I don’t work for a rival airline. I am a salesman who does a lot of traveling, mostly on Cathay due to easier connections from Hong Kong. I even have a gold status with Cathay. And I continue to witness how the service standards on this airline have gone from WOW to SHIT.

On a recent flight from HK to Colombo, via Singapore, I had three more SHIT experiences:

1. When we were served dinner, the passenger next to me asked for his special Muslim meal. He was told off by the crew ‘we don’t have it, did you request?’ The passenger told them that he had not only requested it but reconfirmed at checkin time. Once again, he was told ’sorry, we don’t have it; please take the pasta, it’s vegetarian.’ He refused to accept it, saying ‘i don’t want to eat anything if you don’t have my Muslim meal.’ He had been fasting all day (about 13 hours of no food or drinks). Half way through our dinner, the crew appeared ’sir, here’s your Muslim meal!’ No apology, no explanation!? Go figure.
2. The same passenger had his video console (that you pull up if you are in the first row) falling off every couple of minutes. So he at his dinner with one hand, while holding the video console with the other!
3. Just before landing when I wanted to change the SIM card on my iPhone, I realized I had lost my pin (you need a pin to push down the SIM card tray on an iPhone). Firstly it was difficult to get anyone’s attention through the call button. When I finally asked the crew ‘would you be able to give me a safety pin?’ She looked surprised and said ’safety pin? what’s a safety pin?!’ Then I asked for any kind of pin, and finally got it.

Then on my way back from Colombo, I upgraded myself to Business Class using my miles. First the movies didn’t match the program printed in the entertainment guide. When I pointed out, they reset the program so everything matched the channel except that my desired channel/movie went blank. The resetting went on for a while and finally everything worked. Except that the movie went blank again just 20 minutes before ending! When I complained to the crew, I also told her about the three SHIT things that happened on my inbound flight. She said ‘you should write to Cathay’. I told her about Cathay’s standard response to such complaint letters: ‘We are sorry. We will investigate the matter’. Don’t ask me why do I still travel Cathay