There's no doubt an issue with the crewing as the article sets out, there have been a few spectacular delays to CX357/8 over the past few months which may be a sign of the difficulties being experienced, and the need for more slack in the rostering.
To be fair to CX the lengthy delays ex-HKG are out of their control, it's the morons in the Chinese Military / PLAAF that keep coming up with ridiculous air space restrictions. It's an increasing problem for CX and HKG that is only going to get worse unless someone points out it's no long the 1970's.
On my last CX357 inbound to MAN when I got to the gate the ground staff were encouraging any JCL pax or shiny card holders to return to The Wing to await further info. We eventually left a couple of hours late behind both BA flights that I watched board from the QF lounge hours earlier and the poor sods on the Dragonair flight to PEK that had been on board since 7pm. I was chatting to the FO (who was from very close to MAN) shortly before landing and he said the Chinese keep rejecting flight plans to northern Europe out of the blue. He had a three hour wait on a day flight to LHR a couple of weeks before. He said CX had offered to fly further north over Korea and around that way but they still weren't having it.
