It's got nothing to do with shafting crews or labour legislation, but simple economics. European pilots would see this as job creation, the airlines would see this as job exporting. Given the punishing tax regimes and red tape now in the eurozone I doubt it looks attractive to either employers or employees.
Many CX pilots have HK housing allowances and favourable tax systems, as soon as they appear on the radar in the eurozone the bureaucrats start working on ways to wring every last penny in tax out of them. Sadly, the expansion for pilots will all be in the ME and Asia over the coming years, it's worth grabbing the jobs there while you can because in a few years these countries will be able to supply their own expansion needs from within. Didn't AA once try and start a HK base and the unions stopped it! I'm curious as to how £141K a year net and 12 days off a month in a row can be regarded as being "shafted", maybe I'm missing something, on the other hand we could work for BA and sit on the M25 for 12 days in a row, travel baggage class and fly 900hrs for half the net money
