Americans at Cathay

[kazumichik]

Any Americans at Cathay on this forum? If so, could you answer a couple of ???s?

I'm an American interested in flying for Cathay (mostly for the opportunity to be based overseas). My poking around this site has left me with the following impression:

CX doesn't like to hire Yanks because they cause trouble - "militant" is the word used by one poster - and run back to American carriers at the first opportunity. Is this true?

Am I nuts chasing CX when I have the largest (though currently slumping) aviation market in the world to choose from? Does it REALLY compare as unfavorably to US carriers as many posters seem to think? With the current troubles at UAL, et al are there alot of drivers gravitating towards Hong Kong?

Does it really take 15 years to move into the left seat at CX as one thread had it!?!? Holy Stalled Career, Batman!

I'm 36. Too old for a CX new-hire?

[ae-jacko]

I was just thinking about posting the same questions, so I hope you don't mind if I jump in and add a few more. Is upgrade based on seniority? Can you go from PAX ops to Cargo ops?
I am also American, I'm 26 and single. I would love to work for Cathay, but I feel that I don't have a chance just because I'm American. I'm putting my CV in anyway!
Thanks

[Cpt. Underpants]

There are a few Americans still working at CX, mostly (90%) on CXF (Cathay Freighters) - who have the lowest (non-converging) pay scales and are strictly freight ops, based in the USA.

There has been a high turnover of Americans because of a number of factors, like time to command on the pax fleet (11 years at present), crappy staff travel, belligerent management, poor rostering (schedules), no bids or bid line system, yards and yards of reserve (no seniority based reserve system), zero cookie-chucker/flight-deck social interaction, family-unfriendly environment, almost no labor codes, etc., etc.

Having said all that, it beats welfare. As always, your call, but know what you're getting into.

[kazumichik]

Capt U.

All my Auzzie buddies talk as if CX is The Impossible Dream, THE airline to work for. Are things so bad down there that such a place as you describe it seems good?

11 years to captain? And they make you retire at 55? Maybe 36 is over the hill after all.

Thanks for your input.

[Schrodingers Cat]

CX, or at least Swire, used to have a MAJOR bias against Septics due to thier experience with a small Carribean airline, not quite sure of the name, it was a long time ago. Apparently the USA pilots were (to Swires' mind) excessively militant and confrontational, which led to a strike, which led to them shutting the airline down. This led to CX being a Septic free zone until the recruitment of Jay Ahlers from L1011 ground crew as an F/E....:8

[Shamen]

I am not an American but I would say the Canadians have a similar reputation as being 'militant' I myself would generalise it and say 'The Pilots' :)

I will give you my version but I am sure I will get shot down for saying something positive about CX :)

YES the staff travel is crap YES there are Pilot/Management problems YES there is no social interaction between us and the Cabin Crew YES there is lots of Reserve and YES the benefits are on the decline. HOWEVER show me an airline where this is not the case? I was considering leaving CX not so long ago but to be honest in the general scheme of things I would rather be here than anywhere else. The sh*t seems to be hitting the fan in most airlines so I would suggest you sit and down and draw a list up of Pro's and Con's

If you join the Pax fleet you will join as a Second Officer and will realistically get your upgrade in about 2 - 3 years. Somewhere in the middle seems to be the norm right now. You will not be upgraded onto the 400. In some circumstances very highly experienced SO's have but that has been like maybe 9 or 10 people. You will be upgraded to Junior First Officer on the Airbus A330 then CCQ onto the A340 after 12 - 18months or you will be put on the 777. After approx 6 - 9 months you are given a line check called a QL which if you pass the Line check and then the Committee check you will be upgraded to F/O with a nice pay raise :) after 18 months on type the 777 guys can normally bid to go across to the 400. In some cases you will have no choice and be drafted. Some Airbus guys go to but it seems to be that the 777 guys are normally drafted, this is for Relief Command (now termed Pilot in Charge.) Once you’re established as Relief you can then apply to go on a permanent basing back home which a lot of guys do although it is a different payscale.

When you are an SO you can also bid to transfer across to the Freighter as an FO. A few Canadian/American guys have done this. However once you join the freighter on a lesser pay you will have to stay on it for a minimum of 3 years before you can then bid to come back onto the Pax fleet. I cannot give accuracies on time scales on this as I have no experience of it but the general rumour for the precise time in reality is between 3-4 years at present. Some say this may rise considerably.

Are you nuts chasing CX? Who knows I would say NO because it does offer a decent pay scale (compared to other carriers) You get a chance to go home on a basing and if you don’t want to take a permanent one you can always take a temp basing which lasts for 4 months. I know a lot of Canadians take temp Vancouver basings to go skiing in Whistler for the winter! Seems like a good lifestyle to me :)

Present time to Command is reducing and I would take a guess that right now it’s about 9-11 years. It may even come down to 7/8. However if Cathy increase retirement to 60 then this will obviously rise again. There is a strict Command assessment code which some say is more politically based, in some cases maybe but in general the system works well for Cathay.

36 is not too old in my opinion for a new hire although this is something you need to find out from CX recruitment. Don’t forget that time from first interview to joining the line as an SO could be as long as 9 - 12 months.

In conclusion Cathay does have issues the biggest one obviously being the 49'ers but I don’t want to get into the Politics just give you the facts.

I think for every bad point there is a good point and vice versa. For example last Christmas we got an extra months salary and then got another bonus a couple of months later. If CX have a good year and your on a standard FO pay and you get your Christmas 13th month and then your bonus in April you could net as much as $15,000 USD on top of your salary!

Whatever way you look at it, it’s up to you to make your own decision about joining and some will say it’s like hell to work for and some will say its like heaven :) I have friends in many other airlines and they all have big problems too!

[Traffic]

SCat

I do not know the whole story but the airline was Bahamas Airways and they operated a couple of BAC 1-11's and I think some 748's. The BAC 1-11's ended up being flown out of Nassau on the back end of the clock if you know what I mean in the early 1970's.

A number of CX pilots did work over there for a short time including Alec Wales and then Bernie Smith (of Lockheed fame).

Some Americans did jump across to CX following the demise/change of ownership of Bahamas. They included Charlie McGowan, Jim Lovegrove (both recently passed away) and Roger Stuart.

Jay came much later with the 1011 in the late 1970's.

It is not correct to infer that Swire as a company has an anti-US bias. Indeed the Chairman is married to one.

FWIW.

[jtr]

Not going to do the statistics on command time as it was flogged to death a while ago, suffice to say command time will not be 7/8 years in the forecastable future. There was a BIIIG bulge of S/O recruits around 95-97, and this has not even started getting tapped wrt commands. Then there was the freighter integration, also a pretty bug blip on the horizon. My $0.2, it will hover around 10 years for the next 5-7 years at least. After that.... well 5 years is a long time in aviation:bored:

[amos2]

Seems to me like a great airline to work for!...

does anyone there know how to spell seniority?

[Traffic]

Yup

S E N I L I O R I T Y

Lot of it around at the moment.

[ae-jacko]

Why is the staff travel so crapy? I also have to stay, as a single 26 year old male, it kills me that you guys don't mix it up with the cabin crew. Is it a cultural thing or what.

[Saturn]

When I interviewed last November in HK, I ran into a couple of guys I used to fly with. They all loved CX. Then I also heard that there is a B747-200 captain from the US commuting to FRA and he upgraded on freighter fleet after 2.5 years. There are more aircraft coming and CX hasn't even tipped the ice berg yet on new orders like Emirates and Korean etc.. Seems like CX is poised fro big things. I would say that yes, CX is a better place to work than a lot of companies right now. CX seems to be the teflon don of Asia. The have weathered a lot of crisis. I can't wait myself. I have NOT sold myself on things being perfect. There is NO such thing but it seems like a good career. just my .02$

PLK/USA
:cool: :ok: :} :O :8

[Cpt. Underpants]

All CXF commands get offered to CX F/O's first: If the F/O is qualified and has at least two years to a command on the pax fleet, has the hours and is assessed to be suitable, the slot is his/hers. An inability to fill the slot from the pax fleet means the slot reverts to CXF F/O's.

A CXF Captain earns less in straight pay than a "B" scale F/O on the pax fleet and every CXF slot is on a basing, with no housing, travel or education allowances. In fact an F/O in HKG earns a lot more in gross and net income than a CXF Captain and pays 15% tax vs. the 53% in Canada and the 40%+ in the USA.

Right now every CXF pilot in Australia is crying to get back to HKG (or out of OZ) because of a change in the tax laws, and the company is holding them to the letter of their contracts (if only they had the same respect for contractual agreements from their side...)

2 1/2 years to command from DOJ? A very big maybe, and then only if it was the CXF command in Ouagadougou that no-one else wanted...Command at any price? Not in my book.

[kazumichik]

Thanks, guys. Good stuff to mull over.

So, what's the deal with socializing with the cabin crew? Is it against company policy or are they (the chickadees) simply not interested or what's the deal? Is this really a big problem? From my experience in that part of the world one only has to fly a heading of about 200 for about as many minutes and you are amongst some of the world's most beautiful, most available females.

And staff travel...what's the problem there? No ID90s with other airlines or no space-available travel on CX itself or what?

Militant Canadians? Do such creatures exist? I've only ever seen one irate Canadian and he got that way when I mentioned that Canadians are indistinguishable from Americans.

[jtr]

Hard to describe the lack of interaction bt the girls (or boys if you wish), and us. I would say I probably have about one trip a year on average where a group of the girls will come out drinking. A lot depends on fleet/trip location/length of slip etc. A lot of the newer girls are local (HK) (fact) and tend to not socialise as much with the gweilos as other nationalities (opinion)

[jungly]

Also note that there are 13 different nationalities amongst the CC. Some of them dont get on at all socially.
Not to mention that their pay is 2/5s of sod all and that a 6 day LHR pattern can net them nearly a months pay in allowances.

I agree with jtr... once or twice a year you get everyone out. More often though you'll get CC who are married to pilots or other expats in HK - they cme out more often.

Also esp for the HK chinese you cant disregard the pull of the shops....they'd far rather blow all their allowances in Gucci or Prada than waste it of alcohol or food.

wrt upgrades and CXF - I hear that no-one applied for the SYD classic F/O positions; so 2 very new SO's are "upgrading" from the pax fleet. Nice pay cut if you can get it.

[ae-jacko]

Kind of off the subject, but I can't help myself. How is the single life in HK? Is it hard to meet the local girls? :O

[Liam Gallagher]

Don't read anything into the guys getting commands on the Freighter in short order. That all happened in the late 90's and things sure have changed.

Not sure where Y fronts get his info, but in essence commands on the freighter are dealt with the same way as the pax; senior most suitable applicant. It matters not whether you are on the freighter now or have never been. There is no requirement to be "within 2 years to command", how the heck do you determine if you are???

As for the girls...they are known as the Olympic flames...can go round the world and never go out.

[Schrodingers Cat]

There is also a lukewarm rumour that if Atlas hits the buffer into Chapter 11 CXF may decide to pick up some of their (numerous) options and go all -400F, which may change both basing and route structures.........:suspect:

[happydriver]

From reading some of the posts I get the impression that a wannabe no longer gets to choose whether he/she wishes to apply for the CXF Direct entry F/O pos'n or CXP S/O pos'n.....is this the case??......would someone applying to CX IF accepted then they will be assigned which ops they would join?

[eaglejet]

what does it mean crappy staff travel?

Is it something like you cannot be upgraded in Fist Class with your ID90:8 :8 or is it something like you are treated like a crap once onboard,because you are traveling almost for free?

[Cpt. Underpants]

OK, no takers, so here I go:

1. NO first class (on leisure travel) for post April 1, 1993 joiners or any on the "new, improved" travel scheme.
2. Our cookie-chuckers (God bless their frilly pink knickers) are brilliant, no if and's or but's. No discrimination on board.
3. NO on-board upgrades sanctioned by our masters. It happens, but very, very rarely. You are more likely to join the mile-high club with Elle McPherson.
4. If you are single, you nominate, BI-ANNUALLY, your designated travel partner. Limited tickets for your parents and in-laws. Stuff-all for siblings or anyone else.
5. Traveling "almost for free"? Please. Our subload tickets would have to be the most expensive in the industry, and the ZED scheme isn't worth spit. Expensive, restrictive, cumbersome and in most cases, you'll do better in a bucket-shop (discount travel) on a restricted ticket. Many (including my family and I) buy retail tickets to travel on holiday. Most of the time I do better than CX sublo or ZED fares...and I travel in jeans and sneakers (not allowed on CX).
6. CX "stuff-you" travel is an acknowledged "revenue centre" for CX, producing in excess of USD3 000 000 PROFIT annually.
7. CX's obsession with micro-managing means all changes to tickets have to be approved by HKG, so if you're in SUX and been bumped for the umpteenth time by UAL...you're S.O.L. until you can fax HKG with the proposed changes and a Cathay ticket agent makes the change.

Do you want more or will that do it for you?

[eaglejet]

It sucks as much as Air France........;) ;) ;)

[caribpilotatr]

I'm also American, 36 with 4800 Total time and 1100 hr. PIC in ATR 72/42. I also would like to know if it's still possible to go direct entry FO in cargo. How long would the upgrade be to Captian anywhere? Do I understand correctly that after about three years as FO cargo, I would then go to Hong Kong and fly as FO PAX? Also do I have enough time to go direct entry FO in the first place, and would I be bumping SOs below me senority wize? Doesn't sound fair to the SOs. I've read many posts but never a real straight answer. Thanks :zzz:

[Shamen]

Yes Staff Travel is not amazing the fares do increase every year and when you travel business you often end up with an Economy meal. It would be nice for CX to operate an upgrade system but I dont think that will ever happen.

However good points - CX have ID agreements with most airlines so more often than not you can get ID on any airline you chose. The Staff travel desk are very good when it comes to a last minute ticket. They will print you one off straight away at the Travel section in CX even if they are very busy.

But like I said in my previous post it's a question of weighing it all up and then making your own decision. Despite these shortfalls I am happy as there are far more good points to working here than bad.