wlau

Capacity! A350 doesn't have as many seats as the 777. 2 A350 a day just have too many seats. CI isn't doing well compare to BR. BR flies to more US destinations and also up to 3 flights a day, China only has 1 flight (or 2 at high season) a day. When EVA has a better reputation, better service, and offer more flights per day, it hurts CI's business for frequent business travelers.

wlau

I've written in various posts that I think it's China restricting capacity to Delta. Ever since the Korean JV, China has been very restrictive to Delta passengers. I fly with them nearly once a week, if not more, and they really don't care for Delta passengers. But oddly, I keep getting CI as a part of my DL 006 ticketed flights even though I don't want to. CI's intra Asia flights mostly run on really old and crappy planes. 747 and unrefurb'ed 330. You do get 350 or 777, but it's very rare.

Also, when DL pull out of NRT next spring, I suspect we will see even less of CI flights. CI's HND flight schedule does not line up well with DL's arrival and departure times. Unless China decides to move the schedule a bit, the connection may involve an overnight. DL can't do too much change to the HND flight schedule, as it will ripple through to the banked hours of the major DL hubs.

RealHJ

This sounds the same as on KE 747s, where the upper deck also is sometimes Y service, but J seating. Usually available to SkyTeam Elite Plus. (While J STE+ customers may get upgraded to F seats, if the aircraft has it.)

wlau

Hate to burst your bubble. China Airlines started a new fare structure system on 11/1/2019 and except the full Y and the very next one below it, they no longer allow you to select seat on the common "discounted' economy fare classes and their corresponding DL codeshare flights. They also have a new "Economy Discount" fare name that is not eligible for any mileage earning. China Airline is matching Korean's approach, so DL codeshare with CI now also cannot select seat In addition, DL elites no longer are given access free upper deck 747 or 777/350 premium seats. Unless you sweet talk to the check-in desk people or if they are really oversold, don't count on the same generosity as before. They are selling those seats, similar to how DL try to squeeze revenue out of rocks.

lsquare

So either pay for seat selection or it's T-24 to pick a seat with discounted Y-fares?

mikesaidyes

I'm not sure about the whole DL codeshare/how you buy tix - the bf and I bought ours directly from China Airlines website. We are both KE Skypass members (he has no status, I did not at the time either). At booking, he was not able to select the upper deck as he had the lowest sale fare class N. At check in, T-48, the whole plane was wide open. Tne entire upper deck was empty. I believe this is a combination of the fact that most people don't know to do this AND they don't really do web check in that religiously in most of Asia.

mikesaidyes

I ALWAYS ask if this is possible. I even tell my no status friends to ask. If the plane is oversold even by 1 seat they will move people up to J and give them Y service....not just 747, but they did it to me and my two non-status friends for ICN-MNL in the rear biz section of 777. At that time, I was DL Silver Medallion (many many years ago) and my friends had no status at all. The only catch is that the plane has to be oversold. I've never seen Korean Air do a VDB or IDB in my years of travelling/being at that airport.

wlau

It's you pay for the better seat, i.e., upper deck, pre-econ, bulkhead... No more free anything.

At T-24, you do get to select seat but still no access to the "better" seats I mentioned above. The better seats will have a pricing on them. If there is no seat, then wait until at the airport and the agent will get you into whatever seat he/she can find.

I don't want to see someone argue with me about they done it before...yada yada... That all changed on 11/1/2019. I am actually typing this message from CI lounge in TPE. The agent told me again today they only release preferred seats to CI elite members, not ST elites and certain not DL elites, if it's not a part of your farebucket feature. I am not too hard on the eyes and the agent was very nice to me but said the computer won't let her anymore... It's like the 8th time I heard this since 11/1/2019.

I fly with CI and KE as DL codeshare often, so this really sucks.

RealHJ

I think this is on revenue tickets. Just book your CI tickets as CI flight numbers using DL SM. Then you can select seats, at 180 (actually more like 179 or 178) days out no problem with no real restriction of where you can sit.

I think the key is not to pay money for CI tickets and book it as award instead. Plus also then you can change and cancel at no cost (if PM or above). Seriously, award ticketed customers seem to be being treated better and get more (e.g. no seat selection restrictions, though I can't talk of the 747 UD) than those who are paying money, so as long as there's availability when you need, I think just book it in X or O fare class as SM award instead of throwing money at it.

wlau

I am not going to list out all the CI tricks here as they will dilute my chance of getting a better seat and more importantly, make CI unhappy. I don't believe this is a rev or award ticket issue. CI redid all the fare rules on 11/1/2019 for ticket booked on/after 11/2/2019. I had travels in 11/2019 and some they let me get the better seat and some they do not... The difference was the ticketing date which triggers that new fare rules.

My company office in TW has several top CI elite that equates to DL 360. From them, I have learned all the tricks in the book that aren't well known, and all of that stopped working for flights booked on/after 11/2/2019. However, because CI blocks a bunch of seats anyways, ST elites (including DL elites) can still have a shot at aisle or window but just no more free bulkhead or exit seat.

Truth be told, CI is being stupid. As discussed and rumored, CI will move to Beijing Daxing along with DL and most of ST. It will become super inconvenient for many CI's business traveler and elites. I think this is the final straw that will cause a large chunk of elites leave for EVA, which will increase odds of people like me to leave DL for UA, as there is NOTHING beneficial left to keep us to CI's restricted and inconvenient schedules.

ab2013

On my outbound, I am flying on AS to SFO. SFO has lots of issues with delays apparently - if the plane is so late and I end up with a misconnect, what are my options?

lsquare

What's wrong with Daxing?

lsquare

What time are you flying? The only delay I experienced at SFO recently was caused by the runway construction.

ab2013

7:35 PM - 2 hr layover

wlau

Are you saying AS could have such a delay that its array can surpass the 1/2am take off time of the CI flight out of SFO?!?!?! If so, you must be talking about AS 1748...