Greater Bay Lodges Application For 100 Plus Routes
 

It’s an interesting situation in that CX appears to have handed Greater Bay a “golden opportunity “ to compete by dumping KA routes into the pot for all to apply.
Given the current situation it probably won’t worry them too much but long term there’s a big head ache on the horizon for Cathay. Even the name Greater Bay sets the tone.

Like they were worried when Oasis/Jetstar/HKE/HKA/VJet set up shop.

Cx: a job for life, golden handcuffs till death.

This time you have CX weakened by COVID/protests. Greater Bay can sit things out once they have their AOC at much reduced costs while CX hemorrhages cash from 2 airlines that aren’t flying (except the freighter).
The political climate has changed dramatically in the last 12 months. CX is a British owned company in China. GBA is wholly locally owned and positioning themselves to be part of the PRC plan for HKG/CAN/SZ.. Set this in the context of a Merlin Swire going to PEK to save CX and the subsequent ramp inspections and staff problems and I think you have a different dynamic. Let’s wait and see you may be right but this time I think it will be different. The timing of the whole thing is interesting.
As an aside they bought KA over the odds, spent a shed load of money on making it look like CX then shut it down.
They might as well have sold it to GBA as they look like they’ll probably get a percentage of the rights anyway.
As to the golden handcuffs my mates are all planning on taking them off and going home. It’s easy just bang them on a rock they’re made of tin 😜

Your concerns are a tiny bit untimely.

Not really it’s of major interest to all of us who were fired last October!

STW doesn’t care about you.
He needs to top up his multi-million dollar pension. Please don’t bother him with your insignificant troubles.

Piet, glad to see you are alive and haven't lost your mojo!! I missed you! 😅

Good luck to all my ex KA colleagues, I hope you are all back in the air again soon. I managed to avoid divorce, Hong Kong was good to me and I was nearing the end of my time in Hong Kong anyway so I wasn't too upset to be given the boot. It was very different for many of my younger colleagues who were just starting out or a few years in to their careers, many with young families and big mortgages. Maybe some of the CX people who post here should remember that. At least you are still getting paid, even if it is a lot less than it used to be.
Working anywhere but CX City would have to be more fun, what a miserable place it is with an equally miserable crew check in area. I will not miss it.

I remember that briefing office , in the grimy basement. Staid, sterile and without joy. Single stripers all pumped up and fresh faced, old cronies, laying it on thick. Long stories about experiences long forgotten.

A briefing desk that was never used to brief. Gormless looks if you ever asked for clarification on the paperwork. Dispatchers like meerkats popping up their heads desperately trying to avoid eye contact .

dystopia in all but name. Sad, miserable and will not be missed.

My only joy was turning up 10 mins late, shoving the paperwork in the envelope, and leaving without looking at it , nor turning on that bloody iPad. That drew some looks from the overly diligent sycophants down there. The i’m important, ‘cos I’m standing bolt upright brigade, lol .


(Ps. That huge poster with the two gay captains holding hands always puzzled me....)

Especially when one considers the slogan “Move beyond”.
Move beyond what exactly?
At least they had pants on, so most people’s minds didn’t hit the gutter ‘straight’ away.
I had business friends in HK who asked me what that slogan was all about. And despite me passing on the intended reasons behind the mantra, there was a general wtf and what a waste of money.

Anyway, if GBA get off the ground, hopefully it will open up more opportunities for some of the ex KA pilots to get back in the air. I wish you KA guys all the very best in these difficult times.

As if the current situation was the responsibility of Cathay.. And what's the point of rationalizing about competition in a few years, by an airline that doesn't even exist yet, with no conditions of servivce nor recruitment plans announced ? Traffic rights??? Advertisement slogans?? Really??? As if THAT was the issue right now.Jesus Christ.

Do you think the briefing room at GBA at 0400 am for 5 sector china day will be more joyful?? Kahaha, you area such a marthyr, what a hero. Maybe you even, dare I say it, showed up unshaven?? How about beeing just NICE and NORMAL at the briefing??? Why not do it better??? Manners and respect, simple. Showing up late and letting SO's wait for your highness, wow... You are part of the problem!! I bet on your line check you are 20 min early with your hat in your hand! Be a part of the solution, not the problem, mate!! BE NICE!

Then you have guys like Piet.. the red lanyard army... bitching non stop to EACH OTHER about the evil company... from crew bus to hotel lobby... pathetic... blaming everybody but himself. And nevertheless still showing up for work every day,for 25 years offering their servitude while lecturing others and "brushing up the CV" and "seriously looking". Ha! What a joke.

Get real guys, the INDUSTRY as a whole is lost, there will NEVER EVER be any good jobs, ESPECIALLY by new airlines, they will always offer the worst conditions of all.

LongTimeInCX

Thank you.

Sam Ting Wong

Excuse me but for a KA pilot this situation most definitely has a CX component. Life under CNAC was far better and patently more secure. CX sold us in the early days simply to secure themselves as they saw CITiC as the way forward.
Then later they paid over the odds for the company, had to engage a consultant to work out what to do with it (nothing). Rebranded it moved it stripped it and scrapped it.
I have no axe to grind re cx pilots and I have to say CX were far more generous with the redundancy package than they had to be. But however you cut it somewhere along the line they were slow to react.
Your managers on several occasions since 2006 made remarks about how they wished they hadn't bought ka. COVID was a very convenient way to get shot of us instead of turning KA into an LCC.
ps I dont agree with all of kahahas sentiments bit why make it personal.

Come on man, there was no virus back then!

Walkingthedog, I wish you really the best, but maybe try to accept that Cathay is not the root of the problem here!!

He
Doesn’t
Care!

STW, nothing personal, but perhaps those who are unemployed, should rather be receiving words of encouragement, compassion and understanding, rather than having a rant and a rave about all that’s wrong with the bat flu, HK, travel and country restrictions, terminated KA crew, GBA and the aviation business as a whole.
We all know it’s really bad. There may be worse to come, the various vaccines may not be the silver bullet savior that many hope will eradicate it for good, and recovery will be slow and perhaps not as voluminous as those in the industry hope it will be.
So STW, perhaps time to lighten up and have some sympathy for those posting about aspects which they feel they wish to, bearing in mind they've just had the rug pulled from under them.
I left by choice in the middle of last year, and can not begin to think how bad it must be to be out of work at a younger age, with family commitments, in an industry that is awash with other unemployed pilots.
Good luck to you all.

walkingthedog,

I can imagine how hard it must be to lose the job, sorry if I was insensitive. I do feel sympathy, Piet is not right ( as usual)
Good luck to you

Thanks I’m too long in the tooth to start again. I just hope that GBA can provide some hope for the many young families that KA supported.

LongTimeInCX

Thank you. I also understand the difficult situation CX crews find themselves in and after all in the end we are all pilots not managers. Its a shame that it gets a bit tribal at times.

Wise and classy words

Lets get back to cx city & that miserable place. Taken at face value, it looks great, cafes, coffee and an outside garden.

The long walkway was often deridingly called Wan#ers Alley . And you soon find out why. Frequented by Tall, gangly 50 something white males, with stereotypical brit accents, all wearing blue shirts, followed by an entourage of yes sir, me sir boys. Middle and management and hopeless comes to mind.

I always laughed when I saw the lonely sim instructor sat at the headland end coffee shop. Soon they would be surrounded by a circle of pilot puppies, lapping up his morsels of excellence, and how I would program the McDU. McDonalds would be preferable.

A :mad: hilarious place.

A miserable place? Possibly, but I think you haven't been around long enough to realise that most workplaces are "morsels" of something less than pleasure. It is work, after all. At least the place (and other airline offices) always had an air of anticipation of going somewhere or returning, a meeting place if you will. I've spent some time in a financial institution in Central, and there was never anything extra-ordinary about their break room, I can tell you. Same people, day after day.

Added: the biggest difference is that a lot of people at CX City (even those 50+ white guys, or especially them) are actually doing what they genuinely enjoy doing, a passion if you will.

How many are you doing it for the 'passion'... seriously.

Yup whatever one thought of it It sure as hell beats being redundant. I can think of 500 odd people who would go back in a heartbeat.

New Airline coming to Hong Kong
 

Greater Bay Airlines seems set to be the next airline to start operations in Hong Kong. Story Link: Hong Kong's Greater Bay Airlines: What You Need To Know - Simple Flying

Are you just a plane spotter? This has been discussed in depth here and is nothing new.

It is going to be a 737 budget carrier with backing from one of the smaller Airlines in China. The same carrier who has promised wide bodies for years but nothing ever eventuated.

It'll give good jobs to those locals and PR who are not employed at the moment but unless they truely ramp up it'll get slaughtered by UO's ultra budget operation.

Alice Springs bids farewell to three more a/c today, currently enroute to VHHH . One 773, one 77W and a A359. Slow slowly things seem to be ramping up a bit.

On the surface that would seem accurate but ramping up where? Nobody in their right mind will fly to HK and endure this barbaric quarantine unless they absolutely have to, the rest of the world is getting back to normal and we here in HK are going backwards. I wouldn't be surprised if some or all three of those aircraft are destined for XMN before going back to the lessor.
China's policy is to close off the world forever but open the border with HK. Their is no end game, no exit strategy and the people in charge do not seem to care.

I'd take a bet those aircraft are coming back for heavy maintenance (could even be an engine needed etc) then either being returned / sold / maybe converted for freight, I'd say 1% chance its for normal passenger service