I used the old Cathay services via ZRH/AMS/CDG and they were pretty well used, considering there were capacity restraints due to the one stop pick up.
Ive tried the CX from HKG via LHR and it was a nightmare of a journey, the CX flight to LHR had very few pax on it,(maybe indicating HKG-LHR is over saturated ?), but the connection hasssle was awful as was the shuttle experience.
If CX come back to MAN then I would use them. In the meantime, I'm more than happy to use Swiss or Lufthansa on their one stop flights.
As has already been said, CX shift enough cargo from MAN, so they already have the mx infrastructure / handling / crew changes etc in place. I would have thought a 744 or 777 five times a week would carry enough cargo to make the pax service very viable - if they realy wanted to come back.
The more recent aborted re-start was for a CX service via Moscow with full pax rights. Not a bad idea in itself as we have no direct Moscow flights either. The rumour was that BMI hold traffic rights on MAN-Moscow & objected to this proposed service-whether that is true or not, I do not know.
If it's true, I don't understand how an airline can object to a route they don't operate, but I guess political bi lateral agreements come into play here. At the end of the day, CX could have opted for plan B, but maybe they just didn't have one.
Last edited by Mr A Tis; 3rd Sep 2010 at 14:22.