26volt

the blocked (x) out seats are either for airport check in or in the process of being taken by paying passenger.

it's a good thing there's not a lot of x out seats since it means the flight is flying full.

26volt

Its raining cats and dogs today, so its going to be interesting on how the staff at ONT off load the passengers of CI 24 to their FIS. I hope they just park the plane at T2, and transport most of the passengers using their courtesy buses to their FIS.

coolfish1103

ONT has been approved on August 23 to be included in the LA/Metropolitan area where systems are allowed to include ONT as an airport for searching LAX. This decision has been notified on Nov 5 to all major booking portals.

As of December 8, Sabre has included ONT as part of the LA/Metropolitan area of search on the system. However, CI's website itself won't show ONT if you type LAX... hilarious.

26volt

I hope I don't come across as clueless, though until now they've done this? What was the hold up. They should had done this last year before the launch of the route. It could had helped with the loads earlier this year.

With CI not showing ONT as an option for LAX has always being a dumb move on their part.

Let's see if with this change, the other booking portals are able to pick up some of the slack for next year.

bocastephen

Worse - their billboard advertising ONT-Asia service is located - tada - on Century Blvd as you are about to enter LAX, which would lead any customer to slap their forehead and say "now you tell me??"

26volt

Living in the Chino Hills area, I did see CI promote the route just for a few months on the 71, though not on the 60 FWY, or Valley Blvd highway that drives through Walnut, Azuza, West Covina, City of Industry, Rowland Heights. My head hurts just thinking about it.

This sounds exactly with what happened in SJC with their failed LH flights were they were advertising the flight in SFO than plastering the ads around SJC, and greater the San Francisco area.

Though, I have to ask with all booking portals now being notified, and included to for possible bookings will it help steer the ship at ONT.

coolfish1103

LOL, well I guess it's better than never. They are simply not advertising their routes at the right place. I mean a simple radio advertising would work as many do listen to radio channels while driving. Billboard could help but I think only in selective areas. Like on "60 fwy in Rowland" or on "10 fwy in Covina" are good places to advertise. LAX may be okay but then that's for "next flight..."

Though, I think moving to late evening already boosted their loads so I guess it's not really that people don't know the flight, it's simply the timing was wrong. Let's see if they will put the 77W back during peak season.

bocastephen

There are companies that do shared digital billboard ads - the prices start from $10 a day and there is a board located near West Covina that CI could use to test ad spend - but even the board they are using at LAX has no call to action that could be tracked or reported against, so even that board is just blind spend without any reporting capability and it's certainly in the wrong location. On my last trip to TPE, it took me almost an hour to get from the National Car return to the Bradley terminal for an EVA flight - if I was sitting on the bus staring at that sign wondering why I wasn't flying from ONT after a quiet, relaxing leisurely dinner at home instead of being trapped on a crowded bus about to spend another hour trying to clear security at LAX - well, I would be rather aggravated at that point.

Our friends who commute between PSP and 台中 every 4-6 weeks have been using that CI flight from ONT after I told them about it - they drive into Riverside in the afternoon, have a quiet, leisurely dinner with us, some tea and dessert (I can cook better than any airline lounge), and then we drive them over to ONT an hour before departure. They may never use LAX again.

coolfish1103

Never say never. We don't know how long ONT will last

Though if it progresses this right path I actually see this route getting boosted.

26volt

Emphasis on the 'may'.

As a cheerleader for ONT, I agree it all will depend what occurs from now on. Especially now with the inclusions of the flight on most booking portals.

Talking about cheap lounges and such. OIAA authority posted on their FB page about their escape lounge being open in early Q1 of 2019.

Though, I did some sleuthing and if this website is to be believed, its going to be opened in January 7th. If true, will CI shut down their small lounge, and move some of their staff to the escape lounge.

https://www.loungebuddy.com/ONT/esca...ource=homepage

coolfish1103

According to the page the operating hours is between 5am to 9pm. If it only opens till 9pm it will not help CI at all. The CI flight is currently scheduled to depart at 10:50pm so it should at least operate to 11pm (not to say there are some Frontier/Jetblue/Volaris flights departing later).

26volt

Checked Escapes website and looked at the hours of their other lounges, and it seems the lounges are open at the discretion of the airport authority. Perhaps, what were seeing its just tentative, and they'll switch to late hours to service CI and rest of the flights since during the day T2 is virtually dead.

26volt

I was just checking CI's website and it seems they've marked up the prices for ONT for the first week in February were its costing $1300 for a round trip while at LAX its $1106 for your typical Y fare.

tris06

Prices around CNY (Chinese New Year) are always more expensive. Being more pricy than LAX may just mean there are less seats available from ONT than LAX. CI won't set high pricing unless they are pretty sure they can still fill the plane at that price.

coolfish1103

Do note that ONT has less seats available than LAX with the 359, so like tris06 said maybe the lower fares are already gone. That speaks good for the load factors at ONT as it really depends on the pax and not much of the cargo in the belly.