Seniority is everything in most carriers. Even losing a week or a month can be a large difference in career earnings, upgrades, and lifestyle.
Carriers are hiring and face some huge retirements. So WHEN you hire on is very important in that the boom in hiring is cyclical and everyone hired ahead of you will be there forever—or at least until the end of your career.
Why someone — near the beginning or middle of a promising career — would waste precious seniority joining an airline without a future totally baffles me. It’s not rumor; the workforce has had a continuous decline in all aspects of working conditions for decades now and is claiming woe (as an excuse to chisel) while other carriers boom and bonus. There is no indication of a trend reversal, no indications that basings will happen, no indication of anything other than cost in HKG will markedly rise while compensation and scheduling decline.
The phrase ‘are you nuts’ comes to mind.
Perhaps this is your ONLY option. Fair enough. But have you REALLY looked everywhere else ? If you haven’t I’d submit you are doing yourself a disservice in the long run. I remember days of inexperience as well; what has changed with experience is I tend to listen to those who have been there more.