CoS 21

[Dragon Pacific]

:mad: . I’ve just had a quick read of CoS 21 for HKE, thought it was worth a new thread. Talk about race to the bottom.

[Shoebox]

Someone here a few weeks ago said their old mate at HKE was proud to be cheaper than us. :ugh:

[Ecam321]

It’s Bad.

Cpt. 3000+ hrs PIC. 57k basic + 22k allowance. Plus flight pay. That’s it !!!

When and if you fly 80hrs, it’s acceptable, ish. But during this time and when you go on leave for a couple of weeks, you get shafted.

[Dragon Pacific]

well, do tell? And don't be shy on the facts.. how bad is it?
I’ve got it on PDF but don’t know how to get that on here. Obviously worse than CoS 18

[Piet Lood]

That sounds pretty unacceptable.
So nobody will sign it right? ....
Right?

[Ecam321]

I predict a 100% sign up rate.

What else you gonna do to put food on the table ?

[volare_737]

For top captain at HKE flying 50 hours its 15K less than COS18 tier one Captain. At least on COS 18 you can move up to CPT 4 which gives you an extra 32K. So the difference between top Captain is 47K. And that's for 50 Hours. If you fly more the difference gets bigger and bigger. All one can really do is hang around, laugh about it and when the time comes move on !!!!

[Rie]

Don't forget the back end. From what I saw starting FO wage is 34K. How desperate are the Brazilians to stay in Hong Kong now?

[volare_737]

Yeah - Its ridiculous !!! I can't see how people can stay in Hong Kong on that money !!!

[Oddball77]

​​​​​​
Its a great package if you're Venezuelan.

[Rie]

Oddball, that 34k is 20k Basic and 14k Allowance for the first bracket FO. First bracket CA looks to be 50k + 22k = 72k.

AdB29, was just pointing out the Mafia. The affect will be felt by all even the Suidlanders :ok:

Danny has produced an article. Comments left there seemingly spot on about the Management struggle of 6-12 month 15% pay reduction. Hard times when your weekend Junk allowance is lost.

[Dan Winterland]

Someone here a few weeks ago said their old mate at HKE was proud to be cheaper than us.

Well, he should be even more proud. Idiot!

[Klimax]

Do you get a yearly a shoe allowance of 500hkd as well? Just like to know so that the dog can have food for a month.. What a low life company. Sad indeed.

[dabz]

CoS21 at HKEX... that's the new target for Cathay pilots... 😞

[lucille]

HKD$72K = c. USD$9.5K = $115K p.a. At 17% tax rate, this will still be attractive to many, many pilots. Cost of living in HK is multi tiered. It’s not impossible to live on that salary.

OK, so it won’t get you a 3500 sq ft pad in Shouson Hill, nor the requisite Ferrari or 911 GT3 which were all formerly the de rigueur accoutrements of every self respecting A scaler (and more than a few upwardly mobile B’s).

But it’s still a living wage. And in an industry which is decimated everywhere that’s the very best anyone can hope for right now. Pointless getting wrapped around the axle over it.

[cabbages]

Maybe the AoA could open up a food bank to help out the HKE co-pilots who will now be earning less than half of what Lucille would describe as a ‘living wage’. I hope none of those poor fookers have school age kids to feed.

[Sam Ting Wong]

Supply and demand

[mngmt mole]

Lucille. To suggest that is a living wage is to confirm you have no idea of what an expat requires (particularly one with a family). I say an "expat" deliberately. If the airline wishes to go completely "local" then they may just get enough people desperate enough to accept that salary. Any expat with the thinnest ideas of actually supporting themselves and their families while living in HK would never be able to properly live on that salary. Fact.

[stevieboy330]

Get out

[Sam Ting Wong]

Agree with mngmt, it is a package aimed at locals/ single expats,plus right now everybody else with no alternatives. I suppose they have the data to justify it, they know the demographics from that huge pile of applications on their desk. Safety is not a helpful argument, locals are just as safe operators as expats.

[From a distance]

A lot of other airlines will have the same applications with their HR departments at the moment. When things change and eventually they will, experience will follow the money or at least places offering a reasonable lifestyle/family balance.
What is then left are the applications nobody is fighting over.
The two words mentioned above are prescient.

[Sam Ting Wong]

I hope you are right and other airlines will put pressure on that package, but I doubt it.
Plus not all airlines are available for certain passport holders

It's over, pilot is now officially a middle-low income profession, for good.
.

[The FUB]

A preview of POS23

[Farman Biplane]

HKE COS21 allows Greater Bay Airlines to reduce their pilot expenses by matching it. Well done CX, own goal there!

[MENELAUS]

No they won’t match it. They’ll just pitch it slightly above.

[doolay]

On the bright side, at least we will know what our POS will look like after it has been 'varied and amended from time to time.' :yuk:

[volare_737]

Yes - Above is just the basic salary. Once they start flying again there is extra pay from the first hour. 70 hours a months is about 50000 HKD extra. So basically ones flying again the whole package reduced by about 12 percent for the top captain. Fo's might be a bit different. The problem is they are not flying now so the reduction is more like 40 percent as the guaranteed 50 hours is gone plus a reduction in the basic.

[Ecam321]

Even when flying does start, when you go on leave or get sick, your back to this unsustainable basic salary.

[volare_737]

True - and you still have to deduct Tax from that !!!!

[Flex88]

UberCX - paid by the hour (maybe) :ok:

[AllWobbly]

Sam Ting Wong

Highly unlikely the last lcc that offered 18k a year in the UK was swamped with 320 qualified crews applying

[AllWobbly]

btw staff in the rice noodle restaurant I frequent in tst earn 18k a month. Best bit is no simulator or medical and the food is better than CX/HKE

[Avinthenews]

Sim instructing must be the best gig in town now.

[The100thmeridian]

Not locals (or anybody else for that matter) who will be struggling to keep their marriage, ensure a better education other than the incoming national education for their children, increased financial stresses and coupled depression, struggle to get preflight and postflight rest in much more compressed living conditions and the huge detriment to income if they are not able to operate in all manors of mental and physical states. Nobody except for a few in 2018-19 signed up for this, and bar a psychopathic ladder climber, forcing a person to sign something with a gun held to their temple is nothing to be proud of.

The 'living' wage takes on a whole new meaning with safety ramifications that were clearly not factored into any of these cuts. A highly safety-sensitive job where massive financial penalties for missing certain duties whether UF or changes to the opaque roster is shocking, to say the least, and thus the higher likelihood of a major accident/incident /reduction in reporting is a very reasonable expectation.

Just like some political parties, the experiment has previously been run and the results were less than optimal. The decision-makers have not experienced your job for a second and other than a spreadsheet they are wholly unqualified to form opinions on your profession. Sadly a spreadsheet and insurance statistics are all that matter now.

The news of higher up's taking menial pay cuts for a rather short time provides the smoking gun evidence that either the CX Group is not in any imminent danger of collapse after receiving 27b in your tax dollars - increased to a total 39b bailout- with their silent new government investors or it's rapidly nearing the edge of a precipice and they want to fatten the top at the expense of putting the bottom on life support (pun and run-on sentence intended).

I believe what has happened, and the extent to which it did, is unwarranted and you all deserve better protections and respect than this.

While many were voicing their opinions on the inept CX Groups' slow response to the pandemic they have actually been busy since March bubbling up a toxic brew from an old recipe specifically crafted to hinder you and reward them. How ya like them apples!... Only time will tell how successful it was.

It's now time for you to take a page from their cookbook. Do your job and nothing more. Be proud and professional. Make your plan. Be smart. Get your research and networking going. Update your CV and get your life into a position where you can act as soon as the opportunity presents itself because it will! Most importantly, don't be afraid to take a measured risk because good things only come through change.

The safety and aircrew culture at many other airlines will be benefiting at the expense of CX in 12-24 months. ;)

[kahaha]

Expect HKE to be recruiting to cover the ex ka NEOs whenever they arrive.

I remember being rostered $50000 overtime in KA and being pis$ed off for not being called off that last standby to make it 70k.How covid has being managements dream .

Are ex senior KA pilots going to be prioritised for hke Captain recruitment, training positions and maybe a few rated FOs?

[Chunks]

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/933x363/smartselect_20201118_053735_photos_c9cd788e853e054941977c454 1e5d18e8360d23b.jpg

[Pickuptruck]

Another sad pilot trying to justify the T &C of the past in today’s world. Since the 1990s there has been a gradual decline in pay across the board, blame the LCC, blame the travelling public, whatever.

The HKE CN package is $128k a month for 70 hrs, can someone put up an Aussie LCC or European LCC for comparison? I looked at the Norwegian package for the 787 a couple of years ago and it was ugly. Way worse than what HKE is paying for a A320 skipper. In this neck of the woods the HKE package is better than the Vietnam airlines or Cebu contract jobs.

Or better still pull apart a 2020 China contract. The days of big money while doing nothing are sadly over. You get paid when you work.

Go back to Microsoft flight sim in mommy’s basement or put up a 70 hrs a month package that’s better. As a contract pilot I’d be happy to see it.

[mngmt mole]

Pickuptruck

Your last line defines all that is wrong with our industry, and why it has reached this point. You say "as a contract pilot i'd be happy to see it". Well, CX was never a contract airline, but now that the management have realised that people like you are willing to work for minimal wage, now we are all "contract" airlines in HK. The reality is that $128K a month is only possible with an exhausting month of work, and that isn't sustainable in the long run (and especially not over a career). Further, when you take into account all the financial concerns of an expat, that $128K (especially in HK) will barely keep pace with the ongoing needs of life, and aging. You however seem to be accepting of such a package. Your life will reflect that perspective.

[GMEDX]

Frank W. Abagnale

That is because it is a generic Cos 21 to be applied to all group airlines. Next step will be to freely move pilots between the three airlines as and when and where required.

[Rie]

No it isn't. Both HKE and HKA have always had SO payscales. It was for an HNA program of bringing in local cadets which I am not sure saw the light of day. I am guessing it is kept there incase cadets ever make their way in.

[Farman Biplane]

I think you will find that the SO scale is there because CX will dictate that SO's be in the RHS as per previous KA ops.
The people making these decisions are not pilots, they will demand that if KA could do it incident free then CX/HKE should be able to do it.
This is the new paradigm, get with the program, or get "off boarded", there are plenty of out of work pilots to replace you.

[GMEDX]

Rie

That may be so but it still smacks of being a generic pay scale for Group airlines. And of course as stated there is no reason why the RHS pilot shouldn’t be a SO; no need to pay them too much.

[0ztranaut]

I can’t see that. CX always needs a lower scale to aim for and how will they be able to divide and conquer if everyone is equal? Cos21 will be the next target for CX crew and when the next opportunity arises HKE will go lower still.

[lucille]

Pzickuptruck

A brutal way to put it. Here’s hoping you didn’t intend to be unkind.

Nevertheless, you made a couple of valid points. The profession has, for want of a better phrase, been increasingly dumbed down or de skilled over the past two decades. This is a direct result of the advances in technology in aircraft automation and positioning and also in ground support systems all of which combine to reduce the need for the wide range of skills required in the bad old days.

For the safety of the travelling public this is a good thing.For the profession to stand up and say they’re worth more money because they have some arcane skills this is not so good.

Aircraft manufacturers sell their product as being simple to operate and requiring minimal training or prior experience. Looking at airlines around the region, you’d have to say they have succeeded. Admittedly, the 737-Max demonstrated a flaw in that paradigm but that’s all water under the bridge now.

Can you blame management for thinking why pay the big bucks for an enhanced skill set when it isn’t necessary in today’s environment?

[SaulGoodman]

Pickuptruck, sorry to say but you are an idiot. Why would you compare with Norwegian, the lowest paid LH pilots in (Western) Europe. If this pandemic has proven anything, it is that you are much more likely to keep your job (and decent T&C’s) if you are in a unionized legacy then if you are in a loco. As a contractor you will always be the first one to go. And righteously so.

[Kitsune]

‘Righteously’.... as others have said, like rats in a sack.

[Gnadenburg]

KA pilots often had their projected hours decimated by China delays. A 3-3 pattern worth 10 hours + would often turn into a 1-1 PVG pattern with two high duty time days. The contract offered some protection with Hourly Duty Pay or a a flying hour credit of half your duty. Even with these additions to the contract that don't seem to be in the COS21, 320 pilots would gripe.

So whoever takes over the China flying could be in for surprises exceeding the joys of the franchised mainland Holiday Inns' you'll be staying in.

MFF 321/330/350 will be hard work even for the talented at CX. A similar proposal unanimously voted down by the DPA on safety grounds ( back in the day pilots had a say ).

[Hugo Peroni the V]

just to spread more joy to the fold; it’ll only be 330/320 and not 330/350/320 (tel:330/350/320)

[Farman Biplane]

I believe CX are intending to leverage the huge success of their “in-house EFB tablet” and begin to work on the worlds first and best MFF/CCQ of 777/320.

[Hugo Peroni the V]

Obviously that’s coming. Why not take the opportunity to waste more money on management folly.

Haven’t the troops been suggesting Jeppesen for about a decade?

[Flex88]

Pickuptruck

Pickuptruck's motto; Times are tough, how far would you like me to bend over ?? These types are the death sign of any profession.. One should pray his mental poison doesn't spread to the Dental profession 🧐

[Flex88]

Farman Biplane

Im glad I'm not the only one who has a real grasp of the buffoons that are CX Management.. Thanx for watching as I do FB 👍🏼

[wongsuzie]

tell that to the airline management of Asiana Airlines flight 214... your case is invalid
They don't care. The risk is already factored in. And insurance premium paid. To them its worth it as planes are not falling out of the sky.