CX has for a number of years been considering doing away with the rank of SO. There is no secret in this fact. I don’t know what any add said on the said web sight, but CX still hasn’t made a decision on this, period so any speculation to the contrary is purely that, speculation. They are still feeling the water so to speak and weighing up the long term benefits against the short term financial pain, i.e. bypass pay, extra training cost and so on. The last I heard (one week ago) we were still looking at recruiting a large number of direct entry S/O’s over the next year. The other consideration is what to do with our cadets. Unlike KA, CX doesn’t have the sectors to fast track them into the right seat after they get back from Adelaide. Our operation doesn’t lend itself to putting brand new cadets in the right seat.
On another note though I find it very interesting that in late November, CX’s recruitment team visited their counterparts at EK in Dubai. This was either to find out how and where they were recruiting their 390+ direct entry FO’s they are after or to see how they were going in recruiting flight attendants out of Hong Kong before they commence their PEK service.
PS: I never saw the add on the noted web sight so can’t verify what it said but what I can say is that the add is no longer there. There is an add about a week later though for the same leasing company for direct entry F/O’s in Qatar on the A320.