Except that in BA or LH, cadets fly a 320/737 for years, making thousands of landings before going to a widebody.

After 10-15 years, our cadets become widebody Captains having done less landings than I did in my first year of flying.
4 or 5 years of being an SO right after school certainly doesn't help.

KA is actually much safer in that regard.

The good safety records at CX mainly rely on having a good mix of experienced and cadets crew.
Crew 100% of the flights with cadets and we are no different than other airlines in asia. Let's be realistic, they don't have a good safety reputation.
Good at following procedures, yes. Handling the jet or thinking outside the box? No.

Agreed, try to change the system, leave or accept the way things are, but what’s the use of all the snide remarks about the young guys going on over there in FH? They’re not the ones making hiring decisions, from over here it just seems like a cowardly move to b***h online about the kids and not have the cajones to push for change if you feel so strongly about it.

Absolutely correct - but haven't you seen that b******g is all that snowflake does all his life?

Indeed,

Would love to see the likes of cxorcist raise his objections about the inadequate flying skills of his junior colleagues on yammer, under his real name, rather than spewing his bile infecting every single discussion on here hiding behind a pseudonym.

That would take balls however, which are in short supply around these parts.

He must have a lonely lonely life. Not sure how his "mates" deals with the negativity around him. Quite a character.

Except almost all recent major CX safety events (ie. 1200’ over Tsing Ma bridge)occurred with expat crew. So what’s the excuse there?

i would love you know where you get those stats from?

How many expat crew do we have, compared to locals? That might explain the statistical bias?

But in thruth, it's not expats vs locals. Rather experienced vs inexperienced.

​​​​​​From my understanding, the FO (PF) was low hours when hired and too afraid to disconnect the AP when it wasn't doing what he/she wanted.

I honestly don't know who the crew were, so would happily be corrected.
I have personally flown with tens of FOs who are too afraid to handfly.
Most of them hired with 0-250h. And a few of them hired with 5000h.

​​​​​Now, experience only doesn't make a pilot good. But it certainly helps a bad pilot becoming a better one.

Our cadets come from a highly competitive pool, therefore we surely get the better ones. Unfortunately, I believe that academic grades are more important to recruiters than flying skills. Do they even do a sim ride or at least a compass test?
Years ago, getting into CX was hard. 2 interviews, one engine out sim ride, etc...
In the last 4 or 5 years, with the lowering of conditions of service, we didn't have such a great pool of experienced candidates, unfortunately.


​​​​​

Sadly things change and I'm not sure that you would find HKG the same as you remember it, I certainly don't.
Obviously the comments here in response to your post demonstrate how things have changed. I'm not sure how bad things are in your current job, but it certainly is poison in HKG.

These comments are absolutely defining for comparison between other cadet schemes and CX. The worst possible thing for a hundred hour pilot out of Adelaide is to be an SO for 4+ years, then fly mostly long haul as an FO. Nothing could be worse for command development. I’ve been saying for years that CX and KA need to be merged for exactly this reason. Sectors for CX pilots, bases (eventually) for KA pilots. It has been a no brainer for over a decade now, although I’m not sure how HKExpress complicates that now.

Can we just cut to the chase here and grab the tape measures already?

I actually believe it’s useful to identify the traits that distinguish our different generations. The boomers did that with my generation (X) over past couple decades. For the most part, I think we understand each other well now. Millennials are elusive because they grew up with much faster pace technology changes, and for the most part, they don’t want to hear from us.

Hey, Snowflake! How come your profile says you are new here? Your'e an ooooolllddd whiner, MATE!

A couple of old sayings that have never been more apt, "you get what you pay for" or maybe "pay peanuts, get monkeys"

Took the COVID bus recently with Air HK crews. They said AHK will give anyone pilot licence holder who are physically in HK an interview and sim ride if they approach them. No way to verify this of course

Look to the future of automation. It can’t be too far in the future for airliners to be “unmanned” - in the sense that the two chaps up front are your teenage 200 hour aces. Technology and reliable data comms will make old geysers like us redundant.

The easy retort is that the paying passenger won’t accept it. Except the dear old paying passenger will never know that the two guys up front are little more than recent graduates of the Microsoft Flight Simulator games academy.

Hate to say it, but that’s all that will be needed in the brave new world of airline flying.

Experience has we know it is becoming ever more worthless.

"If you run into an a$$hole in the morning, you ran into an a$$hole. If you run into a$$holes all day, you're the a$$hole."

- Raylan Givens Justified

Could not be more true in the case of our magnificent friend here...:rolleyes:

In the same vein...if you walk into a room and can't spot the a$$hole right away...then more than likely it's you.