mistertoms I'm sure at some point in life you've heard of the phrase "if it's too good to be true, then it probably is." It is an apt phrase, as on the surface, the cadet program being the "fastest and immediately cheapest" option sounds like a very good deal. I thought it was a pretty good deal many years ago too, although I cannot say the same today. I am not one to try and persuade anyone to not give it a shot, but for your own sake, you better know what you are getting into first.
When you go in as a cadet, you will have no salary for the first year and a bit. You are not even employed by CX until you are actually finished. Once you do finish, you will be bonded for more than half a decade and will have a fresh Hong Kong Commercial Pilot License (CPL), with just bare minimum hours that make it impossible to convert this license to another country CPL without supplementary training. Regardless, you will be locked in with CX. Assuming they give you an offer to become a Second Officer (SO), you will then proceed to get a P2X type rating, which is essentially a restricted type rating forbidding you to do takeoffs and landings and to even touch the controls below 20,000 feet. The only experience that is of any value in aviation is P1 and P2, not P2X, so you will not exactly be gaining any experience during your tenure. You will start year 1 as a brand new inexperienced pilot. If you get stuck as an stuck as an SO for a number of years, you will still be a brand new inexperienced pilot by the end of however many years of your tenure. Last I checked, people were waiting for 6-7 years, and the P2X will prevent you from leaving (on top of the bond mentioned above) unless you have prior experience. The length you serve is a tossup. There used to be a 5 year cap. Not anymore.
So, you will be stuck for a few years, which in my opinion is not recommended for someone in their 30s. You will likely come across First Officers or even Captains who are younger than you while you serve grinding away doing fuel checks and making bunks at 3 am in the morning. Your upgrade to First Officer is also
not guaranteed, you will need to
interview again for the role at some point, and if there is anything CX is transparent to their own staff, it is that they don't earnestly care about your career progression. It is cheaper for them to hire an experienced First Officer externally than to upgrade their own second officers (of whom they can easily replace), since the latter requires more training resources and thus more cost to fill the role. CX is very comfortable in filling FO roles with experienced external hires, and back filling SOs since there is no shortage of local demand. The only exception to this is when they are desperate. Additionally, if you have not followed aviation news during the year or two, you may be interested to know that CX is at the forefront of working with airbus in working out a solution for single pilot operations in the cruise for long hauls. Much of your functioning role as a Second Officer can already be replaced by automation in those shiny new A350s. Regardless of whether this happens in the near future, do you really want to be stuck in a role where you cannot gain experience, where your employer prevents you in leaving, and where your employer is also actively trying to find a way to replace you by a machine? Your call.
You mentioned you hold a Canadian passport. Canadians overseas who are fresh out of flight school can acquire PIC/Co-pilot time (essentially P1 and P2). Many regional airlines these days go as far as hiring fresh CPLs out of flight school with the kind of pilot shortage they have in that side of the world. Those who don't make it to the airlines right away can still find jobs instructing, or working for smaller charter operators acquiring valuable experience. Is it more expensive? Sure. Is the pay there glamorous? Absolutely not, but neither is the rest of aviation these days. However, in 6-7 years, there is a good chance many of them become captains on some kind of aircraft.