2023 SQ Profit Sharing Bonus 6.65 months

[Dragon_Delight]

2023 SQ Profit Sharing Bonus 6.65 months
What about our flag carrier of Hong Kong - Cathay?
Let me guess… HKD$2,000? :ok:

[LootedfromCPA]

Meanwhile senior management has their salaries raised by almost 50%

[buggaluggs]

Five months salary, capped at 3000HKD……. ;-)

[Babyjet_dododo]

2023 SQ Profit Sharing Bonus 6.65 months
What about our flag carrier of Hong Kong - Cathay?
Let me guess… HKD$2,000? :ok:

Be a bit more generous, it’s Monthly Salary or $2,500 HKD, which ever is lower

[arse]

I do wonder what Cathay management is thinking when Emirates and Singapore announce record profits while CX is missing out on so many revenue opportunities because of their short sighted opportunism.

[corporal klinger]

The Hong Kong government had much longer and stricter Covid restrictions compared to the Emirates and Singapore. Cathay wasn't allowed to restart their business earlier. Since it was also unknown at what time they could restart it was not possible to hit the ground running either, keeping personel and aurcraft on standby would have been a financial desaster. Additionally, it is not possible to restart canceled routes immediately.

[Progress Wanchai]

Precisely.

The very reason EK/SQ are making record profits is because they are feasting on the covid ravaged carcass of CX. The greater their profits the greater the damage that has been done to CX.

Sure, market forces suggest CX needs to address employee retention with greater financial incentives. It’s quite the quandary that the cash strapped company finds itself in.

[Dingleberry Handpump]

The Hong Kong government had much longer and stricter Covid restrictions compared to the Emirates and Singapore. Cathay wasn't allowed to restart their business earlier. Since it was also unknown at what time they could restart it was not possible to hit the ground running either, keeping personel and aurcraft on standby would have been a financial desaster. Additionally, it is not possible to restart canceled routes immediately.

they planned to retain nigh on all of their pilots, but well over 1000 left, because of CX’s opportunistic land grab from them.

If they kept their staff on side, they would have already bounced back. Delayed slightly due to HK restrictions, but hugely better off than where they currently find themselves. Just look at the demand.

PW is right. Other airlines are feasting. Look at the figures. A once big player has been all but removed from the game due to their own leadership decisions, and everyone else is cleaning up as a result.

[Dingleberry Handpump]

Precisely.

The very reason EK/SQ are making record profits is because they are feasting on the covid ravaged carcass of CX. The greater their profits the greater the damage that has been done to CX.

Sure, market forces suggest CX needs to address employee retention with greater financial incentives. It’s quite the quandary that the cash strapped company finds itself in.
I would say that it’s only a quandary because it’s water under the bridge, and the window to bounce back and capitalise on pent-up demand has been closed.

The relative pocket change to retain front line staff hides in a small, dark corner of the shadow of missed opportunity.

[mngmt mole]

The relative success of SQ and EK stands as a damning contrast to CX and HK. CX have lost any goodwill their staff once held, and it will be a slog to return to even a fraction of what the airline once was. For every pilot joining, two are planning on leaving, three are leaving. The only thing the management excel at are intimidation and lining their own pockets at the expense of the staff who actually do the real work.

[VforVENDETTA]

Cathay made an extreme bet on what it could get away with using what they falsely saw as an upportunity to do what they were doing gradually but to do it all in one shot. Cutting pilots' pay & benefits in half. It was being gradually implemented via cos 18 offered to newhires starting a few years before covid. Cancelling all standing contracts and losing any credibility they might have had as an employer permanently was a very foolish move for which they'll have to pay for dearly for as long as cathay exists, if it does.

Emirates did a similar thing and they're paying for it with this bonus. At least attempting to.

The central core character of cathay has always been the colonial character. Their attitude, behavior and very importantly the language they use to talk to their staff are clear and very overt displays of disdain and disregard embedded in how they have always viewed cathay staff. To this day they can't even begin to change at least the outright displays of their colonial disdainful attitude in not even thei language they use to address their staff. Let alone the realization of the plainly visible fact that they have to pay for what they've done. But this would be an admission of mistake. This is what colonials never do not matter what. They will ride the sinking ship under water rather than being seen as admitting mistakes to save it.

[main_dog]

For whatever it’s worth, the last few posters have absolutely nailed it.

[corporal klinger]

Imagine a shop with in your opinion unattractive overpriced merchandise.
Would you rather not shop there or stand outside in front of the shop for years and protest against the offerings of the shop? Because the latter is what a lot in here basically do.

To my knowledge, Cathay never forced anyone to join nor to stay. And if as Vendetta claims Cathay has always been "colonial", why did he make the decision to join in the first place? And if EK or SQ are so great, why not just join them and live the dream?

[Will IB Fayed]

And if EK or SQ are so great, why not just join them and live the dream?
Because they all hang on to the misguided hope of, "if more of my collegues leave, then surely they'll improved the package"

[gipilot]

I do wonder what Cathay management is thinking when Emirates and Singapore announce record profits while CX is missing out on so many revenue opportunities because of their short sighted opportunism.
Well, very easy. They have their bonus guaranteed. They made a loss so no need to compensate workers and less taxes, so for the management it's a win-win.

And as far as lack of pilots there will always be people that will fly for food so I'm pretty sure that's the least of their concerns. Talent acquisition claims that they've got oceans of applications, too much to handle.

[Babyjet_dododo]

Imagine a shop with in your opinion unattractive overpriced merchandise.
Would you rather not shop there or stand outside in front of the shop for years and protest against the offerings of the shop? Because the latter is what a lot in here basically do.

To my knowledge, Cathay never forced anyone to join nor to stay. And if as Vendetta claims Cathay has always been "colonial", why did he make the decision to join in the first place? And if EK or SQ are so great, why not just join them and live the dream?

Okay, let’s imagine that this is the only shop that was open during Covid and is selling essential goods at an inflated price 50-70% and all the other shops were closed.

Then when all the other shops begin to open, a majority (and I mean a lot!) have gone to buy at other shops. The aforementioned shop is refusing to accept hiking up the prices was wrong and decides to save face and to continue maximising profit, they would buy inferior products to replace all the great products they had.

Don’t you worry, there are boundless CX pilots out there waiting for start dates with other carriers, be QR, EK, SQ, QF, UA etc…. Each are taking CX Crew. Q3-Q4 of this year will see another exodus, keep an eye on the lowest seniority guys and see how quickly they’ll climb that list.

Just wait till they raise the Min Productivity to the point where everyone will be on base wage. The company will pat itself on the back again for saving shareholders a unnecessary expense. Also don’t forget the US tax, this “goodwill” can be removed at anytime! Another saving to the shareholders!

[corporal klinger]

I don't understand why you are trying to convince others how bad CX is or will be in the future. If you believe that yourself than the only reasonal option is to leave.

So if you actually did leave it begs the question why you still go on about it. As I said, you are standing in front of a shop protesting without the intention to buy anything anyway. What's the point?

If you did not leave you invalidate your own line of arguments. I could not take you seriously anymore, with all respect.

And back to the shop, CX had to close the shop because of their insane government forced them to. While they were closed they only required a bare minimum of staff, so they used the imbalance between staff looking for a job and scarcity of positions to offer less money. Brutal, but from a business point of view reasonable. Other shops could open way earlier, and hence acquire new merchandise, hire/ train staff back and promote their product.Time will tell if Cx will have to raise salary again in order to have enough staff. I am sceptical, but would be great of course.


Reopening routes takes time, pilots are just one mosaic piece. You need to rehire local staff, promote the reopening, arrange maintenance, bring the ac out of storage, undust it and apply for slots, traffic rights and negotiate fuel and local engineering. What you are asking for is much much more than keeping thousands of pilots on indefinite standby at full wage ( that alone would have been suicide), you are asking for the entire ops to just sit there for years ready to go anytime. It's completely unrealistic. EK and SQ, all the American airlines etc are not better managed, they are just lucky to be based in countries with shorter Covid restrictions.

I

[LootedfromCPA]

Imagine a shop with in your opinion unattractive overpriced merchandise.
Would you rather not shop there or stand outside in front of the shop for years and protest against the offerings of the shop? Because the latter is what a lot in here basically do.

To my knowledge, Cathay never forced anyone to join nor to stay. And if as Vendetta claims Cathay has always been "colonial", why did he make the decision to join in the first place? And if EK or SQ are so great, why not just join them and live the dream?
They did force ALL the pilots to sign COS18 around 2 years ago. Please tell me they have never "forced" anyone to stay on these poor conditions when times were desperate.

[Ledi43]

How much us the basic salary for an FO/Cpt at SQ?

[Oasis]

To be quite honest, Cos 18 was coming, with or without Covid. I remember managers having thoughts about adjusting the pay far ahead of Covid.
They expected some attrition no doubt, but this coupled with the Covid restriction and inability of crew to see family overseas and the inflexible approach of the company in many cases, the attrition was way higher.

Having committed to Cos-18 already, CX was unable to relent and keep the crew.

Where CX really went wrong was the punitive reserve rostering all over the place and inability to secure more unpaid leave, when it was clear that no crew was needed. They really did not seem to care or be flexible.
Understandable, as the company was in distress. They could not see the long view, only what was right ahead of them.

It take a certain type of pilot to want to move to Asia to practice this profession, and there is a limited amount in this world. By forcing so many to leave, there is an even more limited set of experienced crew available to replace them, end most of who left, won't come back.

This leaves two options for CX:

- recover at the rate of a slow influx of pilots and/or training capacity
- throw money at the problem

[Babyjet_dododo]

I don't understand why you are trying to convince others how bad CX is or will be in the future. If you believe that yourself than the only reasonal option is to leave.

So if you actually did leave it begs the question why you still go on about it. As I said, you are standing in front of a shop protesting without the intention to buy anything anyway. What's the point?

If you did not leave you invalidate your own line of arguments. I could not take you seriously anymore, with all respect.

And back to the shop, CX had to close the shop because of their insane government forced them to. While they were closed they only required a bare minimum of staff, so they used the imbalance between staff looking for a job and scarcity of positions to offer less money. Brutal, but from a business point of view reasonable. Other shops could open way earlier, and hence acquire new merchandise, hire/ train staff back and promote their product.Time will tell if Cx will have to raise salary again in order to have enough staff. I am sceptical, but would be great of course.


Reopening routes takes time, pilots are just one mosaic piece. You need to rehire local staff, promote the reopening, arrange maintenance, bring the ac out of storage, undust it and apply for slots, traffic rights and negotiate fuel and local engineering. What you are asking for is much much more than keeping thousands of pilots on indefinite standby at full wage ( that alone would have been suicide), you are asking for the entire ops to just sit there for years ready to go anytime. It's completely unrealistic. EK and SQ, all the American airlines etc are not better managed, they are just lucky to be based in countries with shorter Covid restrictions.

I

Ha! You just proved that you don’t understand how the airline industry works from a business perspective.

Cathay is very “risk averse” and like to sit on their hands and wait. The fact it takes them 3 years to put a route in place compared to other major players that can start a route in 6 months.

CX hands down is very mis-managed (Fuel hedging - Apple contract - Price fixing, etc….).

Have you ever been in a meeting with Flight ops and Planning? If you have, you would note that the major obstacle they’re trying to overcome is the lack of crew (both flight and cabin crew), engineering, over fly rights etc can be sorted in a matter of months. You’re right crew are a piece of the puzzle, but the piece holds its weight a lot more than others.

it doesn’t matter if I’m with CX or not, I know how this company is haphazardly managed and mistakes always flow to front line staff and management walk away with bonuses.

When Covid hit, the company, in a heart felt plea asked staff to take unpaid leave (SLS) on multiple occasions, to help the company, they make personal, then when they did the whole “sign or be fired”, it’s just business.

Most companies that have strong Staff retention, show mutual respect for each of their staff member.

CX went from being regarded as a world class airline to being the equivalent of VietJet but with Catering.

[corporal klinger]

So, to summarize, Cathay has the worst management, a colonial attitude towards it's staff and does not pay well. Naturally, you decided to work for them.

[freightdoggiedog]

Pretty much, except I think most of us here decided to work for them before they decided to not pay well :}

[pill]

And that right there is the kicker. This is not what a lot of us signed up for. Stuck by financial responsibilities and seniority. Watching management spend a dollar picking peanuts out of poo instead of buying a packet of nuts for 20 cents. As the seniority list marches back to 2400 and the profit share is jiggered to always be zero.

[Babyjet_dododo]

So, to summarize, Cathay has the worst management, a colonial attitude towards it's staff and does not pay well. Naturally, you decided to work for them.

I was working under a different contract, Not a handbook. I didn’t ask for COS18, I was very happy with my old contract. Whether I moved on or not is irrelevant to this discussion. But it’s in the best interests of people applying to have an idea of what they’re getting themselves into.

[corporal klinger]

I was working under a different contract, Not a handbook. I didn’t ask for COS18, I was very happy with my old contract. Whether I moved on or not is irrelevant to this discussion. But it’s in the best interests of people applying to have an idea of what they’re getting themselves into.

I don't find it irrelevant at all if you are still at Cathay. Quite the opposite actually.

Your claim Cathay is much slower than other airlines to return to pre-pandemic levels is questionnable. EK not before Summer 2024, as an example.If you take into account that EK could restart earlier, this would give Cathay until 2025 to be at same rate.

https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/airlines-lessors/emirates-needs-all-its-a380s-reach-pre-pandemic-level-service-clark

[joblow]

Corporal Klinger is clearly management , trying very hard to justify the decisions made to cut salaries and benefits .
cathay used to have a huge amount of goodwill amongst the crew both cockpit and cabin . That’s long gone . The short sighted attitude of management that if you shake a tree hundreds of pilots will fall out no longer holds true .
In the past I used to look for ways of shaving a few minutes off the flight time . It took some effort , now I just couldn’t be bothered . It doesn’t sound like much , but multiply that by hundreds of flights per day it soon mounts up .
P.s. some excellent posts on this page

[Dingleberry Handpump]

I don't find it irrelevant at all if you are still at Cathay. Quite the opposite actually.

Your claim Cathay is much slower than other airlines to return to pre-pandemic levels is questionnable. EK not before Summer 2024, as an example.If you take into account that EK could restart earlier, this would give Cathay until 2025 to be at same rate.

https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/airlines-lessors/emirates-needs-all-its-a380s-reach-pre-pandemic-level-service-clark
By your logic, then, CX ought to make record profits this year. The difference is that since the recovery began, and restoring full pre-covid capacity, EK has managed to blast out record breaking profits and CX is wallowing around. It’s a flailing wreck. It is hated by every member of staff and by the locals alike.

EK’s profit margin was 9.9%. It’s no secret that they are short of crew, despite paying pilots more than they did pre-covid, and a contract that wipes the floor with CX on every single metric.

Will CX achieve a 9.9% margin this year? No, of course not. They never came close to that in the many years I was there.

The fact is that just like post SARS, there is a window of huge pent-up demand. CX has been unable to capitalise on it, unlike SQ/EK etc. the reason for this is because of an acute shortage of frontline staff. The reason for that is (for pilots) the imposition of COS18.

Airlines restored pay and brought back their crew (or the crew they wanted), and are able to recruit. CX can’t get their departed crew back, and the only ones they can find are local cadets, who will be SOs in 18 months time. I’m no manager, but looking at the experience/rank demographic of those who left, are they being replaced with like for like capability?

The opportunity cost will be several billion.

They deserve everything they (don’t) get.

[Babyjet_dododo]

I don't find it irrelevant at all if you are still at Cathay. Quite the opposite actually.

Your claim Cathay is much slower than other airlines to return to pre-pandemic levels is questionnable. EK not before Summer 2024, as an example.If you take into account that EK could restart earlier, this would give Cathay until 2025 to be at same rate.

https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/airlines-lessors/emirates-needs-all-its-a380s-reach-pre-pandemic-level-service-clark

The front line staff at CX went through a very dark period over the 3 years the government was playing the covid card.

Most restrictions placed on crew were ideas of management, enacted into law by the THB, they sold your rights and everyone else’s rights to keep operations running.

Also don’t forget, we were told that if we left any luggage in the bag room at dispatch, it’ll get thrown away! But now conveniently we can leave it there as long as we pay for it!

I’m glad you love CX, but they will do the same again in a heartbeat! There is no other airline in the world that did that.

[VforVENDETTA]

We all joined cathay as mercenaries. It was always a ****hole company to work for. But they paid well enough, provided well enough benefits and most importantly had a good enough contract to attract us all. They used the contents of the contracts, specifically certain provisions of it to entice us to join. How you could calculate your career-long earnings, how "last in-first out" meant your chances of losing your job in times of strain would be reduced thus your loyalty and longevity rewarded.

When they cut our pay & benefits in half, we didnt have our jobs anymore, we then had only half of our jobs. Not temporarily, but permanently.

Imagine if cathay had somehow not lost almost half of its pilots in 2.5 years and could now be matching the record profits EK & SQ are raking in, with the cathay pilots now making half as much. How convenient would that have been? That's what cathay managers had dreamt of with their bet. How delusional could they have been? They treated their employees with harsh disloyalty and the result is biting them in the a$$. They can't attract employees at any level, even the non-skilled short term classifications such as ramp workers.

They should have laid off a certain percentage they couldn't use and didn't want to pay for sitting at home, like every other respectful airline does, with the express promise of returning to work once things pick back up. If pay & benefits cuts were absolutely needed, they should have been made clear to be temporary until the crisis passes. It's not just what they did, it's how they did it. Never engaging us via our collective representation union or otherwise about any of it. One morning they told us via email our contracts are canceled and sign this new thing (which isn't a contract by any stretch of imagination) or you're fired in 2 weeks. Utter disregard with a big middle finger.

Thus they flushed down the toilet permanently all of those important factors they had used over the years to lure us mercenaries to work for them. None of us grew up dreaming of flying for cathay pacific of hong kong one day, none. We came for the money, and the contracts they so intently held up in front of us pointing to its shiny provisions.

Back then they knew correctly they wouldn't be able to attract unless they offered the compensation package they offered us. Somehow they placed a giant bet they could now somehow attract/retain the pilots they need without that compensation package. Well that bet has proven a bad bet in a bad way. Even if they would have been to replace every one of those almost 2000 pilots who have left with new ones 1 for 1, imagine the training cost. Not that cathay has the training capacity to train much more than a couple of hundred off the street pilots a year anyway. It never had. There is a need for a considerably larger training department with its astronomically higher cost. What they have done is costing cathay considerably more than keeping all those pilots on payroll until now. But like I said, their colonial low character won't allow them to ever admit a mistake, by even attempting to correct it.

Now having lost any credibility as an employer they're reaping what they've sown.

A lot of us who have left cathay are here to warn others.
A lot of them don't realize that cathay is hiring them under "NO CONTRACT". Only a loose document amendable at anytime in any way at sole discretion of the company. Everything cathay is telling them in the process of hiring them is a lie. What money theyll get paid, how much their housing cost & conditions will be, what aircraft fleet they'll be on, upgrade times, etc.

If we don't put on display here what a toxic employer cathay is, where else would prospective newhires get the truth? From cathay itself? Laughable.

Cathay is a sinking ship with incompetent & unscrupulous management at the helm. Act accordingly.

[RAT Management]

But you can fill in the people engagement survey! And tell them what needs changing. But, as the CP of Airbus says in his news letter "WHY BOTHER?" Because we all know what the result will be................NOTHING!

[corporal klinger]

By your logic, then, CX ought to make record profits this year. ....
Will CX achieve a 9.9% margin this year? No, of course not. They never came close to that in the many years I was there.


https://m.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/CATHAY-PACIFIC-AIRWAYS-LI-1412641/financials/

The estimated operating margin for 2023 is 9.19% based on 8.1 B profit estimate. ( some analysts upgraded profit est to 8.7).

I believe indeed we will see high profit years, especially with HKIA expansion, and only if Xi doesn't invade or siege Taiwan. I don't believe we will see any profit share numbers comparable to EK though.

[Babyjet_dododo]

But you can fill in the people engagement survey! And tell them what needs changing. But, as the CP of Airbus says in his news letter "WHY BOTHER?" Because we all know what the result will be................NOTHING!

We’ll tell them how we feel about the company, then all of a sudden, they turn around and defend why the scores are so low and how it’s not going to change anything. It just never ends with these pigeons!

[RAT Management]

We’ll tell them how we feel about the company, then all of a sudden, they turn around and defend why the scores are so low and how it’s not going to change anything. It just never ends with these pigeons!
The sole aim of this survey is to get more people to engage or fill in the survey. As for actually doing anything, past history shows that they will do absolutely nothing. There's nothing b in their current management practice that will show they will do anything else. But if they can get more to fill in the survey then it will look good for their data and show they are engaging more with staff. The worst thing for the managers will be to have even less staff than before fill in the stupid survey. That will send the biggest message of all. A staff that doesn't give a hoot any more!

[main_dog]

Correct. No response is worse than a negative response from the HR point of view, as responding (even angrily) is viewed as the employee still being “engaged”.

[Kitsune]

The poor bloody Swine family has dropped from 13th to 18th on the Sunday Times Rich list this year. I hope you rapacious pilots are happy… 🥳🥳

[Dingleberry Handpump]

https://m.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/CATHAY-PACIFIC-AIRWAYS-LI-1412641/financials/

The estimated operating margin for 2023 is 9.19% based on 8.1 B profit estimate. ( some analysts upgraded profit est to 8.7).

I believe indeed we will see high profit years, especially with HKIA expansion, and only if Xi doesn't invade or siege Taiwan. I don't believe we will see any profit share numbers comparable to EK though.

And you do realise that these predictions are based on the predictions made by the board, yes?

The same capacity predictions that have been wildly off-mark through each stage of the non-recovery?

[joblow]

We all joined cathay as mercenaries. It was always a ****hole company to work for. But they paid well enough, provided well enough benefits and most importantly had a good enough contract to attract us all. They used the contents of the contracts, specifically certain provisions of it to entice us to join. How you could calculate your career-long earnings, how "last in-first out" meant your chances of losing your job in times of strain would be reduced thus your loyalty and longevity rewarded.

.

Excellent post from VforVendetta great summation of the current situation . Many years ago pilots were falling over each other to join Cathay not so much any longer.
It was a great company to work for when I first joined , there was respect and loyalty that went both ways , sadly that respect and loyalty has been replaced by resentment and indifference

[corporal klinger]

And you do realise that these predictions are based on the predictions made by the board, yes?

The same capacity predictions that have been wildly off-mark through each stage of the non-recovery?

That is incorrect, the estimates are not made by Cathay but by external financial analysists. Look at this summary comprised of 11 different individuals / finance entities. Please don't see my statements as praise for management, this is simply the current forecast. All those who see Cathay never recovering will be proven wrong, like it or not.

https://money.cnn.com/quote/forecast/forecast.html?symb=CPCAY


Joblow, there are 49 reasons why your statement of mutual respect back when you joined is wrong. You and everybody else knew what kind of environment Cathay and Hong Kong was when you joined. It was the same beast, just more lucrative.

Vendetta, you said it yourself, it was always a sh. You just hoped it would pay of for yourself, like the rest of us. In my opinion this should prevent us from making moral judgements today, you live by the sword, you might die by the sword..

[Progress Wanchai]

Some of the responses on here are truly comical.

It’s not what you signed up for? CX had a huge amount of goodwill amongst the crew? Morale is low? They’ve lost credibility as an employer? It was a great company to work for? I’d be happy if they just gave me back COS08?
What drugs are you all on?

Did you not witness what management did to the A scalers, the super B scalers, the ‘99 sign or be fired, the 49ers, the Adelaide instructors, the Paris based crew? And that’s just the pilots. Have a chat to old timers from engineering, from ISD, from ground staff. Did you think that your hat and white shirt gave you special privileges? Or because C scale was a lesser package than B scale then your package was safe? The one thing management have been consistent with over the decades has been their treatment of staff and disregard for contracts.

We’ve been in and out of industrial action for 30 years with this archaic management. Contract Compliance. Maximum Safety Strategy. Training Ban. Sick outs. Infinite court cases. Then repeat every 5 years.

Where is this former credibility and goodwill you speak of?

Remember leading up to COS18 you’d been in industrial action for 4 years. In the nearly 3 years since COS18 you’ve done precisely nothing. Yet somehow this is reflective of deteriorating goodwill and morale. Are management aware of this? Are you beating your chest that hard it hurts? Are you whinging at the very highest octave? Are you writing sentences on yammer only using uppercase?
It only takes two members to form a strike motion. A contract compliance motion. A training ban motion. One member to organise a golf WhatsApp group. When you’re asking how we’ve got ourselves into this position and how we’re going to get out of it then there’s no need to look
beyond the bathroom mirror.

You’d be happy if you were still on your old contract? Really? As a collective you voted down an improvement to COS08. Twice. Initially a 7% improvement then a 1% improvement with future adjustments tied to inflation. Since then inflation is up about 20%. So to have kept the same spending power you had in 2016 that you voted down you’d need COS08 plus 20%. And if you’re consistent you’d vote that down again as being not enough to have a quality of life in Hong Kong while saving for a life beyond work.

And you’d probably be right. So be honest with yourselves about where we’ve been, where we want to go, and how we’re going to get there.
We’d need to be on COS08 plus 20% to get us back to what was on the table 7 years ago, and even that would be questionably sufficient in todays environment.
You are only getting there with some serious industrial action including striking.

Are you ready to follow a General Committee that won’t sign its own letters into a strike? If not you’re only tinkering around the periphery of your problems. And chest beating. To be honest I think that’s all most of you are prepared to do.

[RAT Management]

Some of the responses on here are truly comical.

It’s not what you signed up for? CX had a huge amount of goodwill amongst the crew? Morale is low? They’ve lost credibility as an employer? It was a great company to work for? I’d be happy if they just gave me back COS08?
What drugs are you all on?

Did you not witness what management did to the A scalers, the super B scalers, the ‘99 sign or be fired, the 49ers, the Adelaide instructors, the Paris based crew? And that’s just the pilots. Have a chat to old timers from engineering, from ISD, from ground staff. Did you think that your hat and white shirt gave you special privileges? Or because C scale was a lesser package than B scale then your package was safe? The one thing management have been consistent with over the decades has been their treatment of staff and disregard for contracts.

We’ve been in and out of industrial action for 30 years with this archaic management. Contract Compliance. Maximum Safety Strategy. Training Ban. Sick outs. Infinite court cases. Then repeat every 5 years.

Where is this former credibility and goodwill you speak of?

Remember leading up to COS18 you’d been in industrial action for 4 years. In the nearly 3 years since COS18 you’ve done precisely nothing. Yet somehow this is reflective of deteriorating goodwill and morale. Are management aware of this? Are you beating your chest that hard it hurts? Are you whinging at the very highest octave? Are you writing sentences on yammer only using uppercase?
It only takes two members to form a strike motion. A contract compliance motion. A training ban motion. One member to organise a golf WhatsApp group. When you’re asking how we’ve got ourselves into this position and how we’re going to get out of it then there’s no need to look
beyond the bathroom mirror.

You’d be happy if you were still on your old contract? Really? As a collective you voted down an improvement to COS08. Twice. Initially a 7% improvement then a 1% improvement with future adjustments tied to inflation. Since then inflation is up about 20%. So to have kept the same spending power you had in 2016 that you voted down you’d need COS08 plus 20%. And if you’re consistent you’d vote that down again as being not enough to have a quality of life in Hong Kong while saving for a life beyond work.

And you’d probably be right. So be honest with yourselves about where we’ve been, where we want to go, and how we’re going to get there.
We’d need to be on COS08 plus 20% to get us back to what was on the table 7 years ago, and even that would be questionably sufficient in todays environment.
You are only getting there with some serious industrial action including striking.

Are you ready to follow a General Committee that won’t sign its own letters into a strike? If not you’re only tinkering around the periphery of your problems. And chest beating. To be honest I think that’s all most of you are prepared to do.
Amazing summation of what has happened to now and where we need to go. Fantastic post!