alvin, from what was conveyed to me by one of the HR personnel, if you are an ab initio applicant you must be a HKID holder, unless you were in the interview process prior to the change in ruling by the HK immigration which was late 2011/early 2012. You can still apply, not sure if you will ever get a reply, but no loss in trying, I guess if they run out of HKID applicants then they can probably look at international ab intio applicants in large numbers again, but that's only a guess.
Marco, I believe your doing Stage 1A? If so, then it will be Compass test and JKI test only, unless they have changed the format again within the last 2 weeks. The JKI test should be reasonable if you have studied the JKI booklet and done a little extra research of your own. The level is about a BAK level. There are a couple of additional questions on the the company and the planes, but its not something in depth, just fairly general questions - They can hammer you in the interview with in depth questions
