People. Hours alone don't paint the whole picture of the type of candidate Cathay has hired in recent years, or the type of pilot they are seeking now.
There is no doubt that in the A scale days, and in the early B scale days, the benefits offered by Cathay were so good, that the package spoke for itself and attracted every experienced pilot on the planet. Cathay still wanted to maintain and sell the perception of their highly "experienced" cockpit. Like it or not, and I know this gets up the nose of many on this forum, Cathay could...and did...pick and choose very carefully.
Over the years the package was watered down, and watered down some more. To the point where so called "experienced" direct entry F/O's hired over the past few years took significantly more training...and retraining...than expected. That didn't dissuade Cathay from its belief that they could pay peanuts and still get pilots. The quality or experience level was no longer an issue or overriding factor in the selection…cost was!
So Cathay has come up with a new package, one they hope will cast the biggest net possible, that caters to any pilot out there, and ....as incredible as it may be, this includes pilots with no pilot training at all!
If you have no experience or pilot training at all, no problem please sign here and you only need to pay back the entire $1,000,000 “forgivable” loan. If you have a couple of hundred hours then you get to keep a portion of the “forgivable" loan. And should you just happen to be an "experienced pilot", the only kind Cathay used to hire, well then you can keep the whole loan.
The bottom line (pardon the pun) is that anyone can now join. Today, you only need to pass a series of HR interviews. Traditional pilot experience, or hours…mean nothing. The accountants win again……it's really too bad.
Compare this situation to the one in place twenty years ago and then tell me our Cockpit product is the same?