The Current State of Cathay Pacific

The Current State of Cathay Pacific

I’ve always been a devoted fan of Cathay Pacific, cherishing every journey with them. However, over the past two years, I've noticed a series of updates that have significantly diminished the helpful information available to passengers. Recently, their multi-city booking page was revamped, and unfortunately, it has lost many of the features I once loved. Overall, these changes feel like a way to mislead customers!

It seems like a money-making scheme from those in charge. In the past, Cathay Pacific's multi-city booking tool was incredibly useful for me when searching for flight dates and stopovers for my travels.

Old Features and Their Benefits

When I entered my desired dates and airports on the old page, I was directed to a new page showcasing a list of the cheapest available flights. All the segments would appear on one page after submitting my information. Moreover, the total price for the entire journey was displayed at the bottom of the page, which was incredibly convenient for users.

Previously, when I selected a different flight for one of the segments, the price for the new itinerary would instantly update without any issues. Additionally, there was a clever link in the upper left corner of the page that allowed me to see a calendar with prices for ±2 days around my selected travel date for each segment.

The best part was that the cheapest travel dates were highlighted with a red indicator in the box for that date. All of this made adjusting my flight schedule to find the best fare a breeze.

Disappointing Changes

But now, after submitting my request, I have to manually select flights for each segment without any guidance on which flights are the cheapest. For example, if I want to fly from HKG to HND on a specific date, I might choose between CX548 or CX542. CX548 might be more expensive, but there’s no way to know that unless I select each flight and compare prices.

This isn’t too bad until I have to choose a segment with over 10 options for flights, including both direct and connecting flights. Another major issue is that the calendar showing prices for two days before and after the selected date has been removed, so now I can’t tell if flying a day earlier or later would make a significant price difference!

Concerning Lack of Information

Google Flights isn’t designed for multi-city bookings, and Cathay Pacific’s website used to be the best option. Now, by eliminating the automatic flight selections and the calendar displaying cheaper dates, they are stripping away too much useful information from customers. This increases the likelihood that passengers will book a more expensive flight, unaware that they could save hundreds or even thousands of dollars just by choosing a flight a little earlier or later.

The multi-city booking page now also includes a notification that prices will only be displayed AFTER selecting all flights. The date adjustment feature has been separated and no longer shows prices around the selected dates. For an airline that aspires to be the best in the world and carries the title of “best service brand,” this is certainly a major setback, ensuring that consumers remain uninformed, just to push them towards booking more expensive flights without realizing that cheaper options are still very much available.

Hoping for Positive Change

I hope someone from Cathay Pacific reads this feedback and takes steps to improve the situation. As a long-time loyal customer, I genuinely feel disappointed, and for the first time in many years, I’m considering switching to another airline—one that is willing to be transparent and enhance user experience instead of continuously degrading their website.

P.S. Even aviation enthusiasts like myself are quite upset with CX for changing their flight schedule page over a year ago... now there's no way to know which flights will use the A350-1000 or A350-900 without making a test booking (the old website would indicate 359/351, but now it just says “Airbus A350”… the same goes for the 777). This is yet another poor decision from the CX website team, as they strip away useful information from customers and make access more difficult.