I have it on very good authority from within the AOA that it was management that proposed the staff travel deal to the DPA at the last moment to try and sweeten what is a crap pay deal. It would appear that it may be a Swire objective to have a “Group Travel” policy rather than separate travel policies for the different groups.
It should also be pointed out that almost all KA ground staff are actually CX employees. That is why they get CX staff travel based on their DOJ.
If Swire intend to have a “Group Travel” policy it should be assumed that the same deal will be offered to CX employees on KA flights. As has been pointed out by giggerty, 100 pilots of the current KA pilot group were employed by KA prior to 2001. On the other hand about 1200 of the current CX pilot group were employed by CX prior to 2001. The granting of priority 25 staff travel to KA pilots on CX flight may not have a huge effect to CX pilots but the granting of priority 25 staff travel to CX pilots on KA flights will have a huge effect on KA pilots trying to staff travel on their own flights. Now extrapolate that out if all CX staff get the same thing. This isn’t a win for KA pilots at all. It is quite frankly an attempt by management to polish a turd.