Ted,
Sounds like you only have half the story. You need to dig a bit deeper into Cathay history to find out why CX pilots are so pissed off at Cathay’s attempt to outsource jobs.
It’s no secret, there is a **** loads of money in freight. Cathay is making a heap of money out of freight, and have said their expansion is only limited by capacity. With the dash 8 orders being delayed until the end of the year the problem is only compounded.
Why would Cathay give 4 freighters to AHK then? It is simple, AHK can operate the freighters a lot cheaper than Cathay can. With Cathay owning 60% of AHK this is easy money for them.
There has been a battle, for over 10 years, between the HKAOA and the Company. I don’t intend to go into too much detail, but there has been ASL, Freighter Commands, Oasis Direct Entry Commands, Dragon Commands. The list of seniority breaches goes on and on. Finally last year, the HKAOA, struck a deal with the company to say no more freighter commands- all new commands will be on Pax B scale in CX seniority. However, for this to happen, the first 3 years of Command Pay scale will be at a reduced rate in order to compensate for no more “cheap commands”.
Now 6 months down the track CX BCF’s are going to another company to be flown by cheaper pilots. This is after Cathay promised the HKAOA that AHK would only operate A300. It seems Cathay have well and truly outmaneuvered the HKAOA, there is very little the HKAOA can do, and I can see in 10 years all CX freighters will be operated by AHK on reduced conditions (c scale). To add insult to injury Cathay want CX Trainers to train AHK pilots on CX aircraft- effectively training themselves out of jobs.
While I’m sure the Cathay Trainers will be professional and cordial, the CX training system is notoriously still one of the toughest in the world. Many a job has been lost, and many egos have been crushed. If AHK pilots are going to train on a CX aircraft, and be trained to CX standards, they must be prepared for the wrath of the CX training system. With no exposure to the CX system, the failure rate will be high. This is not a threat, I’m just stating facts. Of all the Oasis Captains over 50% of them failed- all with at least 2 year on the 400, some with 20 years in BA. The 50% who passed were generally ex-Cathay Captains.
I do feel for the AHK pilots, through no fault of their own, they are unwilling entering into a battle that has been raging for 10 years. This is not the fault of the AHK pilots, but as this is a threat to the career of a CX pilot, am sure there will be at least some tension of the flight deck.