Goodluck to Cathay Pathetic thinking they can save a few bucks with this one. I'm glad myself and few others with some experience behind us, said no to the HR marketing team when they showed us this same per hour payment idea already two years ago at a Pilot Expo in Berlin. The bright eyed, bushy tailed, wannabee cadets/second officers on the other hand wanted all of it. Just give them free lanyards, Cathay pens and they were sold on this new idea.
Here in Europe we can clearly see who is paid monthly and who is paid per hour. The per hour boys frequently turn down direct to shortcuts, prefer the further runway option, offer to do an extra hold, fly slower and actually taxi at around 10 knots. I wonder how their pax feel when we frequently overtake them on the parallel taxiways whilst taxiing at a normal/acceptable pace. When I say they fly slower, I have seen on occasion other carriers flying up to 50 knots slower than us on the same route, same aircraft type just because their crew are paid per hour.
It doesn't seem like much, but really adds up to the monthly bank balance apparently and of course it's done because the crew are also trying to rack up more hours & bugger off asap. The carriers that operate with this method of treating their crew are short term career options (unlike Cathay, or so Cathay used to be) and everyone here in Europe knows it. That's how the low cost carriers get away with it. A fair amount make new pilots pay for their ratings because they expect them to and in many ways want to them leave when an opportunity presents itself. This so they can keep churning in cheaper crew and coming up with worse conditions at every opportunity. I'm not so sure if Cathay will be able to pull this one off when things get back to normal, and for the sake of you guys/girls I really hope they aren't able to.