An unfortunate experience with CX
 

It was Saturday, January 7th, the last day of my Christmas vacation, and I was getting ready to go home to San Francisco via CX872 from Hong Kong. I got off a small van from those China - Hong Kong transportation services, at around 6:30 PM. The flight wasn't scheduled until 1:00 AM( Jan. 8), but I went to the Cathay Pacific counter and asked if I could check in with my family. The person said yes, so I checked in, but was told there were no seats left except for the last row, row 69. I got 3 seats in row 69, 69D, 69E, and 69F. I was very disappointed about the seating, and I was told everybody checked in on the internet a while ago. Being on vacation, wi-fi access was not readily available to me. After this, I ate dinner at a nice Japanese restaurant at the airport, before going through security, at the Ajisen Ramen restaurant. The food was pretty nice, and I ate until I was filled.

After eating, I went to sit down for a short break, and noticed that my flight was delayed until 2:00 AM. I went to the CX counter and inquired about the delay, and they stated there were technical difficulties. It was now about 9 PM, and I finally decided to go through security with my family. I browsed a few shops, bought some things, and went to sit down at Gate 3, where the boarding area for the CX flights to LAX and SFO were located at. It was about 12:30 AM, when CX employees pulled out a few carts filled with food and drinks. I took a look at the food, which was some sort of dried meat sandwich thing, and a sponge cake. I took a sponge cake and a Coke, and went to eat my midnight snack.

At 1:10 AM, everybody boarding the flight to SFO were all sitting down or were near the gate. Since there was a second baggage check, everybody had to stand in a long line. The person handling the line was not very efficient, and I had another problem with him while boarding the flight. (No names will be mentioned, even though I couldn't stand him.) I went through the second security check, and after almost everybody went through, the boarding process finally began. Being in economy, the boarding line was extremely long. I managed to be the 15~20th-ish person in line, but I was told to walk around this giant wall to form a straight I managed to be the 30th-ish person in line, out of at least 200 people, but I was pushed out of the line by the same CX employee who gave me problems at the security line.

Fed up with waiting behind at least 150 people, I sat down, and waited for the line to disappear before being one of the last people to board. I then got on the plane, and it was extremely hot and stuffy. I had difficulty walking to the back of the plane with my carry on luggage, and when I got to row 69, I noticed there was no overhead compartment to store my luggage. I then got help from a friendlier CX steward on the plane, who suggested I place my luggage in row 67's overhead compartment. After this tedious process, I sat down rather uncomfortably, as the heat was very bothersome.

After everything was almost done, I was sure we were ready to takeoff. Apparently, a person was sick, and they had to call his doctor at 2:30 AM in the morning to ask for further instructions regarding whether that person should go on a plane or not. The pilot was helpful though, he provided us with updates through the plane broadcast system. At 2:45, we were ready to begin takeoff. Passing out from exhaustion and the heat, I was unable to wake up until at least 3:30 AM.

After waking up, I immediately used the entertainment system, Cathay Pacific's Studio CX, and checked the flight status. After that, I fell back asleep from the stuffiness and woke up to a CX stewardess asking me what dinner I wanted. Since I was asleep, I never received a menu, and I said anything was fine. I had extreme difficulty eating, as I was tired and the plane was stuffy.

When I was finally done eating, I set up some music on the Studio CX entertainment system, went back to the flight status page, put on the CX headphones, and left the flight status page on. At this point, I immediately noticed odors coming from the lavatory behind me. I fell asleep again, and woke up with 4 hours left to SFO.

When I woke up, I asked for another customs form, as I had held mine to take a look, fell asleep holding it, and woke up losing it. The steward quickly gave me a new form, and I filled it out before breakfast was served. I noticed that the odors coming from the lavatory were getting more noticeable and a bit stronger. With 4 hours left, it was difficult for me to fall asleep, and by this point, the airplane was a bit cooler, not as hot as before.

When we landed at SFO, the thud to the ground was a bit strong and jolted me to my senses. We landed at 9:39 PM, 44 minutes behind schedule, and I had to wait a while to get out of the plane. After going through the immigration check, I went to go retrieve my luggage. Retrieving the luggage was difficult, as I was probably the first person to physically check in, my luggage would've most likely been placed at the farthest part of the storage on the plane.

After I retrieved all 6 pieces of my luggage, 2 for each family member, 3 people, I went outside. I was finally picked up by a co-worker, and went home.

Overall, this was the worst experience I have had with CX, but I have had worse with UA, on a NORMAL flight.

Not exactly sure what led to your conclusion of a "worst experience" but honestly, the things are rather minor.

Re seating: Not the airline's fault if you couldn't do Online check-in. Seating reservation is on a first-come-first-served basis. Plus, didn't your family do Advance Seat Reservation (ASR), or was your booking class too low? With the odours and stuff, that's why the seats around the lavatories are not preferred. But if you didn't take it, then another person would've suffered.

Re delay: it's a fact of life. CX doesn't want this either since it drives up costs. I suppose they could've offered food vouchers, but since it was already 9PM (most people would've eaten by them), I think a midnight snack is appropriate.

Re heat: A known fact that Asian airlines prefer to turn up the heat to make the cabin more 'comfortable' (especially since the outside temperature in HKG around 7JAN was quite cold). You could always request the flight attendant to turn it down a bit.

Apart from the delay (which is actually quite common), everything else is fairly minor - not sure why it would be much worse than UA. If you were in a similar situation with UA (last row/next to lav, delay), I think you be even more disappointed taking into consideration the lack of PTVs on the HKG-SFO route. Delays with UA on HKG routes are actually more common than you think (due to mechanical issues).

I dont see how this is a bad experience at all.

Re choice of seats, it is well known and advertised by CX that one can choose your seats via Manage my booking 180 days before flight with certain (most) fare classes. If your fare class does not allow advanced seating choice, all passengers can check-in online 48 hours before flight. If you were staying in HK, it would have been very easy to find internet to do this. Even if you were in another country, nowadays, it is very easy within that 48 hours to find a computer for 5 minutes. This would have given you much more choice in seat assignment, not CX fault at all.

Re delays. the initial delay was only 30 minutes, yet CX brought out refreshments for Economy passengers. This is definitly a 5 star gesture.

Re boarding, it is standard for US bound flights to have 2 lines, security and boarding. The fact that the line was long is standard, you are boarding a fully booked 747. The CX staff member may have been trying to put you in the right boarding line. CX board Economy by row numbers as well as having lines for premium passengers and MPO/Oneworld elites.

Planes, especially full ones, are always initially hot before and just after take-off, because of the number of people and because cooling systems have not maxed up yet. Inflight, planes cool rapidly. With regard to the odour from the toilets, this is relativley normal if you sit just infront of the toilet area, and it was likely more odorous to the end of the flight, because near the end of the flight, more people use the toilet, and so the doors open a lot.

Not really a bad experience, a pretty normal one, and you could have made it better with planning. CX did their best in handling the delay.

Fairly standard experience going by what has been described.

Slight delay, nothing new here - seems like they made up an hour on the flight to SFO. Giving out drinks and snacks for such a short delay is certainly commendable.

Seat allocations - as previously stated if you really wanted to get better seats then you would have found a way to check in on-line.

Hot planes - whether it's hot or cold you should always be prepared to shed/add a few layers depending on cabin temperature.

Welcome to Flyertalk. Thanks for the report. However, as others have said - such is the world of air travel. This is why I always fly up front or just stay at home.

I have never flown with CX but most of what you describe can happen when flying on any airline.
Travelling, especially when flying in long haul economy class is always going to be rather uncomfortable. You just have to accept that fact and not expect too much. If you plan and prepare well there are ways of making it a more enjoyable experience.

I don't know if to laugh or cry! Sorry OP this is a normal economy long haul flight and I've done many, but to post a TR without perfectly taken pics of the seat, drinkies and food....shame on thee sir:)

Have to agree with the others. S**t happens on any airline.
A sick passenger is not CX's fault. And I wouldn't fly long-haul economy on any airline even if they gave me a free ticket.

Agreed. I feel your pain but this is just something that happens on a regular basis. Airlines don't delay flights just to F around with you...they only do it because they have to.

Sounds like a plain-old economy flight.
 

Agree. Sounds like a plain-old economy flight. I was waiting for the "kicker" about what was so bad about the flight, and there was none. It was just a regular economy flight that sounded completely normal!

sitting next to the crappers is the worst place one can be. this does make it a rather unusual Y trip. if OP had the option to split up his family, i would have since i never sit next to the crappers.

Move along people. There is nothing to see here ;)

What's so unusual about ?

OP bought the cheapest ticket where he/she can't pre-assign seats, OP didn't do online checkin 48 hours to departure, whose fault to blame ? Because on vacation and don't have wifi access ? I mean come on, that is totally inexcuseable. Whatabout hotels ? McDonald's ? coffee shop ? internet cafe ? There are plenty wifi hotspot everywhere in Hong Kong, not to mention plenty Starbucks in China !

That's the ultimate result if one don't do any planning ahead, then they still complain about being "the worst", "unfortunate" experience. Everyday there are hundreds if not thousands of people sitting in the last row of the 744, did anyone need to write a trip report and complain how bad it is ?

Are you suggesting OP should write a complain letter to CX and ask for compensation as well ?

Everything sounds pretty standard on this one except for one thing. CX brought out snacks for economy passengers in the airport terminal due to a 1 hour delay? Wow! I'd rate this an above average flight in economy. Hats off to CX.

A word of caution, don't ever try a North American airline. Ever.

I have had way worse situation (technical difficulities with two of the A330s and almost six hours of delay and what not) but, regardless of how bad the situation itself was, CX/KA treated all the affected, from MPC elite to a CX nobody like myself, with delay certificates, vouchers and lounge access. Everybody was very understanding.

In Asia, CX/KA is certainly one of the airlines that I would trust and spend a couple hundred extra dollar with.