"Also, you don't hire direct entry pilots for zero growth."
KA does not need any more airframes to do more hours. KA A330s average less than 8 hours a day of flying, they do less flying on average than the A320 fleet.
KA could fly around 80 hours more a day with their current A330s to reach the same daily utilization as CX. That is equivalent to 12 HKG-SIN-HKG flights a day, or 720 nights of lost sleep a month for your crews if your crew started turning up to work when it is dark and going home before the first set of flights into China.....and that is with zero nett growth in airframes.
Why would anyone throw more airframes to KA when they cannot efficiently utilize what they have already ?
What is the business case ?
"when it's not known if their leases are being renewed (yet again) or are being returned"
Who said that, the Beijing refueller ?