A couple of thoughts.
In my opinion if the relatively unionised, legislatively protected pilot's unions couldn't win in australia in 1989, then we know confronting CX 'head on' is not a realistic option here in HKG today. The only thing they seem to respond to is the sound of the footsteps fading of recent departees.
Do not underestimate what effect a small % of departures has right now. Let me give you a very small, but simplistic example.
Lets say we have a pilot body of 10(all CNs). One guy is full time checking and training the other 9 guys. Well this little company decides to expand by say 10-20% per year. Well now they have to use guy no 9 in an expansion role. He has to train for two purposes...1, to replace his own position since 9 pilots were previously doing all the work, and 2, to train up the expansion guys. Now just imagine if one of the other 8 guys chooses to leave! Now guy no 10 was busy with recurrent training, guy no 9 was busy with expansion training. Guy no 1 has left...so presumably guy no 2(or 3-8) has to take on the job of training his replacement. Whilst this guy is training his replacement he is offline and cannot contribute to the growth of the airline. So before the expansion there were 9 guys doing the work...as the expansion started, 8 guys did the work waiting for guy no 9 to train his replacement...then another guy leaves leaving them with 7 guys....see the domino effect!
SO a 1 or 2% resignation rate has a huge impact in times of huge growth and minimal impact in times of no growth.
Last edited by Numero Crunchero; 19th Jun 2007 at 03:04.