Do you guys actually think that Cathay would furlough in seniority? You actually think they would waste the millions that it would require to go through a seniority training shuffle, just to say they did it in seniority order?
If you answered yes to the above, then let me ask you how much you want for a bag of the stuff so I can smoke it too.
First of all, depending on how deep it goes, a seniority furlough would mean that we would loose all our freighter Captains. Ex-ASL, Re-treads, Dragonair, Oasis. The whole lot. So now the company would have to retrain all the freighter captains from eligible crew. This would creat vacancies all over the system, in different types. Which creates training cycles for all those replacements.
Then, they would also furlough the DFOs on the passenger fleet. That means that they would have to train a boat load of 777 FOs, being that is the only growing fleet. I beleive the training task is already pretty high due to expansion, so increasing it is in the company's best interest.
I don't think it will come to furloughs, but if it does, you can be sure of one thing - It will be done based on where the cuts are needed, not in seniority. If Cathay finds itself with too many freighter crews, it will make redundant in the freighter only. They might allow base transfers, but don't expect the company to move you. It will be an "extreme circumstance" that will be funded out of your own pocket.
And it will start at the bases. Even though those crews are technically cheaper than HK crews, do you know how expensive it would be to furlough a HK pilot? A based pilot can be furloughed with a notice in the mail 3 months ahead of time. That is it. A HK pilot would also require repatriation and moving allowance back to home country, as well as sorting out any property requirements. Some rental clauses have penalties for early cancellation. Besides, you furlough a based guy, you can easily replace him with a HK based guy. If you furlough a HK based guy, you can't replace them with a based guy.
Don't get me wrong, I think that it is crap and that the company should do everything possible to honor seniority during a furlough. But I'm just being realistic. Reminds me of when the Classic started being removed from Europe and they were presented with the problem of having all those guys based there. The company found themselves with a rostering problem with getting these guys to fly the regional trips out of HK. Their reaction was to just say that "we know that this is against the COS, but these are extreme circumstances".
I can guarantee you that the same would be done during any sort of furlough situation.