Cathay Pacific is possibly the worst airline ever.
I had YVR-HKG / HKG-HAN / SGN-HKG / HKG-YVR flights booked five months in advance. At the last moment, two days before leaving (Monday night) my mother suffered from a bad fall and broke both of her wrists/arms. I was in Emergency Room most of the day Saturday. I went to the Vancouver airport that night to try to get the ticketing counter to either cancel the flight, or at least remove HKG-HAN/SGN-HKG and change YVR-HKG to a later date – expecting it to be faster/easier than on the phone (as CX does not provide any way to change flights, or even to change the seat, online (despite the flight being booked with them online) – it is truly operating in the dark ages; even for tickets it still insists on issuing paper tickets that one has to go and pick up in person for Internet sold tickets (won’t even mail it to you – no such option offered) and does not use e-tickets as almost all the other airlines do). The person there was unable to help, said that ticketing only works 7am-4am weekdays. Three days later (on Monday early morning) I tried to call the Vancouver ticketing # provided (and given on the site). The line was busy non-stop.
An hour and over a 100 phone calls later (no exaggeration) I got through, only to be on hold to get to a reservations agent. Then again the reservations agent was unable to help - as apparently they only deal with "full revenue" tickets (i.e. the maximum fare ones that almost no one ever pays), and for Internet (on their own web-site) booked tickets the call is forwarded to another group. So, on hold again. Some three hours (!) later a very unhelpful and rude person refuses to honour the fare rules (that I luckily had printed out, as she kept saying the fare does not allow for changes or refunds, only for me to counter her and read out the fare rules word by word) and refuses to change it with the $110 change fee (instead wants to charge some $260+ to change), and furthermore refuses to honour the refund policy and does not provide any refund for the two (out to four) cancelled flights. It was hopeless and an hour later still nothing done. The CX agent would keep making up lies on the fare rules, and when that didn’t work would keep making up new ones, even saying that there are no economy seats available on the flight on the alternate date, when I while she was saying that verified that over 40 seats were still available on that plane in the ‘lowest economy’ price class. The agent would also refuse to put on a supervisor or even give her name. Trying to call back later the same ordeal: phone busy, when through on hold once 15-20 min, then again a second time some 30 min (as there is no option to select the "internet ticket" reservations group, so first need to go for "full revenue" reservations group – wait for that, only to be put in another queue for "internet ticket" reservations group). In the end the phone rang, someone picked it up, and hung up right away (quick busy signal) - so obviously when their agents do not want to work, they simply pick up and put off the phone, thus having lost nearly two hours of hold time of the client. Third time same ordeal to call, a different person (who didn’t hang up the phone and wasn’t quite as rude and ruthless as the first one), but still the same deal. It seems as if their reservations agents get a commission or otherwise some strong incentive, or are simply made to, instead of issuing refunds pursuant to the fare rules, charge more - in outright disregard for the fare rules. In the end I simply cancelled the flights, but only got 75% back, the other 25% apparently not qualifying as serious illness of a family member, though my mother broke both of her wrists and arms and I had the ER surgery transcript to fax over (the agent refused to give their fax number – that is also not listed anywhere, not even on their site!, knowing that once I send it over they’d have a written record of not honouring the fare rules). Luckily I can get that 25% back via insurance on my credit card.
In regards to actual flying experience, on an earlier flight (JFK-YVR) on the 747 aircraft, the plane is the most crammed I’ve ever been in – and I’ve flown over 30 airlines (all the major American and Canadian ones, and even odd ones such as Uzbekistan Airways, China Eastern, etc.). I can’t imagine how could anyone be stuck in a plane that bad and tight (and I am not even 6ft tall) for a trans-pacific flight, as already New York to Vancouver was a torture given the sub-standard legroom and the narrower than normal seats (other airlines have one less seat in each row in economy class in the exact same aircraft vs. CX, which gives a good idea that CX seats are at least some 15% more narrow than other airlines in the same class in the same aircraft). Furthermore, entertainment on-board is just a few pre-set channels, even no video-on-demand that other low-cost airlines offer even on flights as short as 1 hour.
So, both flying (sub-standard flight cabin, very uncomfortable, sub-standard entertainment esp. for the length of flights – though decent food), and especially pre-flight service (of which there really is none, just the opposite, in fact), is very sub-standard. Especially bad out of the Vancouver airport reservations office that doesn’t have anywhere near enough phone lines or agents, a very poorly set-up phone system, and most of all clearly a policy in place to blatantly disregard the fare rules in place.
Combined with prices considerably above the market pricing, CX is best avoided if you can.