So, less FO's needed, and much longer time as SO. Yes, another brilliant move to improve moral amongst the pilot group. :/

$afety will always take priority

Anyone who is under 45 yrs of age and is not looking at every opportunity to leave is a fool. There has never been a year in the past 25 where harm has not been done to the career aspirations of professional pilots. If you stay, you are guaranteeing a career of frustration, misery and eventual bitter anger. You will also put your families through the same upset and unhappiness. There are far better companies and far better parts of the world to focus your efforts on.

3 man to or from Europe is fine if it's a daylight flight for the crew both ways.
But throw in a night flight both ways ,with a midnight or later departure from HK and a possible difficult winter approach in Europe things start to get interesting .
Even that could possibly be managed if the crews weren't operating very close to 100 hours every month , and everyone was getting 4-5 days off before and after the flight , accumulated fatigue will become a major factor
To say nothing of the lack of flexibility of crews should someone go sick . Somehow I suspect that a number of pilots will call sick with fatigue .
What will happen should Guanghou create delays for all traffic departing HK Europe bound , ?
File as many AsRFs as you can

So 3 man crew, you get 4 hours rest each to Europe. 2 SO's you get 6 hours rest.
This has got to be a win from where we were headed.
The pilot group have made their contribution to the "Time to win (leave)" bull**** program and seen to have made a consession.
Captain does the hard body clock sector, takes the best rest, FO does the easier one and picks his rest. Just needs some of our more precious left chair super heros to understand this, and it should work OK.
Take your wins where you find them. I sometimes think you lot would complain if you were given bigger dicks.
If your an SO, my apologies for once again thinking it is OK to solve my problems at the expense of those junior to me or not yet joined, sadly it is the Cathay way, and has been from a ways before my 2 decades here started. Maybe your best move is to work
toward your own "Time to leave" program.

How about FA SOs? Surely that will also help safety and save some $$$.

Pill
 

You are missing the point.

This is not a debate about 4 man v 3 man or even rest achieved. It's not even a debate about overall experience levels on the flight deck, or even the demographics of the pilot group, which will see an enlarged group of SOs waiting for upgrade to fewer FO positions.

The guts of the safety debate is we will invariably have someone sitting in the operating seat during the critical approach/landing phase who has not had the opportunity to sleep during anything like their optimal sleep window and they have probably encountered the exact same problem 48 hours earlier. In fact, they will probably have a career based on it!!!

Example, the JNB leaves around midnight HK time. The FO will envariably work first and will get a sleep opportunity around 7am body clock. He will then be back in the seat around 1300 body clock having not slept much. I would suggest that's not the real problem. The real problem comes the next day when he returns to HK. He will be expected to go from the bright sunshine of Africa and get 5 hours sleep and then sit in the seat (in the dark) all the way to the gate to HK. He will make the approach intomHK during his WOCL having had only one sleep opportunity during his normal sleep window in 4 days.

If Clockwork found the 3 man 256/254 unacceptable, then I cannot see how they will find this acceptable. That of course assumes they will ever be involved or see any data.

Call me a cynical old fading rockstar, but I wouid wager JNB and LGW were chosen because they are heavily requested and the company anticipates few complaints, until it all goes wrong one day.....

What you don't seem to get Pill , is that CX is pushing FOs to become RQ when they haven't even acquired the required experience level yet. So many times I fly with RQ FOs around the region, and clearly some can't even deviate around weather safely. And these are the same ones that will be sitting with brand new SOs. If you're happy playing Russian Roulette then go ahead and defend this new change.

You are spot on Dragon 69.

Pill...you on the other hand should wind in your neck. If anyone here is behaving like a hero it's you. This has nothing to do with the size of one's manhood. If you had any real flying time under your belt this would be obvious to you....and spare me the "you have tons of experience" line. You and I both know you don't.

Many SO's have good future potential....but this is another degradation in cockpit experience levels for the sole purpose of cutting costs.

A single crewmember on the flight deck who has only 200 hours of basic...very, very basic....stick time is already a risk. Now there will be two crew with zero experience. I know I won't be resting easy....

7-8 years to upgrade for SO's now? Very big financial blow to the guys and gals out there initially being told upgrade < 3 years

The p2x is limited to 5 years

So what happens if an SO has not been upgraded after 5 years?

A boozy lunch with the CAD will sort that out.

I guess the only way to fight back is for those crew affected to be bothered to submit an ASR-F for every sector this takes place. Will this happen? How often to guys bother when controlled rest has to be taken? Not every time I suspect! :zzz:

No LOSA = no evidence of what's really going on in the cockpit. It's in our interests.

No LOSA means CX insurance premium goes up $$$.

It's in CX interest to make it happen, they don't have to use CX crew.

Captain Dart

"A boozy lunch with the CAD will sort that out"

Haha good one

The only way this is different from India is that on flights landing from India neither of the people in the operating seats have "had the opportunity to sleep during anything like their optimal sleep window".

If this is the guts of the argument, the argument is specious.

You guys read the NTC all wrong. The 2 SO's are sitting together in cruise and as such provide the Captain and RQ with a 8 hour rest opportunity. Right ....... just kidding

Cathay now to employ dogs.

The dog and the SO fly together, the SO is there to feed the dog and the dog is there to bite the SO if he/she touches anything.