Mr. Rhodes was not bypassed. He is very effective at his job. Since his inception into The Cathay Pacific Group in 1996 he has managed to reduce costs, increase productivity, introduce intimidation and was the key figure in creating the 49ers (it is sad that 2 of the 49ers lives were cut short but Mr. Rhodes sleeps very well at night). He is rewarded with benefits and bonuses. We cannot replace Mr. Rhodes at this time. We need him for the next year or two to implement our next phase. He will be rewarded at a later time.
As for losing my touch……………………….
Not very respectful to Mr. Hall.
As for The Management changes, Mr. Chen is needed elsewhere and we need someone to implement our next phase of Pilot Management. As you know Mr. Tyler was our spokesperson in 1999 and 2001 and has distaste for all pilots. He is the most logical person for our next phase.
Our new COO will help support the next phase. The North American pilots, don’t expect sympathy.
We expect very few pilots choose not to fly the freighter. We may get some Captains that are brave enough but we will make a note on who they are and what package they are on. We need to reduce cost where and when we can. We expect virtually no First Officers to make a decision not to fly the Freighters. Most First Officers know we will view this as industrial action and it will be entered in their P-file for command selection. We expect the same with the Second Officers. Most have it in their contract to fly the freighters and we expect those pilots to honor their contract. If not, we will terminate their contract.
The more First Officers we categorize as “not suitable for command” will be the need for Direct Entry Captains. This is something we wanted to implement for years but pilots were too cohesive 10 years ago. This is certainly not the case at this time and will be effortless to implement. DEC will provide us the ability to expand the airline very quickly with very low training costs.
We will implement the DEC program for a 2-3 year period as then we will have the proper amount of pilots in place. We have a great training department to handle the task of Direct Entry Captains. For those pilots that are thinking on our DEC program, we are now taking applications for implementation early next year.
For those First and Second Officers thinking they will not be upgraded, this is not the case. We will continue to upgrade from within but not at the rate some will like. Our priority will be Direct Entry Captain until we have the flexibility to expand.
We are anxiously waiting for some pilots to be brave enough to put their head above the parapet. This will make the implementation much easier.
As Captain Hall stated we reserve the right to ask any pilot any questions on any part of the operation, Full Stop. We are the employer.
The Management