[Flight Report] CX 253 Hong Kong - London with a Diversion to Milan
I usually prefer morning or daytime departures from Hong Kong to Europe, arriving in the early evening, which I can adapt my sleeping patterns to hopefully rid my jet lag quickly. It wasn't crucial to sleep during a daytime flight, and I could enjoy some nice views and work on my laptop. Today (Sep 8), Cathay had 3 daytime flights to choose from.https://www.globalphotos.org/hongkong/2026/0908/cx-flights.jpg
With a little time left before boarding starts, I headed to a special stall from Tai On Coffee and Tea Shop air-side. They've produced some plush toys and memorabilia, cashing in on the Jellycat and local heritage craze of late.
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My flight would depart from gate 3, which was packed. Boarding now is based on zones, and I felt a little bit of an Air Canada chaos in the air. With limited space and construction, the lines went everywhere. The premium class line went in the opposite direction from the Economy line, which wasn't easily visible in the glob of people and the single sign.
There were staff on hand to call the zones for boarding, but since the line for zones 2 and 3 were grouped together, it became confusing as staff tried to separate the big group into 2 lines so the Business Class group 2 would stream steadily to board while the Premium Economy group 3 gets stopped by staff and have to wait on the side.
Thumbs down to Cathay for making boarding so stressful through this silly arrangement.
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This is my first time on the refurbished 777 featuring new seat designs. Here in Premium Economy's bulkhead, I had a lot of legroom and a wide seat with storage compartments to my right where I could place small things such as my phone with the armrest protecting them from others' view. The tray table is stored under the left armrest and looked the same size as Economy Class.
We also got a good noise-cancelling headset just like in Business Class but no slippers. The blanket was thin but very soft, super comfortable, and surprisingly warm.
The PTV was noticeably bigger with good resolution. I would be in for a treat with the camera views.
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Boarding was completed late and we pushed back at 1:45. The captain announced a flight time of 13.5 hours and we got airborne at 1:59pm, taking off towards the west and looping around the city to continue north.
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Half an hour after take-off, we were served a drink and snack. Lunch followed another half hour later.
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I picked the fish, which had a very strong smell to it when I peeled back the lid but it tasted fine with some bell peppers, fancy small carrot, and a thin layer of mashed potatoes. The appetizer was a chicken and asparagus cold dish with a lot of garlic! There was a chocolate on the side and the crew came by with a big tub of ice-cream after.
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As we flew over China's empty northwestern regions, the turbulence picked up and the seat belt sign came on and off, then the crew were instructed to sit down. Luckily, I was done lunch by then and enjoyed a movie in the meantime.
Strangely, the 2nd meal was served half way through the flight with just under 6 hours to go. This time, I picked the Asian option with chicken and rice.
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However, while the chicken was warm, the rice was cold. There was also sliced ginger on the side, but not the type we usually use for a stir-fry. It is pickled ginger you typically get with Japanese sushi, a cold dish. It seemed like an odd combination, and the cold rice really put me off. How can Cathay get a Chinese dish wrong?
The fruit bowl, on the other hand, was really good. It consisted of papaya with a lime juice pairing, which gives it a very fresh kick. I've noticed on other Cathay flights, they pair lime with fruits as well, which tasted delicious.
As the seatbelt sign was still on, the crew wasn't able to serve me a hot tea so I got a cold drink instead. However, after the sign went off, she came back with the tea, specifically remembering I had ordered it!
The Premium Economy cabin was curtained off from the Economy section with 2 exclusive lavatories for our few rows. Inside, there was soap, hand sanitizer, and lotion. The wash basin and toilets are touch-free and activated by sensor.
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After the last bout of turbulence over the Caspian Sea, things calmed down and I slept for a little bit as we made our way through eastern Europe. Everything seemed on track for a timely arrival into London and I started enjoying the Devil Wears Prada 2 when the captain made an announcement.
Apparently, there was a system issue in the UK and we won't be able to make it into London. We are diverting to Milan. This came as a total surprise, so I grabbed my phone and started browsing the news websites to see what was going on.
This was when I found out there was a massive air traffic control outage in London and departures were badly delayed, and because the airports were full of planes, they couldn't take in arrivals anymore as they've run out of space to put them. The caveat was things were starting to recover so it wasn't a complete indefinite shutdown, but it still seemed like a very nasty situation at Heathrow. How can the country's biggest airport and all its nearby British back-ups be crippled at the same time?
We made a sharp left before Frankfurt and looped around in the airspace between Zurich and Munich. The flight time to reach Milan kept sticking to about 40 minutes as we slowly made our way to the diversion airport.
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We landed in Milan at 9:20pm and taxied to a distant part of the airport away from the terminal. The captain had told us a few other planes also diverted here earlier, such as a Saudia flight. He also mentioned the ground staff would take it from here, which was a hint we would be here for a while.
About an hour and 20 minutes after landing, I saw a bus pull up next to the aircraft. Then the announcement came that we would be getting off the plane in stages, and I managed to get onto the first bus with the other Business Class passengers.
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I checked the news again and got an update that Heathrow won't accept any arrivals for the rest of the day.
Being among the first ones off the plane, I reached an empty immigration hall, where the kiosk rejected my entry. I was then sent to the manual line, which had only a short wait to a staffed counter for a face photo and fingerprinting. This EES experience wasn't so bad!
By the time I reached the baggage hall, my bag was already out and placed next to the belt. This was quite impressive given I got through immigration very quickly! There was a staff wearing a Cathay vest asking us to gather around once we have our bags and she would lead us outside once there is a sizeable group.
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With about 10 of us, I was in the first group led out to the arrivals lounge land-side, where a staff registered us and placed a numbered sticker on my passport.
We then rested in the lounge, which had bottles of water available. It didn't take long before we were gathered up for the big coach to the hotel. She mentioned because we were the first ones out, we got the closest hotel from the airport.
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I was impressed the ground staff handled this quite well given the circumstances and hundreds of others were also here on diverted flights. I wasn't expecting they would be able to secure hotel rooms for everyone so quickly.
I was settled at the ibis near the airport. The check-in staff looked tired but kept his composure, indicating breakfast was included, how to access wifi, and he would call us once he knows when the flight would leave and be ready for airport pick-up with 30 minutes notice. He would try to give more but couldn't commit.
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The next part will feature the following day's adventures in Milan.
The full flight report is on my website : https://www.globalphotos.org/cx253-2.htm
The next morning ...
Unfortunately, Cathay and hotel staff could not give an indication on how long we would need to stay in Milan and when we could continue onto London. This was understandable, since this crew had already been close to their maximum duty hours, Milan wasn't a big outport for the airline with just a single daily flight, and Heathrow wasn't taking anyone in.
Comfortably accommodated at the ibis near the airport, I only slept on and off for a few hours and kept my phone on loud mode to wake me up if a message comes through with an update. After 4 hours of sleep, I woke up nervously but there were no updates.
I would then sleep for a few more hours and got up at breakfast time. An email had arrived just shy of 6am Milan time explaining what happened and they're working on it.
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Perhaps I'm spoiled by Asian hotel breakfasts. This ibis was serving a very basic selection with a few baked items, yogurt, and 4 hot options. The big plates were sticky and dirty so I fished around looking for something clean to eat on.
Given the circumstances, I made with what we've got. There aren't any shops or restaurants around the hotel given its location near the airport.
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After breakfast, I headed back to my room to browse the news and relax a bit. It was a standard ibis room but the size was pretty good with a lot of space, a big long desk along the window, and even a fancy coffee machine with a few pods, a feature I haven't seen at this chain elsewhere.
As lunch approached, the phone in my room rang. Staff reminded me to go downstairs to grab a lunch voucher and did not have a further update on the flight. He also said I could continue to stay in my room and not need to worry about the check-out time.
Just shortly after noon, I received a second email from Cathay with an update. This time, there was a bit more information indicating they hope to fly to London later in the day.
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I got a food voucher from reception and the staff told me to head across the street to the Novotel for lunch. There already was a big bottle of water and some bread at the table. We were given a set lunch fairly quickly with a chicken cutlet, potatoes in an herb and salt mix, and pasta with tomato sauce. Everything tasted decent, and my mood had gone up hoping that dinner would be in London tonight.
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Shortly before 2pm, the hotel rang me up that pick-up would be at 2:45pm. I still hadn't received an email about the revised flight time at that point and the app had nothing new but was happy to start packing!
However, the pick-up ended up being an hour late as a single minibus had to go around picking up the area's passengers and needed to make multiple rounds. During the long wait, I got an email from Cathay indicating they've secured approval to operate the flight back to London, departing at 7:45pm and arriving exactly a day later than originally scheduled.
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With pick-up at 2:45pm, it seemed quite early for an evening flight. But then, it's probably a big operation to get over 300 people spread across many hotels to the airport and they can't afford to have anyone come late.
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The shuttle dropped us off very close to Cathay's check-in counters and there was a huge line waiting already. It appears the Economy passengers arrived even earlier than we did, but the check-in counters were processing premium cabin passengers first so they had to wait until we were done.
I got a new boarding pass showing the same flight number but a Milan to London itinerary, a rare item that I will keep to celebrate this special occasion. My bag was sent off and I still had about 3.5 hours to go before departure, so I went exploring.
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On the departures board, my flight was at the top of the menu along with the Saudia flight also bound for London. Seems we're leftovers from the night before.
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Entering the air-side zone was a bit confusing. The scanners initially didn't work and I was told to head to the B area just a few steps down since my gate would be from the B area. However, the sign above showed the B area for US and Israel departures and those scanners didn't work either. The surly staff there then pointed me back to the A zone. Confused and not getting a straight answer from staff that clearly didn't want to be doing their job, I ended up figuring out to wait for the manual entry line in between these 2 staff. Why a proper boarding pass can't get through the scanner remains a mystery.
Once past, I ended up in the same security line as if I went through the scanners anyway.
Duty-free had a lot of local items that I wouldn't readily find at other international airports outside Italy, such as limoncello, olive oil, truffle anything, cheese, and colourful pasta..
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I was also looking for dinner as well. There was some selection available although they seem to repeat as I walked through the terminal. Mostly on offer are sandwiches and pizzas that looked decent.
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Immigration to exit the EU didn't take long, although I was directed to the manual counter once again but the line wasn't long at all.
This section of the terminal was a lot quieter and quite big. Along the way to my gate, I saw a few sprinkles of interesting art here and there that caught my attention while plane spotting.
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Boarding was timely but it was a glob of people waiting at the gate for their zone to be called. It was nevertheless civil and everyone managed through the crowd orderly as the front of the plane boarded.
I was greeted by last night's crew and headed back to the same seat.
The plane had been cleaned up with a pillow at the seat but no more blanket. A fresh headset in a plastic bag was placed in the seat pocket.
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I noticed the crew were helping older and less mobile passengers with their hand luggage and trying to find overhead space in the Business cabin as boarding entered the final stages. Boarding was completed at 7:52pm and we pushed back 10 minutes later. The same captain announced a flight time of 1h20 back to London.
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While I wasn't exepecting any catering for this short flight and given the circumstances, I was surprised the crew handed out bottles of water and some snacks (chocolates or cookies). It looked like they loaded some items from Milan as the labels were not from Hong Kong, which was a nice extra touch.
I then dozed off a bit and the next announcement came as we neared London with a holding delay.
To add a bit more drama to this ordeal, we had to abort landing just as we neared the runway and looped around south of the city for another attempt, coming in about 10 minutes later.
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We landed safely on the second try at 9:15pm, almost 2 hours after we took off from Milan.
It was a long walk to immigration but the first signs of trouble came on the ramp towards the immigration hall for all other passports. There was a huge crowd and staff held us back to go in one small group at a time. I couldn't even see the counters at this point and worried this would be serious trouble. The kiosks for British passport holders and a small number of countries were clear.
The line stretched around the length of the huge immigration hall several times. I've never seen it this bad before although it moved steadily with a lot of manual counters open. Staff were passing out water part way as well and I ended up waiting over an hour to get processed. I suppose a lot of diverted planes were coming back today but noticed there were no more crowds coming in behind us, so perhaps we're the last big widebody to come in for the day?
By the time I was out, my bag was already rolling along the belt.
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I'm still quite mad at the UK air traffic control problems that have regularly appeared in recent years. This shutdown was unprecedented, and I wondered just how is it possible a major international airport like Heathrow to stop all arrivals for a good part of the day. Surely, an important system should have built-in and tested resiliency measures and not go down so easily? Yet, their boss remains on the job time after time, while passengers pay a high fees to access an unreliable airspace.
Unfortunately, this is not something the airline or airport can fix.
Anger aside, Cathay managed this diversion and recovery fairly well, keeping us in the loop and providing decent accommodations quickly. Watching the people over in London stuck inside their planes for hours and sleeping at the airport, my ordeal was far more luxurious and dignified. I am very grateful the staff and ground crew at Milan were at the top of their game to get us all hotel rooms and everything on the ground was very organized. Sure, I had to wait a bit here and there, but given the circumstances, I've no reason to complain.
The full report is on my website : https://www.globalphotos.org/cx253-3.htm This must be an unforgettable experience! Super interesting to read a first-hand account of last week's Heathrow saga, and of any diversion for that matter. This most certainly was not fun; but based upon your description, the way Cathay handled it far exceeded my expectations. I for one never heard of cases in which the airline would work with the hotel to keep passengers informed of the latest flight status.
Ibis hotels aren't bad; their breakfast offering may be inferior to many chain hotels in Asia but are normally much better than most chain hotels in North America -- even the breakfast in many executive hotel lounges.
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