It's Your Choice, but Don't be Misled
The recruiting ban at Cathay Pacific Airways remains in force and any person breaking it, including “BanBreaker”, will suffer the full consequences as detailed in the IFALPA letter. There is also the aspect of becoming a social leper in the cockpit and in the rather small expatriate Hong Kong community.
A Director of Cathay Pacific recently in a Radio Hong Kong interview was trying to trump-up the amount of Industrial Action that taking place as a justification for management’s continued refusal to talk to the HKAOA. He stated that the recruiting ban was having an effect and was stopping some good pilots from joining but adequate pilots were still joining.
The prospect of suffering at the hands of Check and Training pilot is a non-issue as the Check and Training personnel at Cathay Pacific are of the highest standards and personal integrity. Unfortunately, there are always the odd few that do allow political agenda to influence their judgment but those individuals are either already in management or by ingratiating themselves, hope to achieve such a position soonest.
As a measure of the influence of political and industrial factors in affecting the decision making capability of Cathay management, one needs to look no further than the decisions not to upgrade many Junior F/Os to F/Os and for not upgrading many F/Os to Captain despite these ladies and gentlemen having impeccable check and training records. Upgrades use to depend almost exclusively on performance on the final check. This has now changed. Manager Training Standards explained it like this in the “Crews News” magazine. We look at your training records and the actual check flight itself. We also look at any non-flying behavioural issues that have been communicated to you”. Sounds delightfully innocent, doesn’t it?
The good news is that the President of the AOA said that the time has now come to put up or shut up. He also said that the whole process would be over in one year, one way or the other. Action will be ramped up quickly over the next two months.
The Recruiting Ban is an international embarrassment to the management of Cathay Pacific and is putting them under enormous political and economic pressure. Good pilots are requested to continue observing the ban, so that a quick resolution can be attained.