Looking at booking some honeymoon flights to Europe over Christmas/Jan 2019. Cathay Pacific coming in far cheaper than others from some prelim review. I have heard good things in the past about them flying to Japan, etc so was pretty keen to jump on some flights around $1200 return. But just recently looked up some reviews and they seem to be slipping backwards to a pretty mediocre outfit. Only 5.8/10 on flight review website. Is this the case? Is their service and dated aircraft becoming a real issue?
Pointy end is good I've heard varying tales of woe from the bit of the plane behind the curtains- but that seems true of all airlines
Ive flown many times on Cathay to Tokyo and Vancouver via HK, business and economy. The herringbone business setup is nifty and pleasant. However those planes do seem to be getting a bit long in the tooth and it really shows in economy
Turning left is very good indeed. Shame those QFF points have all gone. As to economy while their reputation was very good it does appear to have slipped in recent years but perhaps still Ok amongst a declining standard of travel - as costs increase but airlines hold fares low. CX has been reported to be suffering financial terms and $1200 return is indicative of market forces and evidence of this situation is CX densifying economy in their B777s from 3-3-3 to 3-4-3 as per most airlines
Flew with them in Jan, Melb - HK - Haneda return. Nothing amazing, but definitely nothing wrong with the service. All our gear arrived on time with no damage. Would fly with them again, especially considering their 30kg luggage allowance.
We've flown them from Perth to Sapporo Chitose twice via Hong Kong in economy, couldn't fault them. On time flights, friendly service and decent baggage allowance. This year we flew Tokyo-Perth via Singapore with Qantas, the Tokyo to Singapore leg was run by Japan Airlines (codeshare) and was awesome on a 777 but the Qantas leg on a 737 sucks in comparison! The JAL plane was great, lots of legroom, comfortable seats, big screens and good food.
Never faulted Cathay until last year when we missed a connection. Staff were incredibly rude, solution to missed connection was hard yards. But back to great service this year.... who knows?!
As much as I would prefer to fly Signapore Airlines, the price for Cathay is hard to go by. $1400 vs $2300. x2 people and that's almost $1800 extra to fly SIA.
We flew Cathay Melbourne to HK to Sapporo return. Whilst everything was fine and dandy other than some delays, the planes were old and stuffy and everything thing seemed tired. Which is in complete contrast to flying with JAL this year which was Soo good.
Bumping this, because there is only a 3 more days of the Cathay Pacific sale. We just picked up return flights to Europe for the family of 5 for 6k. Yes, that's $1200 per person, into Paris out of Zurich. Amazing deal for Jan19. Originally looking at Japan but given direct flights there are about $100-300 more Europe won this time! I don't have high expectations o any economy Europe flight, but surely Cathay are decent still despite a few recent financial losses. Here's the details of the Cathay special: https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_AU/offers/collection/east-meets-west-sale.html
Yeah prices were hard to turn down with us too...into Milan, out Paris for $1350 or thereabouts over Christmas / New Years. Also have a week layover in HK on way over and squeezing in Japan too . Best of both worlds.
About to fly them to the US in July. Picked up 5 - 4 adult fares in that - tickets for 5.2k. Late booking for their summer holidays during our school holidays too seemed like a reasonable price.
I've done CX Sydney to Zurich a few times because it's an easy and fast way to get to Euro skiing. 24 hours travel time including the HK stopover, which should be smooth. The CX lounges in HK are very good. People get excited by what wine the airline serves, plastic v metal knives, movie selection, airline food (!!) etc But for me it's one of SQ, Qatar or Emirates to Yurp, basically for the connection and speed. 22 hours is possible.
We flew them Per-Nyc and Vancouver- Per. Based on price and timing of flights. They were fine. Found a lot of passengers on the legs into and out of Hong Kong were annoying Chinese who monopolised a lot of hosties time.
Not all Chinese are annoying, I've met at least 2 I liked. We were toward the back of the plane and at one stage was standing by rear toilets and passengers were helping themselves to all sorts of snacks in the galley.
Good on you for getting some Japan skiing too. Where are you riding in Europe? We are doing Meribel in a catered chalet (easier with multiple families with young kids) but looking for somewhere nice and quiet for a few days before that which is closish to Geneva.
Just flew them BNE to HK then HK to LA. Couldn't fault them at all. Very attentive staff through out the entire flight. Sadly nothing to do with them but we just had our first LAX horror in years. Took us 3 hours to clear customs. From a 10pm landing to 1am before we could get to baggage claim. For the number of flights that landed at that time to the number of custom officials on station to clear the arrivals was very poor. Cathay staff wondered what the problem was and stayed with our flights bags until everyone had cleared through to it and collected.
