Are you a communist, you seem to compare apples to oranges, we are pilots so don't go comparing us to "others", compare us to like positions in other like airlines.

747 crews can expect over a hundred roster changes a year, legacy airlines like BA/QF can count yearly roster changes on their hands. Limited hours didn't equal more Gs, 12 day US patterns worth 30-40hrs is a far cry from back to back North America patterns worth some 60+ hours.

How about you do some research on other airlines rosters pay staff travel and retirement schemes and quit with comparing us to anyone who has zero to do with being a pilot.

You nuts?
 

So Sam, which one of the new trainer scabs are you? If everyone was as much an idiot as you we would be on half the pay we are on now with no housing. It astounds me how supposedly intelligent people are actually so stupid.

Troll
 

I refuse to believe someone can be this dense and simple. Oh, wait - management or recent trainer !!!

Sam, If you want to be a mouthpiece for management, have at it. Most of us in this airline sense and experience the dysfunction, incompetence, family disruption, career doubts and visceral fear of the future that this management has ably manifested. Arguing with you is futile. The airline is broken, and somehow you seem to feel sunlight shines out of its aXX. Enjoy your obviously perfect world.

Sanctimonious: Look it up Sam. As far as "jeopardizing our terms and conditions"...? Have you not looked at POS 18? There is nothing to jeopardize as the conditions are already worthless...mainly because people like you hid in your bunker and prayed "i'll be alright jack". The real cause of the present failure is the fact that we are riddled with either people like you, or people like those that have cravenly sold out their colleagues for a new training position. Between those two groups of individuals, the rest of us who have honoured the ban and voted down the poisoned chalice of the company's recent offers have found our efforts devalued and treated with contempt. I expect that from the company's management, but sadly didn't expect it from my own colleagues. I will enjoy treating the new trainers with the wholesale contempt that they deserve, and will also accept that the company has won this round. Ultimately, the eventual loser will be the company, as they force many of their pilots to resign and take their career aspirations elsewhere. The company will eventually reap what they sow.

Pickup, be careful not to paint us all with a broad brush. I am on the 777, and I completely agree that the issue of fleet transfer (or alternatively, a more humane rostering method) off the 747 should be priority number 1. You guys are abused and treated with contempt by the company, and without a proper method of assuring that all of you being entitled to the same opportunities that the rest of the fleets have, there really is no way to begin to stabilise the airline and ensure a brighter future for all. It should be the most important issue to solve before anything else.

Pickup, the "old and broke" crowd are a small percentage...but yes, you are correct, another own goal in seeing our conditions reduced even further. Between craven TB breakers, 55 COS18 sign ups and the fact that we can and will recruit from anywhere with any level of experience, there really is no other conclusion to draw that there will never be a proper "career" at CX. It is an airline of mercenaries and school kids. Even the management are mercenaries, dropping in a for a few years to make a few $$ off the backs of further cuts in our pay and benefits. Anyone under the age of 45 who is still here and not looking for an exit is mad, and they will surely regret not leaving when they had the chance. Ultimately, many of us are close to leaving (as is myself) so it is academic. For many of you, your entire career and it's possibilities rest on coming to terms with the fact that CX will chew you up and spit you out, probably broke and desperate by the time you get to the 55 point. Find an airline that provides decent pay, regulated work rules, somewhere your wife and kids can settle and have a normal life. You will ultimately be far happier. Doubt that?...then simply recognise the festering depression of your CX colleagues and their fatalistic outlook on just about everything. That is the consequence of 25 years of applied degradation to your worth and importance as a pilot in this organisation. They have the worst of the worst managing our airline so there should be no confusion as to why we are at the point we are. Desperate people on both sides of the aisle at CX, and what you get is the visible dysfunction and chaos that you see. It will not get better....ever.

They cant train their way out of what is happening right now regardless of how many defect to new TC positions. QF are about to restart their sausage factory after they had to stop to train more trainers , BA, Virgin and Air Canada are accelerating. This is the relevant threat to Cathay, which is being turbo charged by an unsupervised HR empire and their COS shenanigans. Almost every 350 and 777 pilot above SO rank in this company is being rostered to high 90 hour months and has been since January. Christmas/CNY should be defining as to what gets offered to keep people here: accelerating resignations/retirements and the remainers on 900 hour maximums = parked aircraft.

The solution is a proper monetary response to housing and extensions or a piecemeal trickle which will offend and accelerate the departures. I think most of us can guess which it will be.

Farman - retire and enjoy your money and let the rest of us enjoy a normal upgrade time. RA65 will kill this airline.... want to see EVERY FO leave? Give these old folks RA65 and bye bye every COS08 person with any flight time..... RA65 instantly adds 5/10 years to any upgrade time. Where the rest of the world upgrade is 5-10 years to begin with, RA65 would be crewing suicide for an already understaffed in the FO level airline.

Anybody ever wondered why that mythical pilot shortage is always only about to happen ?

Wow!
How about ending CC and the training ban.

I'm surprised how most FO's can't see how they shot themselves in the foot with not accepting the last offer or the previous one that is.

WW 2 veterans in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and Vietnam vets from the 70s until now. Tens of thousands of ex military pilots in the system, all the same age. All the Vietnam vets are in their 60s now hence the huge projected shortfall in the US due to those retirements. Same in Aus (massive QF recruitment) and the UK. (BA and Virgin) Combine that with subsidence living new pilot wages and conditions that stops most sane people from even looking at this as a career...

It's actually happening now.

Agree, Mr Did. It's a process, not an event.

Really ?
 

Really ??


Perfect example of shortage, "you" got hired, !!

The conviction that yours is the only opinion that matters is exactly why you will always be on the outside looking in. The power of any collective is measured in the commitment of its members to the benefit of all.

Sam ting Wong,

You make a valid point. I have never agreed with your opinions in the past, like we should have taken what was on the table in either of the last two offers. I still don't believe we would have been better off by taking them in the long run. And I am glad the union sent them back. Maybe that is the only victory we will have, because as you said the lack of unity displayed has prevented anything else from occurring.

So your observations about the lack of unity in the so called union are spot on. The strategy has failed,anyone who thinks otherwise, well you get the point. It's all over and the only thing for those still Manning the picket lines is to decide if they stay or go. Some have gone already and good luck to em. But for the rest, you need to make a choice.

Move beyond speaks volumes, is it a coincidence this is the motto the company is pushing so heavily.

FOP, have addressed the issues the last two ex DFO's created by imposing corrections to the ARAPA and HKPA and RPs. The morale on the other hand can't be imposed, and that I think is permanently damaged, because nobody except for the few who have recently crossed over give a damn! I have never seen that before!

Will we ever see a pay rise. I doubt it. Not unless market forces dictate. So that means all the B- scalers will wither on the vine and the C scale will also find themselves with the target on their back like the B Scalers were and the A Scalers before them, once the D scalers have critical mass.

Basically the only hope for anything by way of improvements in life style and financial reward will be dictated by market forces. With the demand for cheap fares, the line in the sand for pilot remuneration has been agreed by way of gentlemen's agreement in the dark halls of IATA.

For Fatiguing rosters that improvement will only come from individuals when there is a shift to using their professional obligations to not sign on rather than push thru. Unfortunately we have all been conditioned to completing the next task on the roster and believe just because it says it's legal means it must be do-able. But the reality is just cos it's legal it does not mean it's do-able in the long run or in combination with previous duties, or personal circumstances.

Game over.

The only certainty is for a continual, slow but inexorable deterioration of our pay, benefits and working conditions. Each year without at last an inflation matching pay raise is a pay cut. CMP has effectively gutted what little control we had over our rosters, and the benefits and overall contract terms are now backstopped by COS18. The slow boiling of the frogs (us) is well and truly in the final temperature range resulting in death (and I mean that literally, as pilots are coming down with serious illness and sudden death at an all too alarming rate at this airline). CX management do not care one whit about your lifestyle, family concerns or overall long term health and care. Chew you up, spit you out, replace with cheaper. That is the entire business model summed up. If you like the sound of that, stay and enjoy. Otherwise, wake up and take advantage of the best hiring environment in 30 years. It won't last forever, and in the meantime many others are getting on those seniority lists ahead of you.

Serious question: what about you? Are you staying and enjoying or taking the advantage of the hiring market? I get the distinct impression that you don't enjoy it here so the logical conclusion must be that you're looking elsewhere - unless of course there are millions of reasons for you to stay? Even if you're coming to the end of your career, surely there's no reason to stay, other than financial, if you're so clearly miserable?

STP

Steve, perhaps if you read some of my comments a few further back in the thread you could have saved yourself a bit of trouble and effort? :rolleyes: Still, it's always interesting to come across implied apologists for the company. Don't know what the company would do without them...

Air Profit, I've just re-read all of your posts on this thread, and the only comment that alludes to anything that vaguely relates to my question is this snippet:

However, my question is still pertinent I think. By being close to leaving do you mean looking elsewhere, or retiring? The inference I drew was that you are close to retirement, otherwise I sense you would have stated that you were close to heading off to greener pastures. In fact, I think you would have been unable not to tell us all that that was indeed the case. Either way, with reference to your leaving, define close. I think my point of staying if you're miserable, regardless of how long you have, is still valid - why waste your life?

I'm not an apologist, and the question really had nothing to do with the company but everything to do with you. However, if you'd prefer not to share then, by all means, carry on with the ad hominems.

STP

Good grief Steve. You've spent years on this site being a sarcastic wind up merchant, and now you throw out the "ad-hominem" comment? The points that AP made were right on target. It's irrelevant what he is or is not doing personally. Doesn't take away from the cold hard truth he laid out. Seriously, thin skinned much?

OK, where do I start? I might be seen as a sarcastic wind up merchant by some but I like to think I often pose thought provoking questions. Not once did I imply that I thought Air Profit's points were invalid; I simply asked him what I felt to be a relevant question with regard to his statement about enjoyment of CX/HKG versus moving on to elsewhere. I agree, to some degree, that his own upcoming movements are irrelevant to his position but it would add credence to his argument if he were to state what is going on in his life vis-à-vis said position: he can't have it both ways, saying on one hand that people should seek employment elsewhere while at the same time 'enduring' his remaining time here - why not simply leave?

With respect to the ad hominem comment, he implied that he thinks that I'm apologist for the company when nothing in my post suggested anything of the sort. It seems that because I had the temerity to ask what I thought was a relevant question with respect to his position on this topic, rather than answering or debating he decided instead to label me as apologist for the company which, in my opinion, was a weak argument - in fact, a non-argument. To me, that would be the very definition of an ad hominem attack. Consequently, I don't agree (naturally) with your thin skinned assessment of my character.

For the record, I think that Air Profit makes some very valid points and I would certainly not encourage any of my children to join CX as it stands today. In fact I wouldn't encourage any of my children to follow a career in aviation because the halcyon days, that we all long for, are well and truly over.

STP

You ladies should get a room.

Meanwhile amongst the dozens and dozens of AOA members who applied, sadly only a few could be chosen. A committed and fortunate few who will remain in the AOA, as is their right, have been selected for management positions.

Switch off the oven and take out the CC/TB, it's completely cooked.........

STW was right. The AOA lost the game when they had it in the bag. The lack of unity that has always been the weakest link killed the game this time. The same as it did last time... Will anyone learn? I totally doubt it. The goose is cooked. The horse has been flogged. And you have expended your entire repoetoir of dance moves in the first minute of the song only to realise it's a 10 minute extended dance mix. Now you stand there doing the 80's side foot shuffle while everyone else cuts loose.

I still find it disconcerting that people on these forums think the AOA are responsible for any of this.

What the AOA has done quite effectively is dramatically advance the game to the inevitable conclusion: the shortage of pilots due to the continued reduction of employment conditions. The AOA aren't the architects of this current mess, the Rhodes/Slosar supervised HR director and the DFO are. These two "Juniors" are incentivised financially to steal money from you and your family, so they are. More training captains now mean pilots become employable by QF and BA sooner. For any expat pilot (with a passport that is "usable") employed in the last 10 years, there is no longer a financial incentive to stay here, others now pay better and offer better career prospects. Especially now with COS18. Skilled and experienced Pilots are leaving en mass and replacements aren't even turning up for interviews.

The only way to "win the game" is to wait for the owners of this Airline to realise that long term profitability is at risk due to a couple of egos and director bonus packets. I wonder how long it will be before they realise these junior directors are about to cost them significant money and market share. Anyone want to be the new HR director?