You are correct about hiring DEFO's but I think not on a base.:ok:

clear.right

Admire as I do, your exceptional use of emoticons and clever manipulation of the QWERTY keyboard, demonstrated especially well in your post of 18th May and others, you seem to have contradicted yourself quite well.

Seniority and DOJ (date of join) if you are slightly dim, which I perceive you may be, are very different notions.

One can be very senior in experience and knowledge but be relatively new to a position or company. If you were to consider the medical or legal (or almost any other profession) you might understand my point.

I hope you sleep well….

How many SOs do we have now? Getting on for 500 I believe. Only a handful have not joined the AOA- through laziness more than anything. You can be sure they will all leave the AOA if the union does not fight some of the leapfrogging scenarios being mentioned.

You may say they don't yet have the minimum requirements in terms of hours to hold these FO positions etc. Trust me the safeguarding of these positions etc due to seniority must still be fought for.

BusyB

They have hired onto bases a number of times, earliest I know of 1995. Bases where it has happened Europe, N. America and Australia, this is NOT new.

20 years ago Second officers were a new rank in CX due to the 747-400 introduction, when I joined Second Officers were on temporary contracts and most were from BA and went back to BA. Only about 17 years ago SO's joined on the seniority list the same as FO's

Unfortunately the RAF won't take their dropouts back, so the BA scenario is unlikely. The justice (loose term) system in HK has shown that leapfrogging S/O's was entirely legal after the under the table deal. So, I guess CX won't have a problem hiring over the top again. I did hear though, after the happy meeting last week, that the S/O case may be resurrected. Good luck if it is true.

Hiring onto a Base?
 

Iceman, you're not quite right.

No CX pilot has been hired directly onto a Base. What CX did in cases in the past when there were unfilled vacancies on a Base (eg freighter jobs no one wanted) was to recruit into HKG and then on day 1 in HKG apply for a Base vacancy, get accepted, resign from CX and join Veta Ltd. Easy peasy.

But the reality is that they did recruit directly to a Base - they always seem to find a way to cheat their way through.

An Amused Reader

Sorry but you are incorrect, the positions advertised and given were for FO's directly on a base. They may have joined CX then resigned and joined Veta but the job offer and adverts were directly onto a base and passenger fleet as well as the freighter. It was a flight international advert that I replied to way back when, even though I took a HK base.

I'll accept that additional info Iceman. But there is not really any difference between us. There had to be vacancies on a base before anyone could apply. If, for whatever reason, no one in HKG applied and vacancies still existed, a new recruit could apply and go.

Hope you are still enjoying your decision to take a HKG base!