Ha ha - thanks for not specifying my gender or sexual preference Curry Lamb - very PC of you ;-)
In 2 or 3 or 4 years yes we will be at the new normal. The very fact that flying has reached or exceeded pre covid levels in some domestic markets suggests to me that one day people will fly internationally as much as they did precovid. I dont know what that will look like - just like I didn't know straight away what flying would look like post 9-11. But flying returned to, and then exceeded, pre 9-11 figures. So yes I am an optimist - I do believe that within some time (1 or 2 or 3 or 4 years) CX flying will exceed pre covid. That is assuming we dont get rid of a whole lot of a/c since we are severely undermanned in any scenario that has us flying more than 70% of what we flew pre covid for a few years.
Manning in Jul 2018 - we had 1223 CN, 1456 FO and 549 SO. Beginning of last year we had roughly 100 more pilots total but dont have the accurate breakdown - but let's just assume an extra 30CN, 40FO and 30SO extra. So that means roughly 1260 CNs, 1500 FOs and 590SOs in Jan 2020.
Today we have just over 900 CNs - of which we may lose another 100+ from Europe/LHR/North America - so maybe 800ish in a few months from now. So we are short over 450 CNs from CX mainline.
KA had roughly 250CN and 250FO - so we need ANOTHER 250CNs to man all those shiny new A321s and extra 330s.
So we NEED about 700CNs to get back to 100% manning - it will take a few years to train that many - maybe 4-6years?
We are undermanned on mainline by about 200 or so FOs - plus lose another 100+ from the aforementioned bases - means we need 300 to get back to 100% - plus another 700 to replace the 700 upgraded.
So to get back to 100% manning will take many years - it is NOT something that can be achieved in a year or two. So the options are - slow recovery from covid (say 3-5 years) then the training machine can keep up (maybe?) or just get rid of a/c to save face. I suspect the latter.