I hear what you are saying 711, but it would take a lot of these costs to make up for HKG salary, housing allowance, education allowance etc. Not to mention the crew they would lose who wouldn't return to Hong Kong. I would be one of them; there are even many based F/O's who have no intention of returning to HKG for their commands.
Basees on A and R days provide a lot of flexibility during disruption or HKG crew sickness at the outports. I am called out on these days regularly.
Finally, the overriding argument is that bases are a carrot to dangle in front of starry-eyed kids with SJS who will accept their pathetic HKG conditions in the desperate hope of a basing later.
With less incompetence and arrogance, and more due diligence and doing their jobs properly, the responsible managers could have set up the bases correctly in the first place. For the above reasons, most would still have been viable from the start.
The Paris debacle and the post-onshoring Hong Kong tax screwup were just unbelievable. If I did my job that badly there would be a smoking hole somewhere. However, there is a silver lining to the HKG tax shambles; now regarded as 'Hong Kong employees' by the HKIRD, many based crew are putting in claims for underpayment of Statutory Holiday Pay (with Association assistance
).
It's not the basings themselves that is the problem; it is the under-resourcing and poor establishment and management of them. The reputed Paris fine and a successful mass claim on the SHP may cost the company dearly.