Here is the report I promised you guys back in December about the CX889 canceled flight. My trip originated from Columbus, OH. Since there was no direct service from CMH to JFK on AA. I had to go through RDU. I tried to write this trip report in a very short time. Please excuse my writing if I made any grammar or spelling mistake. Please give me some feedback and response.

Dec 9, 2002; CX 889 JFK � HKG via YVR
Depart 10:15pm (Cancelled)

I arrived at JFK from RDU around 8:30pm. I went straight to the BA terminal and checked in to my CX flight. There were many people waiting at the gate and the CX 747-400 was there at the gate already. At 9:30pm, an announcement was made that CX 889 would be delayed for 2 hours due to technical difficulty. After the announcement, the CX F/As and pilots left the plane and went to the food court to buy dinners. An hour later, another announcement was made. This time, the gate agent told us that the plane could not be fixed and passengers should go down to the check-in counters for hotel arrangement. I was the first one who went down to the check-in counters and no body was there. The rest of the passengers were behind me running toward the counters. 15 minutes later, a BA gate agent came to the counters and was totally clueless what was going on and what was her supposed to do. Several more BA agents came after her as well as the BA airport manager. The agents were trying to take care of the passengers whose final destination was YVR first, but they did not succeed because many other passengers ditched in. The situation was pretty chaotic. Me and the rest of the passengers waited for almost 1 � hours and the agents were still helping the YVR passengers. While I was waiting, I heard from other passengers that they saw fire truck escorting the CX plane when it landed. Apparently, there was an oil leak from one of the engines. It made me wonder why the BA agents didn�t plan ahead for the aftermath if they knew there was serious problem with the flight.

At 12:00am, the BA manager finally told us to pick up our luggage from the baggage claim and to take the hotel shuttle bus to the hotel (Radission JFK). The manager told us that there was no way they could reschedule our flights because the CX office had already closed (why didn�t he tell us earlier). I was given meal vouchers (dinner, breakfast and lunch) upon check-in to my rooms. The Radission was okay. Basically, it was a nicer version of a Howard Johnson, nothing fancy. One interesting thing was that it was next to a Salvation Army which was converted from a Hilton.

I woke up pretty early the next morning and waiting to call the CX office (it opened at 6:30 Pac. time). I got a hold of a CX agent on the phone and she told me she would call me back later because she needed some time to reschedule my flights. I stayed in my hotel room until noon to wait for the phone call and still hadn�t heard from her. So, I went to the lobby to get some lunch. At the lobby, I asked other passengers if they heard from CX yet. They said they were already rescheduled to a later flight on BA to LHR and onward to HKG. They also said all passengers needed to meet at JFK at 2pm to reschedule and reissue their tickets. Fortunately, I came to the lobby to ask people; otherwise, I would have missed all this important information. After I finished my lunch, the CX reservation agent called me back. She rescheduled me on CX 829 from YYZ to HKG that night. The only problem was I needed to go back to the BA counter at JFK to get my ticket issued and then took an AA flight from LGA to YYZ since there was no AA flight from JFK to YYZ. I told her there was no problem for me to take a taxi to LGA. After the call, I took the hotel shuttle to JFK and waited for 2 hours in line at the BA ticketing counter to get my new ticket. Those BA agents were the slowest and the least efficient workers on earth. It took them at least half an hour just to help 1 passenger. While I and other CX passengers were waiting, the JFK CX manger came out to apologize to the passengers. He told us that this (serious technical problem) had never happened in his 7 years tenure at CX. He also said CX had to fly a new engine to JFK from HK to replace the bad one.

After I arrived at YYZ and checked in to the CX829 flight, I was so glad to see these efficient and friendly CX ground agents as opposed to those lazy and grumpy BA ground agents at JFK. While I was checking in my flight, I asked the CX agent if it was possible to get an upgrade for only CAN 900. She told me this special only occurred when there was overbooking in economy class which it didn�t happen that night.

I don�t know if it is a mistake, my AAdvantage account was later credited with both of the CX829 and CX 889 flights. As you know now, I never actually took the CX889 flight.

BA ground agents in New York in my opinion "purposefully" work in slow motion. They hate BA. One told me so. And I believe they are unionized.

david, thank you for the report!

there is nothing better than to receive a mileage credit for a flight that you have never taken

Could CX's call center in HK helped? In other words when I can't get hold of CX in the US, I just call the Hong Kong Reservations number. They have ALWAYS helped on rebookings and other changes.

Very good advice. It's easy to forget this because we're so accustomed to dialing local or 800 numbers. Considering the time difference between the U.S. and Hong Kong, there really should be no hour of the day when CX can't be reached. Even if you have to pay for the call to Hong Kong, most calling cards or 10-10 dial arounds are dirt cheap to call there. My calling card is $.05 per minute and I suspect others are similar.

JFK BA ground agent is perhaps the worse OW ground staff in this world....
and definitely the worse CX ground service outsourcing decision.
i simply don;t understand why cx didnt do what they did for LAX, i.e. use their own staff.

most of the LAX staff were ex-CX staff emmigrated to US (from HK, PHL, etc.) there must be a sizable pool in NYC area as well.
i guess it was probably flight frequency that made the difference, but once they installed polar route, there will be 11 flights/weeks.

let's send out feedback to cx

For those who want it... This is the CX number I use when the US center is closed:

+ 852 2747-1888
(From the US 011 852 2747-1888)

You will get the greeting in Cantonese, hold on and the same info is given in English, or press 2 during the Cantonese greeting for the english menu.

This call center "seems" to be 24 hours.

Also, calls to Hong Kong even NOT on a calling card are not that expensive

I used to fly regularly from my base in HKG to the U.S. for business. Although I loved flying CX, I found that I was rarely (if ever) able to get through on their U.S. phone system-- it always either rang busy or no answer. On the rare occasion when I needed to contact the airline, I called them in HKG.

What I do find odd, is that VOIP (Voice over IP) or other forwarding services from the US to HK is DIRT chip, why doesn't CX do what BA does: forward you to an open call center (in the case of BA I believe they offered to forward you to a call center in London?) when their res # is closed in the US and you call after hours.

there is a toll free for MPO members.
but it was blocked by companies like MCI, i think.

but i agree that they should centralize all the call center in HKG (at least for us/canada).
i believe this would actually save them costs, in terms of management and training/etc.

[BUT i often hear people, in FT, complain about the english of the HK staff...]

[This message has been edited by pegasus8228 (edited 01-07-2003).]

Also, CX has a "CX.com" telephone hotline that is toll free from many countries.

+800 2747 2200

I didn't think of calling the CX reservation center in HK. Even if I did, I didn't have the phone number. Plus, I was running out my airtime on my cell phone.
I agree that CX should set up a central reservation center in HK that can forward phone calls from other countries. I knew that Swissair used to do that. When I called Swissair a couple years ago in the US, my call was forwarded to a reservation center in Sydney , Australlia.


[This message has been edited by David Kung (edited 01-08-2003).]

Thanks for the report!

I share your sentiments concerning the attitudes of the BA agents at JFK. They are the most unfriendly people on earth. I am curious why the couple other CX agents are not helping out. There are about three or four CX agents that usually help out with the check ins. I have told CX about it but their replies were less than satisfactory. They will basically not do anything to fix this problem. I guess if they want to launch a successful JFK nonstop flights in the future, they need to hire their own CX staffs, just like Vancouver, Toronto, and Los Angeles.

Carfield

There was one CX agent in the airport on the night of the canceled flight. She basically just helped out with the translation and kept passengers in line. she couldn't do much because she wasn't a BA agent and couldn't use the computers.

Great report. Thanks for all the detailed info, esp. the lack of BA staffers help, which is sooooooo typical of them. Avoid BA at all costs.