Top of the morning all
Quad 8, granted, timewise the cadetship is an accelerated program and results in sitting at the pointy end of things along with the guys who join as DE in the space of less than two years, whereas they might have spent the better part of ten clawing their way up the aviation ladder. The effort that expats have put in to arrive here at CX is certainly recognised by the LEPS but I can hardly say that the reverse is true. The idea that it is a matter of time served vs. reaching a given standard prevails as a banner for justifying the reduced pay package that a local should get. As a corollary to that line of thought, then surely someone with 10 years of fast jet military instruction ought to be paid more than someone coming in with 4000 hours of Q400 time. But I'm sure that idea would be met with great apprehension by anyone with a good head on their shoulders.
<It seems that a free ride isn't enough anymore... Something about cake and eating it too?>
The cadetship is not a free ride for the individuals who get through and pay for it for the rest of their CX career in the form of, effectively, half the remuneration an expat would get. To have to complete a HKCAD ATPL in the space of 8 weeks is not a cakewalk, and to suggest that the LEPS don't have to put in the work to get to where everyone else has to be at, especially when they get their 4th bar, is nothing short of an insult. Yet a local captain remains on reduced terms despite shouldering the same burden of responsibility. Wowpeter made a remark about how this perception drives some of the LEPS 'nuts', and it doesn't take a neurosurgeon to figure out why. Something I cannot understand is why it serves the moral interest of some to see their local counterparts receive less than they do just because a similar opportunity to join such a program was not open to them in the first place. If that's the case then someone had better get on the issue of the Instructor's Course happening down at ADL at the moment, because those guys will be starting on the CX seniority list 4 years ahead of actually even sitting in a CX widebody whilst farting around in a G115-b for their fixed tenure there, before coming back on, that's right, full expat terms.
EngineOut, I take your point but having been down both routes (saving up to pay for my own licenses thereafter riding rustbuckets and doing the FTA thing) I don't think it's fair to say that FTA was a walk in the park. The pressure to perform in such a short period of time is not an easy task and to have some of our colleagues diminish the weight of that is what I think most LEPS find difficult to deal with. Surely the reciprocity in the recognition of work that everyone does to fulfill their careers here at CX/KA is a small thing to ask? I recognise as do you that the cadetship serves as a cost saving measure for the company and hence its primary existence as such, but surely it would be a matter of equality to allow a local the same anything as an expat after they have fulfilled a given financial obligation to the company. Nobody is asking for a free ride here.
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