I have never lived or worked in Hong Kong but I am a regular inmate so my comments are therefore generic in nature and apply to the various expat pilot employers as well as Cathay. What company in its right mind thinks that they can give a 50% pay cut and expect people to hang around. They (the management) know that as pilots we cant just skip from one job to another like they can so they took a cheap shot and did what they did. Even a nincompoop with the mind of a six year old would realize that such a move would be completely irresponsible given the inevitable consequences that would shortly follow, ie finding pilots and then having to train them.
Correct me if I'm wrong but it appears that the education allowance is around 1/3 of what it would actually cost. If this is the case, what sort of desperate scum do they think we are. So they think a professional pilot is going to come to Kong Kong and fork out USD15k per child of their own money to top up the allowance while every banker, cook, BS manager and similar scammer gets it covered in full. I don't know what accommodation cost but looking at the allowance It doesn't even look remotely close to me so the same comment applies.
So they expect you to come to Hong Kong, a Hong Kong incidentally that is not the same Hong Kong as it once was, spend the best part if your life away from your home and family and live like a scum bag, put your kids in a communist local school and not save a penny. What planet are these people on!
If I were being invited to return I would demand full reinstatement of the original package and some, a lot more some, for being f%$ked around and insulted.
Should Cathay survive I think management are going to need a whole lot more than luck if they expect to find anyone. BTW I am available at twice the original A scale package adjusted for inflation.
Good luck.