Please for god sake. Clearly a lot of people don’t understand how this industry work.
Let’s make it clear on the pilot shortage numbers.
It doesn’t matter what it is right now! One of the key of running an airline business is to look ahead! Which CX and lots of people here has no idea about. Undoubtedly it is approximately one pilot leaving everyday as per the current rate.
People will be like: oh **** it let’s raise the package when we need pilots. But they don’t understand pilot don’t come in overnight like an office lady. Pilot needs training, guess where’s the training come from? Trainers. Where trainers come from? Senior standards Trainer. What do they need to train? Simulators ? How many do we have? Then the next questions come in
**** it we just gonna hire experience pilots!
Generally speaking if you are an experience jet pilot you would be around late 20s early 30s ( I am not talking about SO here). It which leads to some other questions.
e.g. can I survive with COS 18 with my family ? How much does a kid cost go the school? Medical plan well enough support my family ? How big is my shoebox gonna be ? Does CX respect what is a contract or my salary just gonna get cut another 20% tomorrow ?
What people don’t understand the pilot industry is not exactly how much you earning but it’s about how much you get in net income. People often compare different airlines it’s not exactly apple to apple. HK is no doubt the most expensive city. Just simply put yourself into the questions above why would an experience pilot wanna go on a one way road and come to Hong Kong where’s there are more options out there?
Another way of seeing it is CX was a great option back then perhaps even with COS08 with no housing. But now CX might have just fall into the average or even lower category in my opinion.
For people saying being a captain should have just taken 5 mins coffees with the chief pilot clearly have no idea what this job is about. They think the job and the industry is as simple as just serving a coffee or a beer at the bar.
There are way more better ways to deal with this crisis e.g. temporary pay cut but with the same contract just to show we are on the same bloody boat. In the last 30 years you might heard lots of people are leaving but nothing happened. I am sorry this time is legit and this is a huge wave that none of the cx management has ever seen. Ironically enough, some people might think giving few thousands on pilot allowence or China flights gonna make a difference ? Clearly not.
P.S STW when you said China pilots can come and work for CX it just shown you have no idea what aviation is like in China. I suggested you can do a lot more research first. Btw I just have 3 Chinese local pilot colleagues left two months ago.