Death of Cathay
 

Death of cathay

Having made the cardinal mistake of squandering what little undeserved good will remained among it's pilots after many years of overt hostility and disregard shown to cathay pilots by it's extremely incompetent management group at all levels now when more than ever good will can make or break this not-an-airline entity which has been masquerading as an airline for many decades, good will is nowhere to be found. Outright hostility and disregard to cathay and it's fate is overwhelmingly present and on display by almost all. The number of rose colored glasses desperates are quickly dwindling too.

Instead of doing what every business organization does in times like these when it has lost a chunk of it's business, which is "RIGHT-SIZING" the work force to roughly match the amount of business remaining, they've done none of that with the pilot work force. After 9 months of paying majority of the pilots their salaries to stay at home not working at all, they've wrongly decided to cut the amount of money spent on pilot salaries by half, not by reducing the head count but by cutting everyone's pay by over 50%... permanently, without any attempt to discuss or negotiate, with the overt threat of dismissal and a mere 2 weeks to sign or be fired. Thinking wrongly that they could now keep the work force so when the business picks up they don't have to spend the cost of hiring and training newhires. Since we all know nobody would stay in hong kong (the most expensive city in the world to live in) without a paycheck while on layoff waiting to be recalled and having moved back to their home countries, not likely to spend the costs of moving again back to hk. Hence newhires. Even the cadets wouldn't come back having been released from their financial bond obligations since they could then take a job with any xyz express airline offering them some A320 FO position where they actually work as a pilot vs cx SO.

The hard learned lessons of how to handle a crisis like this which have been proven the hard way by others several times in the history od airline business has been lost on cathay management. Cathay being a so called airline run by a bunch of non-airline managers at all levels, has f-ed it up again.

Now more than ever they need the good will and sacrifice of the pilots (especially the pilots) and people aren't even listening. Everyone is in personal survival mode with no capacity left to give a sh!t about what management is asking or saying. Many are planning on how to deal with their fast approaching bankruptcies. Yes, many cathay pilots will be financially bankrupt soon if they can't find a job and leave ASAP. The mass exodus of cathay pilots will start in a major way as soon as the industry picks up and hiring starts again. There is nothing cathay can do at this point to stem the tide. No matter how much they raise the pay or benefits, nobody in the right mind will believe any of it. They've proven by legal precedence that the employment contract you sign with them (or any employment contract in hk for that matter) isn't worth the toilet paper you're signing it on. They could easily change it back on you in 6 months, a year or two or whenever they want in any way they want without your agreement or consent via putting the gun of dismissal to your head. And hong kong law is perfectly fine with that. You'd have to be mentally ill or extremely desperate to stay with cathay if any ****ty ass airline anywhere back home offers you a job. And we all know what kind of pilots mentally ill and desperate make.

Cathay Pacific's future pilot pool will have to be India, Philippines, Indonesia and similar. There's no way their tin can cadet program can supply the numbers they'll need.

Most likely they (swires) made this herendous miscalculation as part of a plan to sell and be out of here before 2 years and hence not caring what happens after that for the new owner (most likely Air China or similar). But this sh!t show will implode before that. Without employee good will and going the extra mile it can't last. Unfortunately for the mismanagement group, events are requiring more and more employee sacrifice and extra mile and good will, and there's nothing left. Cathay mis-management had no credibility for many years and now even less than that. A less charming, less competent, and less charismatic set of people couldn't have been at the top leadership positions at the worst possible time.

It's partly our own fault for allowing the over disregard and disrespect handed to us by this company to grow to this level from which there's no return. There's nothing they can or we can do now to reverse course. The death spiral began the moment cos18 was announced in late October. If you can jump with a parachute before impact, you'd be stupid not to. Some will jump even without a parachute as is the case in these situations.

The way to get respect and regard in the airline business is only one way and that's to hurt the company in the pocket book. This is a sad reality and many of you don't want to live in a world like this but truth and real history of this industry doesn't care about how you feel or what world you desire to live in. Our chance was when cc training ban etc could have made a real impact. When by refusing to take any directs or any fuel savings etc we could have made an impact. Yes you can cause a lot more impact by not striking and continuing to operate but doing your best to be inefficient. But it's all too late now. However what cathay pilots would not achieve due to lack of unity and ignorance of how pilots get better pay and benefits in this industry, cathay has managed to accomplish. I have never seen such a high level of inefficiency and lack of care in majority of our pilots than now. They're all doing all the things I mentioned above uniformly and without any organized or central agenda. Each and every individual is doing so partly because the more they cost in fuel and time the more money goes in their pockets and partly because they just don't give a sh!t anymore. And what's cathay going to do about it? Fire some so others fall in line? It's like executing some Crack addicts so the others stop using by fear. They won't even for one day. They'd have to execute all of them to stop it. For equally persistent reasons... financial survival in our case and also when bad will is earned it's damn near impossible to ever reverse it again.

This latest event of 14 day government hotel quarantine forced on the company by hk government is the perfect example of how keeping half the pilots on payroll but keeping them happy and at least hopeful for the time being would have been extremely helpful to cathay. Even now they don't realise where things are. These delusional mental midgets are offering to make it worth our personal health (mental & physical) by paying a daily amount less than one hour pay at our half paycut hourly pay rate... for each entire day of our lives wasted in a hotel room... JAILED... 14 days in a row, AFTER being on the road for 3 weeks also existing quarantined in either a hotel room, a van or an airplane! And they think this little measly amount is enough to buy our health., mental and physical. People are already breaking with the existing conditions. Good luck!

The death spiral is intensifying and there's nobody at the controls.

A good summary of these sad times at a once great airline.

Wow I’ve never read such a deluded post before. If you are so unhappy why haven’t you just left already? It would do a lot of good for your mental health. People are grateful for still having jobs at the moment and will do anything to help the company survive and in doing so help preserve their jobs.

you have got to realise the harsh world outside of Cathay right now where hundreds of thousands of pilots are out of employment. Any job advertised is attracting over 20,000 applicants. There are NO jobs back in your home countries and there won’t be for years to come.

Just be grateful CX has kept you employed for so long with a pay check. No CX pilot is going bankrupt over this because even COS18 is substantially better than many other airline contracts. Five years down the track if you are unhappy with the contract maybe then you can leave but right now job preservation is most important.

550 KA pilots made redundant, to me that's pretty heavy downsizing,

That was a different airline. Separate operation. Cathay Pacific's own business has been slashed by a certain percentage and the workforce should have been adjusted at the same level. Before you say "but jobs saved..." This is a business after all, not a charity.

Half of the cathay's own pilot force has been redundantly idle at home collecting paychecks not having worked in almost a year. This is wasting money to the extreme. Who is stupid enough to own stock in a business that has at least half it's work force sitting at home not working and getting paid?! There's no limit to incompetentcy of cathay management. No thought has gone into how this would turn out. We've had several close calls by pilots who were so rusty after flying so little in months because there's not.even enough flying to go around to keep us in the game to be safe. Now they're implementing this new program about "core" so they can have a hope of keeping a certain percentage current enough to be safe to fly at the cost of grounding the rest officially. Are they that blind to not realize how this would turn out? We're lucky if there aren't accidents and incidents too big for this company to keep covering up before long.

Just leave . Don't waste ur breathe complaining

Nobo, enjoy your ‘me time’ in the East - you sycophant

Same with the guy complaining on yammer about the onboard milk.

No problem. I'll take your job. Gladly.

And that’s the problem. There are so many people without jobs.. any job is good. And I don’t blame people for thinking that.

VforVENDETTA,

The clue is in your very first sentence “Undeserved goodwill”. Why on earth have you shown management any goodwill over the past 30 years? Why did you show them goodwill after ‘93 when they only offered a B scale package? Why did you show them goodwill after ‘99 sign or be fired? The ‘01 49ers? The 08 Adelaide instructors and the subsequent removal of expat packages? Or the removal of expat conditions for cabin crew on gaining PR status with numerous threats in crews news that the intention was the same would occur to cockpit crew in the future?

Was it naivety and ignorance because you didn’t know the history of the company and it’s employees?
Or arrogance that you did know but somehow thought it wouldn’t happen to you? It says a lot about an individual when attitudes change not because of what one observes, but because of what one has to experience for themselves.
The only goodwill that has been squandered in the past few months is the goodwill of the wilfully blind.

Some of the threats on here and elsewhere promote this company’s importance out of proportion to its value. Once upon a time CX and KA combined contributed about 40% of traffic through HKIA. That’s now dropped below 20% with a large percentage of the freight work being flown to a third country. If the company ceased operations tomorrow the town wouldn’t blink. The shelves will still be full of crap and the vaccines will still be available. Neither you as an individual, as an association or as a company mean anything to anyone other than those you share a dining table with, and that’s the extent of your importance.

As for the conspiracy theories regarding quarantining crew being a means to hobble the company, why would the government do that? Why not simply turn off the taxpayer funded bailout package? Why was it ever established anyway? Or why did the CAAC recently award CX the rights to fly to KA’s former ports in the mainland?
We aren’t pawns caught up in some powerful multinational game of chess. We’re simply like so many other employees in this town; collateral damage to a CHP bureaucracy well out of its depth.

So the complaint is that many will be pushed into financial difficulties on 50% pay cuts?

And your fix is to make half the pilots redundant? Totally screwing them and their families whilst you wave your ‘seniority’ flag.

1) You are incredibly lucky to be employed during this crisis.
2) You’ve been paid 50% for doing absolutely nothing.
3) If you still need more money, go out into the world and use all that spare time to make some.

If you're one of the people who would have been "right-sized" you probably have a very different opinion - in this way everyone shares the pain but no-one is on the street

And remember when things turn round its always easier to get another job if you can show continuity of employment

Sure it hurts but not as much as no cash flow at all

And surely you have savings? Which are there for a rainy day after all...............

I think you have got to give cx more credit for the situation. There are a multitude of reasons why cx has avoided redundancies so far and you can bet they have thought about it. I can guarantee getting a work visa for non locals in the future will be next to impossible until every redundant local pilot is back in employment including all those from not within the CX group. CX would like to preserve its already trained workforce for the inevitable recovery. Just be grateful you still have a job in the current climate while your brothers and sisters at Dragon weren’t do lucky.

If you don’t like the new contract feel free to walk. I’d happily take 50% pay over no $0 right now because I can guarantee you aren’t going to be able to find another flying job right now or even a non-flying job that pays equivalent to what you are still earning under the new contract. Market forces will determine the contract in the future.

So, now the complaint is they have NOT sacked anyone is it?

A lot of pilots for some reason think they have a clue about economics, management, hr, or anything else for that matter.

How about you count your stars you have been getting payed so far, and pray this madness goes away?

the question begs; why haven't all cx flight and cabin crew been vaccinated yet? or at least, some sought of announcement by cx management when they will be!?
come on cx management get your act together!!

I'm confused V: you talk about a lack of good will (to which I agree) then make a point thousand more pilots should have been laid off? Would that have promoted good will for the 800 remaining?
To a certain extent, being paid half a salary for the last 3/4 of a year, when there are zero jobs elsewhere does promote goodwill, however the fact they permanently changed the HK contract negates it, and so I would argue, a couple of grand in cash does not compensate me for weeks on end in a hotel. Might be a fine line though, between no volunteers and more layoffs???

Translation: 800 jobs? Not mine, so they can starve. I get what I want for me, :mad: anyone else

china123

(CNN) — Singapore's national carrier is hoping to become the world's first airline to get all of its crew members vaccinated against Covid-19.

""We are grateful to the Singapore government for making the aviation sector a priority in the country's vaccination exercise," the airline's CEO, Goh Choon Phong, said in a statement that was emailed out to the whole company on January 18."
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/artic...hnk/index.html

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news...ation-13945272

Meanwhile at Cathay... crickets and tumble weed.

Wow. People. So much hostility and over analysis. We all know how devastating Covid is proving to be for the entire industry. As a 'KA throwaway' I can attest that nobody is 'sitting pretty' in this whether it be the newly unemployed or those remaining in CX on a massive pay cut and zero faith in their future. A few home truths from my perspective though. Don't panic. Sit on your hands as you're trained to do. It's going to take a while for things to get better but for those that want/need to stay you will be surprised at how few that have either left already or remain in CX will actually be a threat to your aviation future here when things do pick up. There are so many here that simply won't stomach the new package for long and neither will many return from the KA graveyard for it either, given the option. Some will, for sure, but you'll be amazed how many won't which will be good tidings for those that could do without the competition. Just hang in there if you're still in CX and want to stay. Take what money they're offering, reign in your cost of living and batten down the hatches until things pick up. Here's a quick clue to feeling better. Don't read pprune if you're feeling vulnerable. Good luck to those trying to stick it out. I'm happily done with it. One less competing for your future.

Wise words.

Safe travels, weary traveler.

Cx is a Gweilo company is a Chinese city they can't just bang tables and demand inoculation jabs.

Sq situation is different: "We are grateful to the Singapore government for making the aviation sector a priority in the country's vaccination exercise,"

Don't think that's it this time although that might often be a factor. No one in Hong Kong has been vaccinated, they haven't even approved the Chinese vaccines for us here yet. What a disgrace, somewhere that normally leads in innovation just doing nothing not a single vaccine. What are they thinking.

I've been in this industry for decades with several different airlines and have been thru several crisis ending up in layoffs. I've been in the bottom group getting the layoff notice. This is how it has always been in this industry. If you don't know the history and reality of the industry you're in, you need to go do something else which you do understand. I'd rather this company survived for half of it's employees at least. This way it won't survive for any. Without good will of the employees no company will survive anything close to this disaster. And cathay has made sure there's no good will or care about the future of this company among it's most important most difficult to keep and replace employees. Like I said before, it's a company not a charity. Good luck to any who are stupid enough to still own cathay stocks. This is not how a business survives.

Singapore ordered vaccine from Pfizer, Mordena and Sino back in October 2020.

Talk about forward planning.

Cathay demise
is inevitable and is better this way than a serious air crash. First officers with their career on “line check” that fly one a year? And fail! Captains that to volunteer fir a two hours flight have to stay 14 days in a small hotel room? Are we asking quarantine fir the doctors of the hospital where active Covid patients are recovering? All this is taking a psicologic toll to the best of the crews that are the only one who fly ...cargo.. stop flying please now! Stop serving Hong Kong now! Stop accepting all this nonsense ! How many pilots have returned positive from a day of service? Where is the union ? Stop flying now!

thank you carolknows - great stuff!!
I rest my case!

Surely Cathay is at risk unless it can quickly reposition itself to be seen as a world class Chinese carrier, rather than as "The airline of Hong Kong'. The Covid crisis simply accelerated the process.
On that basis, the discussion should focus on whether Cathay has obtained new route authorities from places such as Wuhan, rather than on how they are managing their legacy expat contracts.

Is it remotely possible the the OP just so happens to conveniently remain fully paid if his idea is put into play.

Perhaps he would he be willing to join a volunteer redundancy list to help implement this plan to save the company.

Remember there is no seniority protection now for redundancy.
Be careful what you wish for.

What’s your point? Why are you concerned?

I don’t know what Cathay’s management strategy is, but if it’s Divide & Conquer, it seems to have been particularly effective.

If these forums are anything to go by, I’ve never seen any workforce so permanently disgruntled and divided as Cathay pilots.

Good luck to all

The Singapore Government is taking an active interest in promoting their country and ensuring it's rapid recovery out of the pandemic. Whereas Hong Kong's 'Government' seem to want to drive the territory into the ground, probably on order from their masters, the CCP. Cathay, a foreign owned company is acceptable collateral damage in the process.

SQ has always been a important part of the rise of Singapore and the Singapore "Brand" - airlines elsewhere - not so much......................

Really? Singapore? That’s the important node in the HK air travel script? Stop with your nonsense. Maybe team up with the guy currently complaining about the onboard milk. Important stuff.

The thing is, it ain’t 2 weeks in a hotel. It’s a 42 day rolling pattern, with the first 21 days taken up with a little bit of flying, combined with being locked in to an assortment of hotels, followed by a further 14 in confinement, then a further 7 on surveillance. Tested at least 5 times during that time. 2 weeks off, rinse and repeat.
So whilst no one could be unsympathetic to your plight, best get your facts right. This is a mental health train wreck waiting to happen. And no amount of pay will recompense you for that. In fact, no other regulator ( save our friends to the North, and they don’t exactly place HR issues very high on the agenda, if consider them at all) are even suggesting that their crews do this. Quite the opposite

All those days in a hotel. Can open the window at Headland?

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article

That does sound horrendous.

If it were me, I think I would politely resign, hand their job back, and go and do something else - honestly I would.

It really is not worth our health to fly under terrible conditions just to keep flying. We all love actually flying, but sometimes that blinds us to the bad parts of our job. The problem is that airlines have learned that they can apply really poor terms and conditions, yet we continue to turn up for work.

The guys I know in cx are not unhappy. A little frustrated , a bit humiliated and certainly silenced. But life goes on . Basic Skipper salaries are around £8000/ month, plus education allowance & housing .15% tax. An Easyjet skipper on furlough will take home around £3000 after tax in the current climate . No housing, medical or education allowance.

The only thing both groups have in common is that they earn good money for sitting at home and doing all those diy chores that flying got in the way of .

Not a single pilot has left cx since the salary downgrade, not a single moaning minnie.
Says it all really. .