Dear Cathay,
I normally always fly Cathay Pacific when traveling to Asia, because of the superb crew and the high level of service provided. However, yesterday I've encountered an unfortunate situation, that could have been better handled by Cathay Pacific.
I flew from Hangzhou (HGH) to New York (JFK) with Hong Kong Int'l Airport (HKG) as a layover. When I booked my ticket, I didn't realize at the time, but the system only gave me a little over an hour to transfer between flights.
It was raining that day in Hangzhou. Thus, the flight from HGH to HKG was delayed by 25 minutes. It was also at that time, that I realized that the connecting schedule was very tight. When I landed in HKG, I realized I only had a mere 20 minutes to make it to my gate. HKG also has an additional security check for passengers. Thankfully, a Cathay Pacific agent was available to escort me quickly to my gate, skip the security lines, and finally I caught the flight to JFK because it also was running a bit behind schedule.
When I landed in JFK, I quickly got out of customs and arrived at the baggage carousel. I was extremely tired from a 20 hour itinerary, and just wanted to go home ASAP. It turns out the baggage handlers that day (like me) were overwhelmed that day at JFK, and it took over 2 hours for everyone to receive their luggage. Well, everyone except for me. Confused and baggage-less, I look for a Cathay representative. He told me that I had to first exit customs, and then go find the baggage services desk at the terminal.
Filling a report was quite easy, and the line wasn't too long. But here I am today on this otherwise sunny morning -- still with no baggage and no change of clothes. Hopefully, my two suitcases will be delivered today. From this ordeal -- if I may call it that, I know others have suffered a much worse fate -- I just have a couple of suggestions for Cathay Pacific to help improve the passenger's experience:
Use the NotiFLY system already in place (which can send texts about flight updates) to let passengers know if their baggage has not made the connecting flight due to time constraints. If Cathay had done this, I would not have waited for 2 hours at the baggage carousel. Which, I might add, was quite anxiety-inducing. Even a simple page on the PA would have sufficed.
Change the computer system so that connecting flights are booked in a way that have more than just a 1 hour stopover. I spoke to another lady who was on the same flight and also luggage-less, she encountered the same problem as I did, except she flew in to HKG from Hainan first.
Overall, my impression of Cathay is still positive -- the in-flight service provided is much better than say, China Eastern (which I still use to fly from JFK to PVG). However, we'll have to see if my baggage does indeed arrive today.
Regards, A (Temporarily) Disgruntled Cathay Passenger