveling. Schedule changes and/or cancellations happen to every airline, not just CX. The whole mess is not exactly CX's fault.

While I respect your POV for or against CX, the fact remains unchanged - the world is in a turmoil because of COVID-19.

If you want to travel, deal with it. Blaming an airline is not the solution at all.

seawolf

Simply put. Do what you said in first post. Don’t book CX.

Cambo

Actually, I agree with OP.

It is understandable, flying, as well transit in HKG is difficult.

Though alienating your customers is something to avoid, and "directing" your customer base to the competition should be avoided at all costs.

It is perfectly understandable, it's not possible to keep a daily schedule.

However, just take care to have a weekly, or an even every other week schedule, with sufficient transit options to smaller outstation locations. And, take care to fly that core schedule. Or so to say, only 1 or 2 days a week, it gets "busy" at HKG and the remaining days quiet. Though with less severe limitations, SQ, KE and OZ manage to maintain such a regular schedule between EU and the Asia outstations.

This way, the customers can work around the schedule limitations and keep loyal.

I myself did move my flying to SQ and KE. Especially SQ is tempting for future business from me, despite preferring the CX seating (on an A350) ......

dkc192

I agree with the OP. I can understand one, maybe two, maybe three schedule changes or cancellations up to one month before departure. Anything more frequent (four or more schedule changes) or closer in to departure date (less than one month before departure) is poor form. It demonstrates a lack of respect for their customers' plans, especially for those who need to book limited quarantine accommodations, etc., and a lack of competence in network and schedule planning.

Passenger demand on most international routes, especially the ones CX flies, has been broadly steady (i.e., extremely low) for the past 15 months--nothing material has changed, and by this point CX should have a good baseline for what they can operate sustainably during this period of suppressed passenger demand. As I alluded to, IMO an appropriate response that balances the interest of both sides is to do one or two big cuts to the schedule one or two months out using this baseline as a guide, rather than do several piecemeal reductions one week at a time that only result in frustrated travelers like the OP.

fakecd

if you must travel book an airline like QR who cares about its pax. CX on other hand clearly shown they dont care about pax (not just during covid but over the years)

personally i just dont travel. yes it sucks but travelling with 3 kids now is asking for trouble well before the CX issues. World is opening up, there are airlines/places that take different view to the world, so stick to those.

cmiller11101

I understand where you're coming from, but I think it's a bit extreme to say they don't care. The biggest difference between QR and CX for example, is that QR has the wholehearted support of the Qatari government who has a vested interest in its success. CX on the other hand has effectively two governments to contend with, Hong Kong and mainland China, the former of which is nothing than a mere puppet of the later at this point, and the later which has a vested interest in stifling any success CX (or for that matter, Hong Kong) may have.

ok ok, sorry. I'm a bit off topic here and all of this is largely my opinion anyway, so I'll shut up.

Even though I don't agree with what some of you are saying on this thread, I do understand it... and I'm also upset about it all. I had a flight on hold that was just cancelled for example... but I'm just not sure CX can do much more than they already are.

dkc192

They absolutely can. Instead of rolling schedule changes and cancellations every 1-2 weeks, what about doing one round 2-3 months out and one round 1 month out, and nothing in between or closer in?

For example, they could do one pass of the September schedule now, *not touch it for a couple of months*, and then come back in early August to do the final schedule. This approach results in the same outcome for the airline and all passengers (anything that would have been cut in the endless tweaking in June and July would be cut in the second round in August), but it guarantees that passengers don't need to experience the headache of more than two rounds of schedule changes.

seawolf

but then passengers with flights cancelled get hosed with only a month of notice instead of notified earlier.

brunos

What they could do is stop posting wildly optimistic schedules to attract cash bookings. While they are almost certain that HK restrictions will not be significantly reduced.

freed0m

Don't you know already that the schedule is fictional as a seasoned flyer?

It is a lot of work to reschedule all flights in GDS.

garykung

Then why do you need to travel?