Cathay Pacific Airways Reviews 734

My 14-hour flight on Cathay Pacific was ruined before it even started. My tray and screen were covered in spilled juice and felt sticky and disgusting. I told a flight attendant, but she didn’t seem to care and never helped. Being stuck in that dirty seat for such a long flight completely ruined my mood and the experience.

I booked four tickets from Singapore to Fukuoka and was disappointed by the experience. Our outbound flight faced delays, but we managed to catch our connection thanks to a two-hour layover. However, the return journey was far more frustrating. Bec of the flight delay we missed our connection and had to wait five-hour for the next flight !! They gave us 2 x 75hk food vouchers !!

I specifically chose the 8:30 PM flight, paying an extra $75 (total $300) to avoid the inconvenient 1:50 AM option. Given Cathay Pacific's history of delays, it's disheartening to see them selling such tight connections. This reflects a concerning lack of consideration for their customers.

This isn't my first negative experience with Cathay, and it raises serious questions about their service reliability. I urge the airline to reevaluate their flight schedules and improve communication with passengers. Until then, I will think twice before booking with them !!

I have used CP several times the last few years. I paid for and selected an extra leg room seat, as I did each time. This occasion, they moved me out of my selected seat to another and it’s the worst. The seat is not tight, I get bumped by everyone passing in the isle, sleeping is impossible. Worst experience to date w any airline in my life. I contacted them two days before my flight, after I saw they switched my $180 upgraded seat. I was told there was nothing they could do. I just get screwed and have to suffer a 16 hour flight. Avoid this airline

Cathay Pacific while acknowledging a delay on their flight from hong Kong to Dallas refused to provide accommodation and meal reimbursement because of a missed connecting flight.
They also refuse to provide any details on baggage information for me and never informed me about a possible miss to my connecting flight

We had an inbound flight on another airline that was significantly delayed, resulting in us arriving at the check in counter 58mims before departure and after the flight was closed. The staff at Cebu kindly reopened the flight and let us travel onwards with our kids.

Thank you!!

Tried to buy tickets to Hong Kong last week but was not able to do so, due to extended website loading times and constant fails; asking me to refresh several times, with no success.

Left it for a few days and tried several times over the past two days, with three different laptops and two different phones - IOS and Android, still with no success.

The most recent one, about an hour ago, I got as far as seat reservation for the outbound journey but trying the same for the return, it loaded for about five minutes before failing and asking me to go back to the home page and start again.

This being the fifth or sixth time this evening, I followed the error message instructions to try to resolve the issue and contacted customer service.

The phone call took over 34 minutes and when the representative asked me whether I wanted to register a complaint, the representative even had issues in trying to do that due to computer issues.

Barlyn, the representative, was very apologetic and I daresay embarrassed by having trouble registering a complaint on what I had rung to complain about in the first place.

I appreciate it was only an economy ticket and we have not travelled with Cathay Pacific for about two years but it does make me wonder if we had been business, first class or more regular flyers, whether we would have had better service or is this part of the plan to delay the purchase; since we're a captive audience, to allow the prices to fluctuate upwards, coincidentally, never downwards.

I flew from London to Manila and back via Hong Kong in November (13th to 22nd) and for the most part it was an enjoyable experience. The staff on the plane were friendly, helpful and polite as was the check-in staff when I was in Manila and they even got my special meal correct (and delicious it was too) most of the time. The minor issues I had was the charging port didn't work on my rear seat screen and the member of staff at Heathrow who wasn't very helpful when I was unable to print off my luggage label as it was my first time but overall it was a very good experience for me.

Terrible service onboard by the cabin crew - some were full of attitude-very disappointed in the inflight service experience .

This is only for the top tier benefits of the awards program.

I wrote to Cathay to express my dissatisfaction with the changes to the top tier of their loyalty program. Specifically, I felt the communications to the CX frequent fliers on the addition of the new diamond plus class and reduction of the bookable upgrades benefits was badly communicated.

Water of a ducks back…I am afraid! I think it’s time to switch my favorite airline!

This is email I sent them which explains it all. So far no reply. Once they have your money they are no longer interested

I fly worldwide. Yesterday for first time with your airline which had been recommended . That was a mistake!

My flight details as follows

if these items are found.
Upcoming flight
flight-info-icon
Mon, 29 Dec 2025 | CX 250
London, Heathrow to Hong Kong
LHR 17:50
LHR
Terminal 3
12h45m
flight-icon
dot-timeline

HKG14:35 +1
HKG
Terminal 1
Economy Class L
Operated by Cathay Pacific
flight-info-icon
Tue, 30 Dec 2025 | CX 605
Hong Kong to Phnom Penh

HKG 16:00
HKG
Terminal 1
2h45m
flight-icon
dot-timeline

KTI 17:45
KTI
Economy Class L
Operated by Cathay Pacific

You lost my baggage. Never happened to me ever before. However today, 27 hours later, I get a call saying you now have my bag and that you will deliver HOPEFULLY tomorrow. I want it today. I am told no one to deliver it. The country is full of taxi drivers.

I am now told that tomorrow you will despatch it to some local bus station for me to travel to and collect

No doubt you will blame this on third parties. Please don’t

Paul Anderson

If Cathey Pacific promises any refund, don’t believe it. If its customer support says we’ve got your case, don’t believe it.

Very disappointed with the latest customer support experience. I purchased on flight wifi connection. It didn’t work. The flight attendance promised a refund via customer support. I filed a case with customer support. No action followed on their part. When followed up, I was asked to explain the case, provide the flight into, and I was promised a follow-up. I followed up several occasions. No action on their part. One time, it was the same all over, then I was told the case was too old for refund.

8 months past. And I got the following email from the customer support, describing and confirming the situation. Let their writing speak for my annoyance and disappointment:

Thank you for flying with us on flight CX 253 on 08 April 2025.

We have received a report from our Customer contact team regarding an issue you experienced with the inflight Wi-Fi service during your journey . We understand the importance of reliable connectivity, especially when traveling for work or needing to stay connected, and we regret the disruption this has caused to your plans.

As such, we regret to inform you that we are unable to provide a refund. We apologise for any disappointment caused and hope for your understanding in this matter.

We truly appreciate your understanding and once again apologise for any disruption experienced. We look forward to welcoming you onboard again soon.

Scam like advertisement on '24 hour cancellation'. Appalling customer service. I signed up for a membership to benefit from 24 hour free cancellation - no T&C's to be seen when signing up or booking a flight, or requesting a cancellation. They then tell you to read the T&C's on a separate page they can find - which says you have to add the frequent flyer number as their membership number. When I have logged in with the membership number! Customer service team would not do a single thing - now I paid 600 pounds for this wrongly advertised 'free cancellation'. This is worse than any other low budget airlines. AVOID.

Non existent customer service. Cant get any response from the company when contacting directly. Their lack of professionalism and care for their customers would not make me choose this airline to fly with.

Never in my over 15-20 years of flying have I ever encountered such a rude, incompetent and condescending check-in agent. I flew from LAX on December 15th to Bali and this whiny kid who constantly needed his manager by his side because he doesn’t knowing anything, nitpicked everything I have just because I didn’t have a ticket out of Indonesia. I used to carry a KITAs visa and haven’t had to use the regular visa on arrival in a while, so I forgot to book an onward ticket. Easily booked one on the spot. Then he started complaining about how it wasn’t a return ticket? Who cares if it’s return or not I just need an onward ticket so I booked it. He then started complaining about how I don’t have a visa either? Obviously it’s a visa on arrival which can be extended, had to check with his manager, she said it’s fine. Then he proceeded to make a big fuzz about how one of my check in luggages is a over a limit. Less than a pound, even the other agent was arguing with him and said don’t worry about it and let me off the hook. I have never been hassled for an extra pound or less. Not even in small planes. Both his manager and the kind guy assisting my luggage were giving me apologetic looks, like why is this kid even up front if he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing?

Also Cathay’s 15 pound max carry on rule is ridiculous. Other Asian airlines always allow at least 22 pounds.

As for the flight itself, food was good and thankfully the attendants were a lot nicer and professional.

Booked a window seat was a bit cramped but they provide a blanket and pillow which made up for the size of the seat my screen was fine though the person sitting next to me seemed to have a glitchy screen they gave us snacks and water which was good but the main meal wasn’t

I would not advise anyone to use Cathay.
I rarely leave bad reviews but Cathay not only made me lost more than 1,000euros, wasted a day's time that made me decided to cancel my tickets to the remaining trip. It's more than just money. Losing trust cost a lot more.
4 issues happened.
1. I almost missed my flight from HK-BKK because the departure time shown was on BKK time instead of HK time. Luckily I double check with other means in advance.
2. I realised I misread my departure time again from BKK-HK because of the bad UI. By the time I realised that, it was 2 hours before boarding time. I had to reach out to the customer service by message, whatsapp and phone. It took 30mins before I could get help.
I paid an extra 300euros for the change.
3. A few days before departure, I bid for an upgrade from economy to premium as 680euros for 2 seats but was unsuccessful. However, the amount was deducted from my account in the middle of the night and I was informed that it was upgraded. BUT because I didn't get to board the flight, I get 0 refund and upgrade does not apply to my upcoming flight.
I lost another 680euros.
4. I paid for extra luggage in advance at 132 euros. When I change my flight, the customer service said that they cannot guarantee that I will get that paid extra luggage and I may have to pay again at the counter check in.
That's another 132euros or more since luggage cost more at the checkin counter.
5. Apart from this, a week before departure, I received message that my partner's membership needs updating but I couldn't do so because their system has a bug. Called the customer service and they couldn't do that either. As a result, we couldn't check in online.

300+680+132 = 1,012euros. I was so disappointed that I decided to cancel my tickets and booked with EVA to prevent more expenses and stress. That's another 1,000euros.
Expensive lesson but NEVER with Cathay anymore even though their flight and personnel are good.

Malfunctioning planes, insultingly small vouchers are given for major 5+ hour delays (not even enough to cover one meal).

I’ve flown Cathay Pacific pre pandemic several times but this was my first post pandemic experience and it was bad.
Nov 20 LAX-HKG-HYD old plane, seats (premium economy) didn’t work well to be comfortable. Entertainment system faulty.
Crew served a vegetarian passenger a non veg Indian meal which was for me and didn’t have any for me thereafter. Overall food mediocre I ordered HNML

Dec 20, 2025 Return BOM-HKG-LAX still an old plane above mentioned seat/ Tv flaws were absent - which was a welcome relief.
Cabin crew appeared like trainees. I had to ask 3 x for a rum and Diet Coke and it never was served.

Luggage transfer from plane to carousel took an hour to complete! They don’t hire as many handlers as the other more efficient carriers as per carousel attendant who said this airline is about the worst in those terms.

Sharp nose dive in overall quality and customer experience.

Dear Cathay Pacific Customer Relations,

I am writing to formally complain about the unacceptable and negligent handling of my mother, Priyanka Choudhary, on December 18, 2025, at San Francisco International Airport, for Cathay Pacific Flight CX873 (SFO to Hong Kong).

Despite successfully checking in, being issued a boarding pass, and clearing security, my mother was denied boarding at the gate. The stated reason was a minor clerical error in the passport number on the pre-arrival form—a form that had already been reviewed and approved by your staff at the check-in counter.

What makes this situation even more unacceptable is the following:

My mother produced the original, valid document at the gate, clearly demonstrating that she met the travel requirements.

This original documentation was ignored outright by your staff, with no attempt made to properly review or validate it.

When we attempted to correct or resubmit the form immediately, we were told that Cathay Pacific’s system could not access the form, effectively penalizing the passenger for your own internal system failure.

Throughout this interaction, the staff were dismissive, rude, and unwilling to engage, causing unnecessary distress to a passenger who had done everything required of her.

To be absolutely clear:
Denying boarding after issuing a boarding pass, clearing security, and ignoring original, valid documents is indefensible. A passenger should not be denied travel due to an error your staff had already cleared and then refused to reasonably reassess.

Passenger Name: Priyanka Choudhary
Flight Number: CX873
Date of Travel: December 18, 2025
Route: SFO – Hong Kong
Reference Number: PIAA-0558475-25

I expect the following without delay:

A written explanation for why an issue approved at check-in and supported by original documents resulted in denied boarding

Clarification on why staff refused to review the original documentation presented

Confirmation that staff conduct at SFO is being formally reviewed

Appropriate compensation for the disruption, distress, and failure of service

The worst service I have sever had in my life