And I get told how fair it is. On what possible grounds could Dragonair staff justify asking for (and threatening tantrums over) receiving a higher boarding priority on (as someone else said) an airline they don't work for?
You haven't the facts and it's pretty grey in a lot of areas.
Out of the blue we were offered staff travel improvements including access to our own airline for ID freight and increased nominees.
And the back drop to all this is the AOA attitude, in whatever shape or form it was on the day, telling us to f%%$ off. A strategic blunder and the negligible demographic effects were made very clear to the AOA. And on reflection, considering the very high attrition of KA expatriate pilots in the contract compliance period up to and following CX's buy out of KA, some of your union leadership should be shot at dawn.
Not forgetting of course, the bellows from the B scale drinking holes from Staunton St to the DB Plaza that "It's a f#$@&%$ take-over , not a merger "- all the while KA staff were being re-positioned into the group with their DOJ at KA back to May 1985 for staff travel.
And what we have now is the "Cathay Staff Travel Scheme". Blamed by one dwindling expatriate group on another dwindling expatriate group.
And back to your original question. I was promised out of the blue, ID freight on CX and KA, and I'd positioned myself with a few rows of vines in Chianti and an organic market garden market in Ranau on the foothills of BKI to nourish the family, and was pretty upset at the broken promise and was happy to pursue the industrial option.