South Asia and Far East WannabesA forum for those applying to Cathay Pacific, Dragonair or any other Hong Kong-based airline or operator. Use this area for both Direct Entry Pilot and Cadet-scheme queries.
When I said they had a standard to keep I meant of the people SIA were sending off to do ab initio flight training. If the locals coming to interview at SIA headquarters isn't deemed suitable for ab initio training then they will look elsewhere. That was the intent of the comment. I by no means wanted to imply that any nationality is better at flying an airplane than any other.
Yes I am in the hold file and that is fine. Not everything happens in the time frame you expect it to.
Last edited by pilotchute; 20th Dec 2012 at 04:28.
for reservist, the govt pays the company for taking away their male employee for a period of 1wk-6wks every yr for a decade.
the downpoint isn't abt the money, it's abt the absence of the worker and who is to take over his duties while he's serving his reservist.
not just reservist, every combat fit male will have to pass a yearly physical test, failure of which will result in them attending 20 physical training sessions in the evenings, spanning 3months.
Amazing isn't it? How many interviewers do you think there are? They couldn't handle any more. Also, you would think that the 15% would comprise the most suitable applicants. What happened there???
I think of the 2000 odd interviews conducted the figure would be stage 1 and 2 combined. As more than half flunk stage 1 I would say that only a few hundred of the interviews were stage 2.
If they interview 10 to 12 applicants a week for stage 2 any they interviewed 10 months of the year that would be around 400 to 500 stage 2's a year. Out of that maybe half get in so there is your 244 recruited.
Another thing to remember is the average time to stage 1 interview from application submission was 12 months for my group. Some a little more and some a little less. This would indicate most of the people who applied in 2012 didn't actually get an interview in 2012.
Last edited by pilotchute; 30th Dec 2012 at 01:22.
When you're in Adelaide you don't get paid a salary, you get about $100 AUD each week as an allowance.
It's only when you return to HK will you start getting that salary.
The cadet program has a 'forgiveable loan' for around $1.1 Million HKD, of which the 55 week cadets will use it all up to cover training costs.
For AE candidates they will actually be able to get part of that $1.1 million as a lump sump payment once they finish training (pro rata'd) because they only spend 32 weeks in Adelaide, so naturally they will not use up the whole $1.1 million that Cathay 'loans' to the candidate, and as such will receive the balance.
I've just joined CX as an SO myself, I signed a six year contract to 'pay back' the HK$1,100,000, the starting salary is HK$36,200, + pilot allowance HK$10,000, + hourly duty pay (assuming 84 hours) HK$3,500. Total HK$49,700.
I thought I'd research the cost of living in HK sufficiently to know what I was getting into before I even went to my first interview roughly two years ago. Things have changed since then, in particular the cost of renting a place of a similar size to Oz is unaffordable these days on the starting salary. Also for anyone who'd had savings and was planning to buy now cannot as you need 15% stamp duty on top of a minimum 10% deposit. I'm hoping over time the pilot allowance will be increased but in reality I suspect that the housing allowance of the senior pilots will be reduced over time in line with the HK pilot allowance.
I've come to the conclusion that this is a good way to get into aviation, but Cathay is likely just a 6 year stepping stone for many. The Swire guys will have done the maths and figured out that after two years of a cadet replacing an FO, we will have become cheap labor. If we leave after two years but before six, it's an additional bonus as they're lawyers will come calling for the training costs.
So far the job is good, the guys you fly with are good, after a short time though HK looses its charm.
Agree with 'gimpfeatures' on basically everything he has said there. I have been at Cathay for almost 2 years now and there is no real desire for 99% of the cadets to stay at Cathay for the long term. Even putting cost of renting a place aside the general cost of day to day living in Hong Kong is fairly high.
For now I'm fairly happy just to have a job, and the staff travel is a pretty nice bonus compared to alot of other carriers. But for me the reason I will end up leaving Cathay is even though once you upgrade to FO the salary is actually quite good, I'm not going to spend the next 30 - 40 years of my career potentially being payed a hell of alot less than a guy who joined 2 years before me. But hopefully CX will at somepoint in the coming years realise this and bring the benefits packages alot closer together....
Also just to add us cadets who joined 2 years ago never had to sign anything saying we'll pay back the 1.1 million if we leave so clearly the conditions are getting worse and not better..
Last edited by DDobinpilot; 1st Jan 2013 at 14:25.
DDobinpilot, two years in could you give us an idea of what the job is like, are you still enjoying it, how often do you go into sim to practice the hand flying, any news on when they may upgrade you?
But hopefully CX will at somepoint in the coming years realise this and bring the benefits packages alot closer together....
You'll be saying 'hopefully' for your whole career here. You will be screwed over by CX again and again and again and again... This is only the beginning. Trust me.
