newEssO
This is real crystal ball stuff, but here goes.
3man ULR
DEFO
RA65
Bypass pay
3man ULR increase to 14 hours will mean we can do our EUR flights with reduced crew. We will still need to use 4 crew on all US flights. We have over 1000 FOs - so if we suddenly didn't need to use 4 pilots that means we have a 'surplus' of 200-400FOs - sorry about the guesstimate but I haven't bothered to break it down into fleets. Bottom line, 3man will have a huge impact!
DEFOs joining after you are junior to you, but take up a senior position to you. There is not that great 'sausage machine' effect driving your forward to upgrade. Given the parsimonius pay structure here the only way CX will have to attract people is offer them based DEFO positions so they will be recruiting DEFOs for a while to come!
RA65 will affect all of us. There are around 60 retirements due per year for the next 5-10 years. So over the current 3.5years as an SO that means there would be 210 less CNs and FO positions required.
Bypass pay for SOs is NOT paid until you are assessed. All those DEFOs joining would therefore not lead you to getting bypass pay until you are 2-4months from upgrade. And of course, joining next year you are not entitled to bypass pay for the 200 odd CNs that would have extended over the next 3.5 years.
To put all these numbers into perspective there are around 329 SOs and 1050 FOs and 780CNs. So on the numbers your career progression looks terrible. CX don't like to have institutionalized SOs so they would tell you that you will be upgraded in 3 years. A non-CX mate of mine was told he would get his command in 9 years - for that to be true we will need to have 350a/c at the end of 2015.
clear as mud?