Best wine I had was on Finn Air, and you on Cathay? I had the spicy fish on my Cathay flight, but prefer this on Canada Airlines. Also nice service on CA, the Canadian girl have me try the the different wines a well try speak Japanese
Tbh, best wine I had was on the old Alitalia… back in the day when they were still running the direct Milan-Tokyo, even in Premium economy the wine list was commendable.
What a shame of sheer gov-owned incompetence, dishonesty and nepotism…
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Is ITA the same airline, just a new name or is it a whole new airline?
ITA atm is just a shadow of what Alitalia was. It is the third attempt to revitalise our flag carrier, but it is in such a dire state…
I do really hope the acquisition agreement with Lufthansa goes through, only hope to be saved, otherwise other billions of taxpayers moneys would be wasted yet again.
Currently there are not 1, but 2 Alitalia companies still active under bankruptcy proceedings: Alitalia LAI/SAI (the old public owned Alitalia), Alitalia CAI (the one owned briefly owned by Etihad). One of the points of the EU approval of the state aid to the dying Alitalia CAI was that the Alitalia brand to be discontinued and a new “fresh” company to be established with only the assets under their control. But this new company, ITA, still uses AZ as callsign, most of the airplanes have still Alitalia livery, and it must be privatised, otherwise EU sanctions will be imposed.
A fucking sham, typical Italian drama. I hope LH buys it as just absorbs it killing it, it doesn’t deserve to stay alive.
I flew with ITA only once, from london city to milan linate. The airplane was a wetlease from german airways, and the skyteam agreement is not yet fully enforced, so couldn’t get any miles to my china airlines account. They flight was ok, but it wasn’t ITA crew! They didn’t even speak Italian… On the Italian flag carrier!
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Sad they hire staff that does not speak the local language. I flew Ryan air from Vilinus (LT) with Italian crew to England. Irish Airline with Italian crew
Well, ryan air doesn’t portray itself as flag carrier of Ireland, and it is not a full service carrier.
ITA prides itself of their italianity and as new flag carrier. Silly
What? But there’s a harp in the logo! Damn it, I wanna refund! 
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As mentioned in another thread, restrictions on HK and Macau residents entering Taiwan will be lifted starting February 20. This means Cathay Pacific can finally increase its frequency of flights to Taiwan, which had so far been operating in a skeletal manner.
So: with this change coming, when will Cathay Pacific’s lounge at TPE reopen? If any forumosans know, I’d love to hear about any updates.
Guy
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There is hope. Singapore Airlines reports record profits even not flying a full schedule. Cathay flights (I had six and last half year) to Europe have been full, to Taiwan not so much.
https://www.singaporeair.com/saar5/pdf/Investor-Relations/Financial-Results/SGXNET/bu-q3fy2223.pdf
he Group posted an operating profit of $755 million for the third quarter,
up $77 million (+11.4%) from the previous quarter.
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Restrictions for HK / Macau residents to enter Taiwan as tourists have finally been lifted, so the scheduled flights from HKG to TPE can finally move to a workable level (before they were not).
Guy
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I gave up on Cathay, flying far east the transit Hong Kong each time was a run to gate - schedule flights are so close.
No other problems than that.
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Some bad staff gone, making fun of non English speakers
To be fair, the passenger asked for a “carpet” instead of blanket.
I would have made fun of them too.
Yes, but to be fair, you’re a Hong Konger. 
I was on a flight in Business Class from HK to Cebu several years back. Halfway through eating lunch a stewardess comes over demanding to see my boarding pass and passport. She checked the manifest and saw a white dude sitting in a seat for Mr Chang. This was so wrong to her. I got quite upset firstly as you are screened before boarding and then show your boarding pass to get to your seat. I said out aloud in Chinese it was very rude to interrupt me through lunch and that why do you wait till halfway into the flight to check my boarding pass and passport. Also I said you are racially profiling me why aren’t you asking all the other people in business class to see their passports and boarding passes.
Then a head steward comes down as he can hear some loud talking, I told the stewardess to take my lunch tray away half eaten. I get the head stewards name and the name of the stewardess. I make a written complaint to Cathay asking them are they now judging people by their name and nationality. They apologized and upgraded my next flight to first class. They did not want any media attention about it.
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Sorry that happened to you.
If you’re going to discriminate against someone, at least make fun of them for saying something funny. Asking for your passport was just rude.
How dare a white guy have a Chinese name. Also she was not expecting me to have a Taiwan passport. When I asked the steward to read my name from my passport they were quite embarrassed.
Other passengers are taken by surprise. lol.
It was really rude as she demanded I show it to her during my meal and my passport was in the overhead. She said I could have swapped boarding pass with someone.
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Ha! The only time I had a puzzled look from the flight crew was on a recent flight with ANA in economy. In my experience, their catering in economy tends to be lousy, so I fooled around online and selected “Hindu non-vegetarian” as my meal choice. The meal was brilliant (this was out of Songshan—good job, guys!). The look on the flight crew’s face as they served it to me was priceless. 
Guy
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Of potential interest to some forumosans: Cathay Pacific is apparently planning to restart its Taoyuan - Nagoya route, with daily flights scheduled to resume in late October 2023. Here’s the flight schedule:
CX530 TPE1200 – 1530NGO
CX531 NGO1635 – 1910TPE
Guy
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