Hello again Capt,
When I was doing my stage 2 I was told that not enough locals were getting through the various stages of testing. Most got chopped at stage one but many were also getting the flick at stage 2 and flight grading. This would mean that there isn't a shortage of applicants but a shortage of people getting past the testing.
I would like to add that in my group only 1 person had less than 1000 hours so I don't think we were the "250 hour wonder kids" often referred to on pprune. CX could set the bar at 1000 hours for advanced entry and still get mountains of applications. This may fix some of your training problems maybe?
Are you suggesting that the number of SO's Cathay has at the moment won't be sufficient to crew flights in the near future? If that is the case then will CX again take expats or just lower the standard to get more through the door?