CX New Pay/Benefits
We will conduct a review of pilot’s pay scales and benefits worldwide in 2007. It will be the end of 2007 before it is complete.
Market forces will be the driving factor on pay and benefits. We will be looking at local airlines in all base areas to determine pay scales. This will not necessarily be a major airline unless we can find a major airline that is paying less than we are now.
We cannot compare a year 1 744 Capt/FO at British Airways with a year 1 744 Capt/FO at Cathay Pacific. The 744 Capts in CX are much younger (meaning we will have to pay more over time) than BA. It takes longer to obtain a 744 position at BA than it would at CX; therefore we have to compare apples with apples.
In our Freighter Operations, we will compare Low Cost Cargo Airlines, as we must remain competitive with these airlines if we want market share. There are numerous LC Cargo Airlines starting in Mainland China we have to compete with. Therefore market forces will prevail and not your base area, wherever that may be. We need to be competitive.
We have some freighter pilots leaving but we expected, as some have not made the Cathay Standard. We had planed for this movement the last several months.
We have had some success in the past few years with our productivity increasing 20% on the passenger fleets and just fewer than 50% on the freighter fleet. This will help in our ATK calculations.
As many will remember, we came to an agreement on airlines used many years ago and we will be looking at those and many start-up airlines since then to compare. I am sure the pilot body will agree with our new list of competitive airlines.
On the topic of pay/benefits, most of the pilot bodies are on lower conditions and we would like to move on the lower side. Some of our more Senior Members may have to give up some benefits/pay and our lower member may gain some benefits/pay. There are a majority of pilots in the middle and our extenders are joining on the middle or less package, we think it would be prudent to have one COS.
With this increased package, we will be implementing age 60-65 into your COS. This will benefits all pilots. With this increase in retirement, we will look closely at PF schemes as one will increase their PF with longer years worked. We will lower the PF contributions in order to keep our cost base down.
With our new and improved Cabin Class on all fleets, we will revise the class of travel when traveling on company time. We believe we have a premium E/Y cabin and this will be suitable for our First Officers/Second Officers and C Class for Captains regardless of operations. There will be no upgrades to F Class; we believe this should be reserved for our Premium Class Passengers. Staff Travel will follow similar lines.
In turn we will offer an increase in staff travel benefits. We will offer ID 91’s on all flights but reserve the right to charge extra fees as we see fit. I am sure all will be happy with this new improvement in staff travel.
We are working with the Hong Kong Government ((Immigration) (as we are doing with the IRD)) on housing benefits for the future. Anyone in possession of a Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card will not be classified as an Expatriate and the benefits with reflect a D level local employee. We believe this to be a fair and transparent for all employees in Hong Kong.
We are in the process of amalgamating Dragonair. Dragonair pilots will chose between a one off accept the new CX contract or remain at Dragonair’s old conditions. We are still some months away from finalizing this deal, however, those that join the new and improved CX contract will be given a Date of Joining of January 1, 2007 on the Cathay Pacific Seniority List and in Seniority on the Dragonair list. This will benefit the Cathay Pacific Group immensely. Those that do not will remain at Dragonair and the old system and be phased out.
It has been mentioned before, we are wet leasing the KA freighters and you may see some KA Freighter with a Cathay call sign. For the moment, the KA structure is the most cost effective and we will continue to use the most cost effective crew. We may wet lease some Dragonair A330’s on some Cathay Pacific routes in the future.
As for Pilot Hiring, we have many applications and our New Recruitment Manager assures me we will not have a problem in Recruitment.
We have started hiring DEFO’s on the Australian and European bases, which is proceeding nicely. With the onset of our New State of the Art 777-300ER’s, we will be hiring many new pilots from North America. We have to finalize the routes on which these new aeroplanes will operate and then start our North American hiring plan. We have vast plans for NA with more cargo routes (Miami/Mexico City) and our long awaited New York - London service. When we have our new route structure in place we will be hiring more North American based pilots. What country you live in means nothing to us that is your responsibility as with commuting.
We reserve the right to place any pilot on any aircraft that WE chose as per the current GUIDELINES (Yes they are only guidelines and will not be seniority driven in the near future). This is to reduce our huge training costs.
We will be hiring regional jet/turboprop pilots that cannot get into the majors in their own countries. Depending on experience we will put some on bases (DEFO’s) and others to fly the Dragonair A320’s here in Hong Kong (Asia’s World City). Of course on our new and improved Conditions of Service.
We will not hire pilots that are furloughed from Major Carriers. They expect too much. Now we see why many carriers are in trouble. We will hire from Regional Airlines where conditions are not as good as ours, so it will be a step up and the new hires will not complain as much. If they do, we have a system in place.
Our Training Department will have time to engrave the Cathay Way before they come up for command. These younger pilots, while may not have the experience, are very teachable. We have found this out with some very young freighter captains that have upgraded in the last 4-5 years (Formally CX Second Officers). We now have the tools (Dragonair/Increase NA Domestic routes) to start a very good Cathay Foundation with these young pilots. If you are one of these young regional jet/turboprop pilots, send in an online application.
For our current staff, you are doing a great job. We still have good people willing to go that extra mile to help our profits, our company and our passengers. Please continue to do so. Again our Training Staff are Tops but we will have to work the Trainers harder in the coming months and all Training Staff are going well beyond the call of duty, especially with roster changes. Please keep up the good work. We are counting on you.
Unfortunately you will have to continue on your same pay and benefits for the foreseeable future until our review is complete but we will offer more get-togethers for our Training Staff to show our appreciation.
To All Our Staff:
Sun nin fai lok
Gung hei fat choi
Welcoming The Year of the Pig.
The Management
Last edited by The Management; 13th Feb 2007 at 11:00.