built4flying83
If you want. Fill your boots.
Almost all the pilots here have had to do this before coming here. You want me to cry because you think you have done it tough compared to what most here have done. You don’t know what doing it tough means sunshine.
If you want to believe you get 13th month and profit share every year then you are in for a rude shock.
Judging by your kindergarten level maths you will blow the forgivable loan in your first year just trying to live here. I doubt you will budget for you lump sum tax bill in year six judging by your immaturity.
Again you make the stupid assumption that I and most other pilots here haven’t done it tough. Your assumption only makes an ass of you.
I certainly didn’t go trying to rub their faces in it like you are here.

Ok Titan, we are just going back and forth. Lets summarise.

You did your hard yards and then sold out and took lower than A scale rates.

I've done my hard yards and looking at selling out and take lower than B scale rates.

You don't like this.

Lets leave the emotion out of it. I may not respect you as a person but i respect your position so do take some of what you say as helpful.

How many years have they not paid the 13th month bonus?

Not trying to rub your face in it, i have a speck of what your feeling when
I see my ex students becoming a captain after 1 year in a regional when it took me 4. Just think it is easier for you now on your relatively high salary
to say just lay and wait and knock back these half descent programs when this will result in me not being offered futher opportunities with cathay in the future and remaining on the deal i got with my current employer.:ugh:

And if this thread is indicative of the attitude and mentality of bullying and scaremongering amongst all Cathay Pilots, we're also doomed.

How can you blame a guy for applying for a job where you actually get paid a lot more than his/her ****ty GA job sweeping hangar floors. If you think they should not apply (for job for $60kAUD!) to protect your pay and conditions then YOU'RE dreaming.

Built4flying (btw - cocky handle) realise the $numbers you're quoting, is (a bit of) company spin. But if a tiny bachelor pad with a few mates living on rice and cans of Tsingtao is your cup of tea, then go for it.

The only pilots in a position to point the finger are those pilots still on A-scale salaries. Those who attack potential cadets on the basis that they are eroding existing B-scale salaries are nothing more than hypocrites. Nobody forced you to sign your B-scale contracts - why should we turn down job offers when none of you did? This very sad state of affairs started with YOU. You all set the precedent when you all signed up for less, not us. Why should we have to pass on a job offer because you didn't have the backbone to?

Blogsey, you have a point but this guy
a) gets on here & calls those offering opinions based on actual experience & facts "tools" & so the salvo is returned in kind;
b) he has been shown to lie about his hours / experience & that usually gets under the skin of most pilots;
c) his "facts" are a regurgitation of the sales pitch iCadet package, where his numbers have been proven wrong.

I believe that is the reason for the replies he receives. He'd do better if replying with (eg) "Thanks for the correction. Can you help me through the figures..." etc. Let alone doing his own fact finding about the job & long term affects to himself, the airline & industry.

built4lying83:
How far do you want to go back? CoS94? ASL? CoS99? IFALPA Recruitment Ban? CoS08? SLS? AHK? BPP? DEC? RP's? FDTL's? The fact remains that while T&C's have changed the STANDARDS have not, apart from the early days where jet time was a requirement. This C-Scale has opened the way for a lowering of standards the likes CX has never seen & which most thought would never happen. You say "but they accepted B Scale"!! That package, while a backward step still maintained the highest recruitment standards & a remuneration package reflecting the same. It allowed "professional" pilots to retire comfortably following a well earned career. THIS C-SCALE DOES NOT.

Saying that the money is better as opposed to being a hanger rat may be true. But what do you think about trading companies successfully buying shares from unsuspecting & completely naive owners? Sure the owner made "some" money but a pittance to what the shares are & should be worth. Immoral companies taking advantage of ignorance & naivety. Guilt on both sides. And all the while facts, opinions, truths & issues are actually available to whom ever seeks them.

Whats to say standards have taken a hit? Where is your reference for this information, or is it just conjecture?

Who is wearing the rose tinted glasses now? You admitted that standards have dropped - what happened to the jet time requirement? If standards have dropped, then where did this slide begin, and who allowed it? I will give you a hint - it started with the same guys who were willing to accept lesser contracts than their peers. These guys started the ball rolling, and now these guys are the ones telling us that WE need to do something about it.

Builtfor flying83.....did you not read my post about travel costs???? Not, it seems, that it would do any good. You refuse to be convinced by the very people who have experienced what you seek.....

What was it Churchill said the definition of a fanatic was? "A fanatic is someone who won't change his mind and won't change the subject."

hihi

No, no, the standards have not dropped. Why would you suggest that hiring someone with little to zero hours is the same as hiring someone with thousands of hours? Or years of experience?

It's the same with Doctors, lawyers, accountants....experience means nothing. Even sports stars are over rated. I'm sure that team owners could save themselves a bundle if they just followed your logic and hired anyone off the street to catch a ball or pass a puck.

Take someone like yourself....I take it you've never been upside down. So if the first time you're upside down is with a plane load of passengers....no big deal....you'll just do some of that pilot stuff you've read about in a book....

Not being able to afford housing does not mean that the person is completely without a source of income. Almost one in five homeless persons are employed. The connection between impoverished workers and the homeless can be seen in homeless shelters, many of which house significant numbers of full-time wage earners. In a booming economy, job stability and job security have deteriorated. The share of workers in "long-term jobs" (those lasting at least ten years) fell sharply between 2006 and 2010, with the worst deteriorating taking place since the end of the 1980s ("Homeless"). Displaced workers face difficulty finding new employment. When they do find work, their new jobs pay, on average, thirteen percent less than the job they lost. Also, more than one-fourth of those who had health insurance at their old jobs don't have it at their new ones. This makes it almost impossible to stay above the poverty line when a medical illness strikes the family.

One word describes the CX pilots who point the finger at others while failing to see the same attributes or actions in themselves:

HYPOCRITES

hihi,
regardless of who's signed which scale, we all ultimately make our bed and lie in it.
Which is why I will continue making significantly more than a c scaler, working significantly less hours on a significantly smaller type, and pull out my ballpoint pen when i see a Cathay contract worth signing. Just because they're a big company, doesn't make them the best,or only, deal in town :-)

Gligg

@Raven

How long has Cathay been running the cadet program?
Why is it that standards then, are only becoming a problem now?

You'd think that opening the program to a wider audience would attract a more talent.

The standards argument is nothing more than a straw man created by hypocrites needing something to justify why it was ok for them to sell out, but not us.


FYI, i have an aero's rating.

HiHi

You have an aero rating......

Let me try to help you.

There is nothing wrong with the cadet program at all. It is an excellent program if used to supplement a recruitment policy that is based predominently on experienced pilots. The problem is when you base "all" your recruitment on the cadet program.....all of your recruitment. What would such a policy do to your experience pool over time?

As a pilot gathers experience on smaller aircraft, working their way up, he/she will scare themselves along the way. It's all part of learning. But it's one thing to scare yourself while riding an ejection seat, or if flying with only a few people in a light, easy to control airplane; it''s another thing to scare yourself with 400 paying passengers in the back of the plane.

Cathay used to pay to get experienced pilots. They were buying their experience. Experience is an extremely important commodity in any airline. Cathay advertised and sold this aspect to their customers.

The arguement was then made that the large experience pool within Cathay allowed the recruitment of a small percentage of cadet pilots. The bean counters said this made "economic" sense.

Well one thing led to another, and here we are today.

So....you make the call Hihi, if you were a paying passenger, who would you rather to fly with? An experienced crew or inexperienced crew?

Ok looks like we got a few noses out of joint when i was saying that a very few select cathay pilots were spinning crap (not too much, but just exaggerating a fair bit) as they dont want their conditions to go down (when they did the same to the A scalers).
It took some time but they finally admit this... So then they start spinning some stuff about "but but... well the flying standards have dropped". Because they are younger and less experienced?

Yeah you probably are right there, I've got a few cadets at my airline and there is a marked difference, especially when its not CAVOK. But our cadets are at the actual controls on approach and takeoff unlike the SOs.

This statement is going to make some heads boil but this is almost a fact i reckon...there would be quite a few exceptions i accept. I can drive a car better than my 60+yr old dad.... and in fact land a plane better than most 50yr old - 60yr old captains, plus as an added bonus stay awake in the cruise.... dont start quoting provisional driver statistics and all that, you are probably right but im saying your coordination and decision making ability probably peaks in your late 30s. Not sure why im bringing this up.. maybe because yiou keep refering to 18-21 yr olds as completly useless. This is natural, I still have my dad telling me what to do (he has zero hours) on the takeoff roll when we go for our 6monthly joyflight. Where is the respect for the old fella you say? There is heaps on my part anyway, but im not going to just not mention certain topics because it might upset the old fella. In the cockpit I do what is required and respectful, but on a forum like this im going to tell it how it is.

Second officer, well i dont pretend to be an expert at this yet, but in your words we are just making beds and get to monitor the captain and fo and do a few years of sim checks until you actually get a check ride to be upgraded. . to takeoff and land the plane with pax. Then they called me an "idiot" numerous times, and then i oppose each of there points and eventuially slide a "tool" remark in. God forbid this wannabe talks like that to a skygod that sold out few years back."but but.... well he shouldnt of called us a tool".... you guys are pathetic, i am getting an image of this puffy chest character, probably on the short side too, 5ft 7ish maybe with an angry wife who stays with him by a thread because he was so awesome to get into cathay. God forbid if she gets wind of this cadet business. Ok thats enough of my speculation lol just trying to get a wind up.

Raven Experienced crew all the way, ideal crew in my books would be 40-50 yr old captain with 10,000+ hrs, 30 yr old FO with 5000+ hrs, and 20 something yr old SO with 2000+hrs.

But raven what you saying is we might end up with a scenario of a
30 something yr old Captain with 5000+hrs,
20 something FO with 2000+ hrs,
and a 20 yr old SO with 300hrs.

There should be tests done on how many errors each crew above make. The majority of aircrash investigations ive seen/read there is a 40-50something yr old in left hand seat and a 30 something yr old in the right. Probably because this is the highest ratio of airline pilots.

Your argument regarding the role of the Capt surmises your incredibly ignorant knowledge of multi crew airline ops. You'll find a majority of Capts will readily admit that their younger FO will have better stick & rudder skills. A degradation of motor skills due age is a fact of life. But that is not the role of the Capt per se. He has earned that position & is there due experience, knowledge, leadership & overall management of the flight.

So what? You can do a perfect barrel roll or cross wind take off but faced with a sick passenger or systems problems when in Afghanistan or Pakistani airspace, conduct a correct let down procedure & asses the best alternate to land at (if required) is when all this experience, knowledge, leadership & flight management comes in to play. You go to the "nearest" airport which happens to be Charbahar? Good luck with that call..... "But the FMC said it was nearest!!" Just an example.

No amount of CBT's or multi-guess aircraft systems exams can teach that. Least of all lowering tbe gene pool to the lowest factor of zero hours, zero experience & zero knowledge (bit from memory based parrot-esque answers to pass the CX interview).

Guys,

Enough about the aircraft orders. We are not growing much ,most of these orders are for replacements in the future so no significant growth of any kind. If you want to talk growth check out China(AHK, Air China, rest of Asia, Air Asia) or The middle East(Emirates,Qatar).

One thing I've learned here is that if things do not go their way they take immediate action.And seeing as how they are not doing that with the package we must conclude that they are getting enough people that are willing to fly for food.

So it is a tough one for the AOA. I think we should start with contract compliance, even if many people do not believe in it, we should make some statement.

The Gip

Ditto on contract compliance. And how do the training captains feel about imparting their wisdom to individuals who, one day, albeit a loooong way into the future, are going to do their own job for less?

It's time for that line in the sand.

What do i enjoy most about this discussion? Initially it was a discussion about the B-scaler's getting upset about how C-scale is undermining their current T&C's. When confronted with the obvious hypocrisy in this position, all of a sudden the discussion changes tack - now it is about training standards.


How about you all man up and take some responsibility? The reason we have a C-scale today is because you lot sold out. You sent a strong message to a greedy management - that you were willing to accept lesser terms and conditions than your peers for exactly the same job. What did management do with that little gem i wonder? And to top it off, now you attack your fellow pilots. What a great way to set an example!

I would love someone to post what A-scalers were making when B-scale came into effect. I heard some of the senior Capt's were making in the $750,000 range in the 1980's? Not exactly sustainable! Then the A-scalers took a bitch-slap in the 90's down to the current A-scale. Still pretty amazing!

B-scale to C-scale is just plain shiit. Not anywhere near a good comparison.