CX isn’t a career airline anymore, back in the 1980s it was a dream job and a pilot who was fortunate enough to get in would expect to stay until retirement.
Now it’s like the Middle East, a place you go if you have to but you don’t really want to. Post pandemic, they will be calling people back, and these people will come if they don’t have any better option. They will still get pilots, even QR manage that, but the airline won’t be on the career radar of someone working for a low cost carrier in their home country.
A regional base with EasyJet where you have a lower cost of living, decent career progression, a reasonable income and are in your own bed at night. Who would give that up for the toxic living and working environment of HKG and CX ?