history lesson part 2
Well written Kitsune.
Ahh....The good old days; most of the pilots living in the Sai Kung area, all meeting and drinking in the Cathay Club or the Aviaition Club, everyone knew each other. Only 4 or 500 crew.
Also, CX was expanding and had to hire us mercenaries and pay more than top dollar to get us out to this place in the Really Far East. So, as you say, we were the envy of the aviation world.
So look at the history from there - the following is not quite in chrono order but not too far off the mark.
Then things start to change. Long haul meant that the world could get here, and we could get there, non-stop. No longer was HKG the 'hardship posting' that it was and the bean counters realised it.
Cost controls came in, the usual high pay rises crept down until they stopped all together. Mr Nice Guy Sutch was behind it but Mr Eddington got the blame. Then the B scales came in and one of the names you mentioned atually proposed a solution of not letting them join the AOA A scale club so they would feel isolated and leave!! Evict the AOA to stop members going to the office.
And of course Basings. Start to scatter the troops around the world so they couldn't get together and plan resistance.
Airlines around the world got together to plan how to break the pilot unions power.
The way here was to split up the various interest groups and get them to argue with each other - worked so well we are still doing it.
Gilvarry was sacked - sorry, resigned (he didn't want to). Fern and Horsting end up in management, Morris too I think.
Poor old Tucknott left all on his own.
Pilots b@lls shrunk, Thatcher like mentality of look after yourself and take all you can was the motto of the crews now. Pilots frightened themselves into being fearful. The 49ers frightened them even more. But can CX sack all pilots? No they can't as they wouldn't be able to run their money making machine.
So what can we learn from history?
A lot if we apply some brain power. All for one and one for all used to be the motto. Get that back and we can stop this pathetic whining and start to do something about it.