@d105, as Aldente says it also counts for RYR contracts. It is too silly for words that the pilots cant decide how they want their leave. You can really go without leave for a long time like this and if you look how intense the work can be, it can be sometimes just too long between leave periods for people and that can be a safety issue as well.
It does make life easier for a few people in Rostering, but possibly messes up the lives of 2000+ pilots and their families.
If you look at what has happened over the last years and what we have to accept and has been changed for the worse, it is all just adding up and is getting pretty close for me and many others to decide to leave. The job in RYR is not as good anymore as it was and also the pay and all that comes with it. Other jobs cant be that much worse and you might get some respect there. And I know what I am talking about, coz I have been around a few of them in my flying years so far. It seems that even now, when the economical crisis is not even officially over, RYR is already losing people at a significant rate. So imagine what happens when they will enforce 5/3 and other companies just start hiring even more.
Also new Capts will be send to the Canaries a lot. For just very few hours extra positioning from your home you are in the Middle East. So that is something to consider as well for command ready FO's. And they are, coz lost of them are leaving to there. Some hang in there with the hope they will get their requested base soon, but for not many this happens and some of them waiting are eventually so fed up that they just leave.
For the Chinese FO story. Never heard of that beside Pprune by the way, but would be curious what English Language proficiency level these guys would have.
