Humour. ah yes. Admittedly it’s a bit hard to see the humour in anything right now. It’s hardly worth debating Traf’s post as we are hardly well placed to draw a line in the sand against anything right now, although it suits Traf to tell us to go ahead. As either way it’s no skin off his nose. The company are paying us, have only asked for 3 weeks of ULV unless you personally elect for more. What leverage do you think we have, in a ravaged industry replete with laid off pilots ? If you see any let me know. And wonder how the Oz based guys feel right now, as their superior EBA that served them so well in the past also allows them to be suspended without pay. Let me know the humour you see in that. At the end of the day we have no control over the **** sandwich that’s about to descend on us. We are just passing through, so to speak. And if Traf’s post isn’t an ad hominem attack, initials et al, I don’t know what is.
Ad hominem attacks aside, and that is what United’s posts surely invite. I’ve hardly seen anything worth responding to. Telling us how great it was in the old days, how we owe our careers to trailblazing individuals such as them ; the plain fact is that we don’t. Careers that is.
There was nothing elitist, nor indeed remarkable about CX when they, or I, joined. An insular, arrogant company that had a virtual monopoly and made money despite itself. Autocratic deaf management (be guided accordingly) combined with an equally autocratic command gradient that belonged in the 60’s. In house derived LWMO procedures ( essentially single pilot IFR), a blatant disregard for manufacturers’ or indeed other airlines’ procedures ( VNAV..oh no, don’t trust that. We didn’t do that on the Convair), disregard for anti icing décréments and procedures, and a fuel policy that had us arriving in the London TMA on the vapours. That only stopped after several whistleblowing events and a retirement of MLO. A command system that had a failure rate in excess of 60% (the classic course had over 50 sectors such that you just wanted to fail half way through just to get a decent nights’ sleep). Grading as Cat B, C or D dependant as much on whether you had pissed off somebody at the Hebe Haven Yacht Club with some imagined faux pas, or whether they plain just disliked you..or your wife. Or if somebody “liked” your wife too much. If you get my drift.
So why join ? Because HKG was an exciting place, a good expatriate lifestyle could be had here, and there were more then enough good hands within the ranks to make the rest of the **** bearable. And certain individuals left very wealthy men. I digress.
With the promotion of the present LOP manager and several enlightened others, and to some extent basings, some of this began to be consigned to history. And that had f@ck all to do with the likes of Traf nor United...just look at the standard of rhetoric.
Of course experience levels have lowered. CX is not alone in this. For United to suggest that individuals are not fit to clean the aircraft that Traf adorned, is, frankly, shameful, and if that’s the level of “informed” debate that you‘re after, well good luck. You’ll find plenty more of it courtesy of Traf and United, from the safe comfort of their respective retirements. Our whole profession has been dumbed down , with expectations of technical knowledge and ability replaced by automation. And the ever scything cut of the bean counter. And sadly we are not immune to the economic fallout from the world plunging itself back to a World War II economy. Strap in, hunker down, and enjoy the ride. One for the grandkids someday. And they, like the spikey haired millennial snowflakes, to paraphrase UBX, won’t give a ****.