Reply To: BA or CX to Hong Kong in Premium Economy

[John]

Before covid, CX was definitely the best choice if the cost was similar to BA. When booking CX I could trust the flight would always be at least satisfactory. When booking BA because CX was too pricey, I would have a subconscious dread that couldn’t be quashed until actually getting on board.

Now CX has become just as variable. If you don’t get a crew who are mostly from Hong Kong, they don’t mesh together well and it just feels like a random foreign airline. In the past 1.5 years I’ve now taken 9 CX flights and the difference between a mostly HK (including London-based HK British who are not necessarily “from” HK) and non-HK crew is pretty stark. I would say that perhaps in J this is a bit less noticeable because of the increased privacy.

Acknowledgement yes you’d get it on CX all the time because they follow the protocol. Whereas on BA while the crew are all well-meaning it often feels very casual / less slick, some might say unprofessional. That said I have done one BA LHR-HKG since covid (in Y) and that flight was unproblematic, even the Y meals were not as bad as expected.

The snacks situation on CX is as described above and based on multiple flights, it’s not a one-off – not sure if they just don’t actually load the things they say they have (in which case why print it on the menu) or greedy passengers snatched them all up or the crew kept some for themselves…

Typically meals on long-hauls (where there is no dine on demand) will be served shortly after takeoff and just before arrival, but I have read elsewhere that on some CX flights the crew decided to wake everyone up in the middle of the flight and serve the second meal (even though it didn’t make sense in the timezones context), then have nothing left over for the remaining 5-6 hours. Hasn’t happened to me yet though.

So my conclusion is just book whatever makes most sense in terms of price and schedule, and anything else which is important for that trip such as luggage or flexibility.