I believe the TT course delays have a lot to do with the early 744 retirements. Even though there's 17 or 18 a/c scheduled for delivery this year the net gain may only be 8 or so, quite a bit less than in 2012, also I bet a large chunk of their 'training capacity' is being used to train the 744 crews onto other fleets, just speculation though!
The annual report says that they're expecting 16 deliveries in 2014, that's a lot of empty jump seats to fill and it seems unlikely that they will able to meet their crewing needs with only the ab initio cadet programme, especially if it's restricted to HKID holders.
I may be wrong, but I think they have always had to rely partly on expats to fulfil their crewing needs, it would seem like more now than ever with the growth over the next few years.
