[IanFromHKG]

Well, I am sitting here in sunny Phuket after flying GIB-LHR on BA and stying overnight, then LHR-HKG (overnight again) and HKG-HKT on CX, all in J

I won’t say much about the BA flight other than it did what is says on the tin, although the tin was held together by an alarming quantity of gaffer tape (see picture – note there are two more patches under the main one). Not encouraging since on the same route our daughters’ flight had been delayed because some of this tape had come off! But we made it.
https://www.dropbox.com/t/sbLU4ixwedhgZoXG
Anyway, LHR-HKG. First time using the CX J lounge (we always used to use the F lounge but my Diamond membership finally expired) and although the snacks were pretty good there was a limited range of hot food. Other than that I was perfectly happy as I found they had similar window seats to those in the F lounge with a similar view.

On the flight though – what a mixed bag. The welcome champagne was such a pathetic measure I took a picture of it. I swear I didn’t take a swig before taking the photo – and I picked the largest glass on the tray.
https://www.dropbox.com/t/bpAquv3zk7JRdSUH

Long gone are the days of personal recognition. CX always used to address me by name, but not on this flight, nor were any pax in my earshot. Instead hot towels were handed out with the word “Towel?”, and when the meal service arrived it was handed over with a “Here you go”. All sense of special personal service was utterly gone (the one exception being the lady who came around to take food orders on an iPad). No routine run-through the cabin to see if people needed anything, the toilets weren’t cleaned on any occasion I used them, and it all felt a bit low-rent on the service side.

One bright point, though – the food was superb and a dramatic improvement from CX meals of old.

All in all, then, a very mixed bag.

The leg from HKG to HKT was on a LH plane so that was a nice bonus but the experience was pretty similar. Ho-hum.

14 users thanked author for this post.

Andrew, christ, sparkyflier, Kopite, TheRealBabushka, Johnnyg, Rferguson2, Mark, Jacob, MartynSinclair, esselle, AndrewinHK, Bullfrog, cwoodward

[stevescoots]

I have found the “Cathay service” is not what it used to be on the LHR-HKG route recently as well. Usually I take a late flight so sleep through most of it but my last one was daytime. I can’t speak for the fizz as I don’t drink alcohol on the flights. First world problems I know but I did not get the Diamond welcome that I always get on Intra Asia flights. No prerential asking food request and when it came to serving it took them almost 3 hours to do meal service. I noted across the aisle from me some were on desserts, and I had not even got my mains. I did think that as they had cancelled the afternoon flight due to “staff relocations” and that maybe my flight was understaffed. But after a 3 hour nap having emptied my water bottle and wanting a coffee I waited 20 mins , pressed the call button several times before eventually going to the galley in person. Finding 2 crew I asked, somewhat sarcastically if they were short staffed and upon being told no, voiced my “concern” politely I may add, that almost all the cabin is asleep, and I could not get service. I then got a cold coffee and water. Departing was met with a smile but no other acknowledgment. My flight from HKG to SGN a week later was the polar opposite, full service as CX should be

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Andrew, sparkyflier

[MartynSinclair]

My only experience of CX currently:

F Lounge, LHR – I tend to use the QF lounge next door (T3).

The Pier / The Wing, HKG – one of my favourite lounges, staff and service, excellent, these lounges set very high standards.

Inter Asia flights on CX – everything that seems to be missed on the LHR-HKG flights described above, are included.

Are the London flights using London based crew??

1 user thanked author for this post.

Andrew

[w8ster]

This is rather sad to hear. Up toll 2018, I used to fly LHR-HKG round trip 3 times a year and always had amazing services both ground and onboard. The lounges and HK and London were amazing in my opinion.

Since relocation, Cathay wasn’t a practical option but did a DXB-HKG round trip once and it certainly wasn’t quite the same level onboard and the lack of proper lounge at DXB T1. It was still a good experience and have not travelled with CX since late 2019.

So sad to hear it has gone downhill is just about all aspects including the lounges.

Travelled SQ on several legs last year too and sad to say they were also mixed bag but I will say I have SQ ground services has never been good for the last 10 years at least and the arrogance just increases each year.

[AndrewinHK]

The crew have been through a tough time, and morale is very low, belief in the business has waned from the people I have talked too, changes in scheduling making it much harder to swap flights. London flights are 14 hours now, 2 hours longer than pre covid, shortens the layover time. I have sympathy and patience for crew, I don’t always expect a flawless pre covid type fawning on CX, service has gotten worse, but I understand why. The issue is pricing which has remained very high, and therefore you get a perceived lack of value, this hopefully starts to change with new PEY/J/F seats which are coming soon. I know many colleagues and friends who have tried other carriers, with many extolling the virtues of Qatar/Finnair and even BA, that’s the risk CX has, forcing a loyal customer base onto other carriers because you can’t cater for the demand, and you price out many. I happen to be flying to London tonight, and booked a ticket just this morning, I could fly BA First for basically the same cost as CX in business, and as far as I was told it was the last available F seat on BA 28 tonight.

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sparkyflier, TheRealBabushka, cwoodward, DerekVH

[Rferguson2]

To be honest and only from personal experience, I found the onboard service at CX change for the worse quite a while before COVID.

I found service much better onboard 10-15 years ago when they employed crew from all over Asia with those from countries synonymous with hospitality (the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan) to be far more customer oriented than the local HK based recruits.

I also concur with W8ster regarding SQ. Post COVID the crew aren’t as consistent as they once were. I had two flights a couple months ago and they were like night and day in terms of the service level from the crews. On the one that was not very good I don’t think one of the Business Class crew would have been older than 25, they all seemed very inexperienced and even the IFM was very off. I often find that good service is led from the top down – if the senior crew member is not so great the rest of the crew will mirror it. He spoke to passengers very brusquely and to his crew colleagues in a borderline aggressive fashion so I imagine they were not in a nice working environment.

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Andrew, Jacob, esselle, Kopite, cwoodward, Mark, w8ster

[Mark]

We are at the mercy of this behaviour every now and again sadly.
And Paying for the privilege 😁

[mscldrew]

That’s what happens when you fire all your seasoned cabin crew and replace them with imports from the mainland.

I did the same flight as you last month, nice you got the LH plane, my return was on the new narrow body business product and I couldn’t sit in it by the end of the flight. So hard and uncomfortable. I’d rather have been in the economy seat next to an empty.

[IanFromHKG]

Replying to Martyn who said:
“F Lounge, LHR – I tend to use the QF lounge next door (T3).
The Pier / The Wing, HKG – one of my favourite lounges, staff and service, excellent, these lounges set very high standards.
Inter Asia flights on CX – everything that seems to be missed on the LHR-HKG flights described above, are included.
Are the London flights using London based crew??”

We initially went into the QF lounge because I thought, being a mixed F/J lounge, that it might be of a better standard but the seats were pretty uncomfortable and it didn’t take long for the Memsahib to say she wanted to move.

In HKG we went to the Deck as it was the closest to our gate and since I am suffering a lot of back pain at the moment I wanted to minimise walking. It wasn’t as good as I remember from a year ago with very limited food but the decor is pleasing and it did what was required.

As I said my inter-Asia flight (HKG-HKT) was very similar to the LHR fight except the food wasn’t quite as good. But again on the LHR-HKG segment the food really was superb, with good choices and excellent presentation (apart from the “Here you go” service!).

I think the LHR-HKG crew were Asia-based but it is hard to be sure. They were certainly overwhelmingly ethnically east Asian although that may be driven by language requirements rather than where they are based.

[Kopite]

I couldn’t agree more than Rferguson2 when he said
“ I found service much better onboard 10-15 years ago when they employed crew from all over Asia with those from countries synonymous with hospitality (the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan) to be far more customer oriented than the local HK based recruits.”

I was a very loyal Cathay customer for 30 years on first name terms with staff who ran The Marco Polo Lounge in HKG & LGW.

The days when CX only had a London slot at LGW.
I was even loyal to Cathay when I relocated to Singapore for 30 years when all my friends were extolling the virtues of SIA, I remained a Cathay man.

I found SIA service professional but somewhat by the book lacking warmth whereas Cathay had all these fabulous crew from the Philippines, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia etc etc the warmth of service from 9 Asian countries.

That doesn’t hold water anymore sadly, all replaced by …… well you all know.

[stevescoots]

I think the primary issue here, as pointed out by others is cost Vs service. i just made my booking for my Feb run LHR to SGN which the majority of the time I use Cx and they were coming in at GBP 4800. QR 4000. Routings differ of course but QR is a better hard product for sure. Also the date i wanted (14th) My TMC did not even give me the price for CX, on the basis of it being so expensive so i will have a guess it was north of 5.2K as he knows my ceilings

[IanFromHKG]

Interestingly I managed to get my entire itinerary see for one leg (HKT-BKK on Bangkok Airways) for a smidgeon over 4,400 pounds. The covers (all in J) (1) BA GIB-LHR, (2) CX LHR-HKG-HKT, (3) CX BKK-HKG-LHR and (4) BA LHR-GIB

Booked through Tim F’s colleague in Gibraltar

[Kopite]

Cathay Pacific’s sales pitch and advertising used to refer to its cabin crew as “The grace and Beauty of Nine Asian Lands” which today would be derided as sexist by the new woke brigade.

However it was that special crew which kept me loyal to CX for so long!

[cwoodward]

As with others here I have noticed (but fortunately not much experienced-Lifetime Diamond) and family have reported very mixed cabin service last year on CX. We have been flying back and forth to Manila in economy a good deal as we are developing a small resort island 3 hours south.

I like others here have some sympathy with the airline it have needed to recruit very quickly over a thousand totally inexperienced cabin crew from the less than ideal HK available talent pool at the same time as many other large businesses here were also opening up again post- covid.
Personally I did not notice any decline in the cabin service pre the pandemic nor believe did most.
We have a relative who is fairly senior in the crew training department who I chat with from time to time. According to her it was a herculean training task even to get this number of people trained to even the very basic requirement. The training is ongoing and still a distance from bringing all of the crew up to the pervious standards.

It seems though that things are now improving more quickly with the airline now again recruiting former and experienced crew from Thailand, Philippines,Japan and Malaysia. Also London based cabin crew have again been hired.
It was the Hong Kong(fairly milatent)crew union who had pre covid prevented the airline hiring non HK Chinese crew on the grounds that there were plenty of available locals available. That argument fortuitously fell by the wayside post the pandemic allowing the airline once again hire from across Asia.

Some here will remember when the cabins were filled with those fantastic crews drawn from across Asia who needed the job and were extremely proficient and caring.
Perhaps interestingly I was told that many of the 100 or so English speaking mainland cabin crew who have just joined were previously employed by Cathay Dragon with some also from Air China (Cathay trained many Air China cabin crew a few years back).

Given all of the circumstances I am going to refrain from being uber critical of the service until mid year when I understand things will in the cabin will be again fully on-song. Already I have found and been told by friends that the food is now better than pre-covid in all classes.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Nicholas Bacon

[Rferguson2]

@cwoodward.

Glad to hear they are again recruiting from the greater asian region.

I think the majority of airlines went through the same issues as Cathay – laying off a large portion of their experienced crew when COVID hit then scrambling to fill vacancies when travel restarted. BA, the other euro carriers and indeed those further afield all of a sudden found themselves in a position where at a recruitment drive where they would typically take say 10-15% of applicants were taking 30/40% simply out of a need to fill training courses. It is no secret at most airlines that a reasonable amount of crew taken on post COVID probably wouldn’t have ‘made the cut’ at other times.

I think in Cathays case, the restart happened considerably later than the rest of the world. So those similar times at BA, Lufthansa, SQ, Qantas etc are almost forgotten whereas CX is exactly where they were a year or two ago.

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sparkyflier, cwoodward

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