what's the deal with your idea of "expats respect"? I find this idea very old fashioned and colonialist...are you implying that a person can get respect only because of image and money and skin color? I couldn't careless about the expact status or salary, and that's a pity if anyone is getting respect for these reasons and not who that person actually is.
Just put urself in this situation. Say you are an (Australian, Britain whatever...working at home...suddenly there is a big bloom in the industry and the airlines are short of pilots. Then what happen next is the airlines start recruiting pilots from Asia (If at this point you are thinking...YEAH RIGHT...as if we need pilots from Asia...then you might be alittle discrinminative...but lets just imagine) and give them 2 times ur salary plus housing and all that. How would u feel? Tell me...you are going to respect them just like u would when u know this is ur home land? Because this is the case in China right now, Expats are highly discriminated by the locals just because of that reason. It doesn't matter if u are a super nice guy or a guy with obsolutely no problem with race...u still get discriminated. So does this make this place (HK) alittle better from what ive just said, do u feel discriminated in HK or in CX for that matter? If not...why do u think you ain't discriminated?
N u can look down to local employees and not worry about it.
And can u tell me why expats in Hong Kong Airlines couldn't fought like those in CX for better terms and condition? Hence, they are all forced to leave or get a 30-40% paycut plus all the expats benefits down the drain without much to say? I think its obvious that the Chinese runs the Management in HK airlines, where as CX is ruled by foreign shareholders. If you are a CX Expat pilot...tell me...do u guys ever hangout with local pilots? If not? why not?
About housing allowances: have you ever met cadets from Emirates? Well I met them in Adelaide, and no program can match theirs:
And thx FL999 u have made the statement i wanted to make