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Death of Cathay

Old 6th Feb 2021, 06:30
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Death of Cathay

Death of cathay

Having made the cardinal mistake of squandering what little undeserved good will remained among it's pilots after many years of overt hostility and disregard shown to cathay pilots by it's extremely incompetent management group at all levels now when more than ever good will can make or break this not-an-airline entity which has been masquerading as an airline for many decades, good will is nowhere to be found. Outright hostility and disregard to cathay and it's fate is overwhelmingly present and on display by almost all. The number of rose colored glasses desperates are quickly dwindling too.

Instead of doing what every business organization does in times like these when it has lost a chunk of it's business, which is "RIGHT-SIZING" the work force to roughly match the amount of business remaining, they've done none of that with the pilot work force. After 9 months of paying majority of the pilots their salaries to stay at home not working at all, they've wrongly decided to cut the amount of money spent on pilot salaries by half, not by reducing the head count but by cutting everyone's pay by over 50%... permanently, without any attempt to discuss or negotiate, with the overt threat of dismissal and a mere 2 weeks to sign or be fired. Thinking wrongly that they could now keep the work force so when the business picks up they don't have to spend the cost of hiring and training newhires. Since we all know nobody would stay in hong kong (the most expensive city in the world to live in) without a paycheck while on layoff waiting to be recalled and having moved back to their home countries, not likely to spend the costs of moving again back to hk. Hence newhires. Even the cadets wouldn't come back having been released from their financial bond obligations since they could then take a job with any xyz express airline offering them some A320 FO position where they actually work as a pilot vs cx SO.

The hard learned lessons of how to handle a crisis like this which have been proven the hard way by others several times in the history od airline business has been lost on cathay management. Cathay being a so called airline run by a bunch of non-airline managers at all levels, has f-ed it up again.

Now more than ever they need the good will and sacrifice of the pilots (especially the pilots) and people aren't even listening. Everyone is in personal survival mode with no capacity left to give a sh!t about what management is asking or saying. Many are planning on how to deal with their fast approaching bankruptcies. Yes, many cathay pilots will be financially bankrupt soon if they can't find a job and leave ASAP. The mass exodus of cathay pilots will start in a major way as soon as the industry picks up and hiring starts again. There is nothing cathay can do at this point to stem the tide. No matter how much they raise the pay or benefits, nobody in the right mind will believe any of it. They've proven by legal precedence that the employment contract you sign with them (or any employment contract in hk for that matter) isn't worth the toilet paper you're signing it on. They could easily change it back on you in 6 months, a year or two or whenever they want in any way they want without your agreement or consent via putting the gun of dismissal to your head. And hong kong law is perfectly fine with that. You'd have to be mentally ill or extremely desperate to stay with cathay if any ****ty ass airline anywhere back home offers you a job. And we all know what kind of pilots mentally ill and desperate make.

Cathay Pacific's future pilot pool will have to be India, Philippines, Indonesia and similar. There's no way their tin can cadet program can supply the numbers they'll need.

Most likely they (swires) made this herendous miscalculation as part of a plan to sell and be out of here before 2 years and hence not caring what happens after that for the new owner (most likely Air China or similar). But this sh!t show will implode before that. Without employee good will and going the extra mile it can't last. Unfortunately for the mismanagement group, events are requiring more and more employee sacrifice and extra mile and good will, and there's nothing left. Cathay mis-management had no credibility for many years and now even less than that. A less charming, less competent, and less charismatic set of people couldn't have been at the top leadership positions at the worst possible time.

It's partly our own fault for allowing the over disregard and disrespect handed to us by this company to grow to this level from which there's no return. There's nothing they can or we can do now to reverse course. The death spiral began the moment cos18 was announced in late October. If you can jump with a parachute before impact, you'd be stupid not to. Some will jump even without a parachute as is the case in these situations.

The way to get respect and regard in the airline business is only one way and that's to hurt the company in the pocket book. This is a sad reality and many of you don't want to live in a world like this but truth and real history of this industry doesn't care about how you feel or what world you desire to live in. Our chance was when cc training ban etc could have made a real impact. When by refusing to take any directs or any fuel savings etc we could have made an impact. Yes you can cause a lot more impact by not striking and continuing to operate but doing your best to be inefficient. But it's all too late now. However what cathay pilots would not achieve due to lack of unity and ignorance of how pilots get better pay and benefits in this industry, cathay has managed to accomplish. I have never seen such a high level of inefficiency and lack of care in majority of our pilots than now. They're all doing all the things I mentioned above uniformly and without any organized or central agenda. Each and every individual is doing so partly because the more they cost in fuel and time the more money goes in their pockets and partly because they just don't give a sh!t anymore. And what's cathay going to do about it? Fire some so others fall in line? It's like executing some Crack addicts so the others stop using by fear. They won't even for one day. They'd have to execute all of them to stop it. For equally persistent reasons... financial survival in our case and also when bad will is earned it's damn near impossible to ever reverse it again.

This latest event of 14 day government hotel quarantine forced on the company by hk government is the perfect example of how keeping half the pilots on payroll but keeping them happy and at least hopeful for the time being would have been extremely helpful to cathay. Even now they don't realise where things are. These delusional mental midgets are offering to make it worth our personal health (mental & physical) by paying a daily amount less than one hour pay at our half paycut hourly pay rate... for each entire day of our lives wasted in a hotel room... JAILED... 14 days in a row, AFTER being on the road for 3 weeks also existing quarantined in either a hotel room, a van or an airplane! And they think this little measly amount is enough to buy our health., mental and physical. People are already breaking with the existing conditions. Good luck!

The death spiral is intensifying and there's nobody at the controls.

Last edited by VforVENDETTA; 12th Apr 2021 at 22:04.
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 09:25
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A good summary of these sad times at a once great airline.
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 09:26
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Wow I’ve never read such a deluded post before. If you are so unhappy why haven’t you just left already? It would do a lot of good for your mental health. People are grateful for still having jobs at the moment and will do anything to help the company survive and in doing so help preserve their jobs.

you have got to realise the harsh world outside of Cathay right now where hundreds of thousands of pilots are out of employment. Any job advertised is attracting over 20,000 applicants. There are NO jobs back in your home countries and there won’t be for years to come.

Just be grateful CX has kept you employed for so long with a pay check. No CX pilot is going bankrupt over this because even COS18 is substantially better than many other airline contracts. Five years down the track if you are unhappy with the contract maybe then you can leave but right now job preservation is most important.
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 10:12
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550 KA pilots made redundant, to me that's pretty heavy downsizing,
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 10:21
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That was a different airline. Separate operation. Cathay Pacific's own business has been slashed by a certain percentage and the workforce should have been adjusted at the same level. Before you say "but jobs saved..." This is a business after all, not a charity.

Half of the cathay's own pilot force has been redundantly idle at home collecting paychecks not having worked in almost a year. This is wasting money to the extreme. Who is stupid enough to own stock in a business that has at least half it's work force sitting at home not working and getting paid?! There's no limit to incompetentcy of cathay management. No thought has gone into how this would turn out. We've had several close calls by pilots who were so rusty after flying so little in months because there's not.even enough flying to go around to keep us in the game to be safe. Now they're implementing this new program about "core" so they can have a hope of keeping a certain percentage current enough to be safe to fly at the cost of grounding the rest officially. Are they that blind to not realize how this would turn out? We're lucky if there aren't accidents and incidents too big for this company to keep covering up before long.
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 11:22
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Just leave . Don't waste ur breathe complaining
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 12:52
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Nobo, enjoy your ‘me time’ in the East - you sycophant
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 12:54
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Same with the guy complaining on yammer about the onboard milk.
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 12:55
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No problem. I'll take your job. Gladly.
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 12:58
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And that’s the problem. There are so many people without jobs.. any job is good. And I don’t blame people for thinking that.
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 13:41
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VforVENDETTA,

The clue is in your very first sentence “Undeserved goodwill”. Why on earth have you shown management any goodwill over the past 30 years? Why did you show them goodwill after ‘93 when they only offered a B scale package? Why did you show them goodwill after ‘99 sign or be fired? The ‘01 49ers? The 08 Adelaide instructors and the subsequent removal of expat packages? Or the removal of expat conditions for cabin crew on gaining PR status with numerous threats in crews news that the intention was the same would occur to cockpit crew in the future?

Was it naivety and ignorance because you didn’t know the history of the company and it’s employees?
Or arrogance that you did know but somehow thought it wouldn’t happen to you? It says a lot about an individual when attitudes change not because of what one observes, but because of what one has to experience for themselves.
The only goodwill that has been squandered in the past few months is the goodwill of the wilfully blind.

Some of the threats on here and elsewhere promote this company’s importance out of proportion to its value. Once upon a time CX and KA combined contributed about 40% of traffic through HKIA. That’s now dropped below 20% with a large percentage of the freight work being flown to a third country. If the company ceased operations tomorrow the town wouldn’t blink. The shelves will still be full of crap and the vaccines will still be available. Neither you as an individual, as an association or as a company mean anything to anyone other than those you share a dining table with, and that’s the extent of your importance.

As for the conspiracy theories regarding quarantining crew being a means to hobble the company, why would the government do that? Why not simply turn off the taxpayer funded bailout package? Why was it ever established anyway? Or why did the CAAC recently award CX the rights to fly to KA’s former ports in the mainland?
We aren’t pawns caught up in some powerful multinational game of chess. We’re simply like so many other employees in this town; collateral damage to a CHP bureaucracy well out of its depth.

Last edited by Progress Wanchai; 6th Feb 2021 at 14:21.
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 18:01
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So the complaint is that many will be pushed into financial difficulties on 50% pay cuts?

And your fix is to make half the pilots redundant? Totally screwing them and their families whilst you wave your ‘seniority’ flag.

1) You are incredibly lucky to be employed during this crisis.
2) You’ve been paid 50% for doing absolutely nothing.
3) If you still need more money, go out into the world and use all that spare time to make some.
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 18:33
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If you're one of the people who would have been "right-sized" you probably have a very different opinion - in this way everyone shares the pain but no-one is on the street

And remember when things turn round its always easier to get another job if you can show continuity of employment

Sure it hurts but not as much as no cash flow at all

And surely you have savings? Which are there for a rainy day after all...............
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 18:43
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I think you have got to give cx more credit for the situation. There are a multitude of reasons why cx has avoided redundancies so far and you can bet they have thought about it. I can guarantee getting a work visa for non locals in the future will be next to impossible until every redundant local pilot is back in employment including all those from not within the CX group. CX would like to preserve its already trained workforce for the inevitable recovery. Just be grateful you still have a job in the current climate while your brothers and sisters at Dragon weren’t do lucky.

If you don’t like the new contract feel free to walk. I’d happily take 50% pay over no $0 right now because I can guarantee you aren’t going to be able to find another flying job right now or even a non-flying job that pays equivalent to what you are still earning under the new contract. Market forces will determine the contract in the future.
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 22:38
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So, now the complaint is they have NOT sacked anyone is it?

A lot of pilots for some reason think they have a clue about economics, management, hr, or anything else for that matter.

How about you count your stars you have been getting payed so far, and pray this madness goes away?
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Old 6th Feb 2021, 23:45
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the question begs; why haven't all cx flight and cabin crew been vaccinated yet? or at least, some sought of announcement by cx management when they will be!?
come on cx management get your act together!!
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Old 7th Feb 2021, 00:36
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I'm confused V: you talk about a lack of good will (to which I agree) then make a point thousand more pilots should have been laid off? Would that have promoted good will for the 800 remaining?
To a certain extent, being paid half a salary for the last 3/4 of a year, when there are zero jobs elsewhere does promote goodwill, however the fact they permanently changed the HK contract negates it, and so I would argue, a couple of grand in cash does not compensate me for weeks on end in a hotel. Might be a fine line though, between no volunteers and more layoffs???
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Old 7th Feb 2021, 03:22
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Translation: 800 jobs? Not mine, so they can starve. I get what I want for me, anyone else
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Old 7th Feb 2021, 05:19
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china123

(CNN) — Singapore's national carrier is hoping to become the world's first airline to get all of its crew members vaccinated against Covid-19.

""We are grateful to the Singapore government for making the aviation sector a priority in the country's vaccination exercise," the airline's CEO, Goh Choon Phong, said in a statement that was emailed out to the whole company on January 18."
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/artic...hnk/index.html

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news...ation-13945272
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Old 7th Feb 2021, 06:05
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Meanwhile at Cathay... crickets and tumble weed.
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