Colleagues. Can you all please understand that none of this matters anymore? The "Company" has instituted the "Armageddon" option regarding ALL the companies under their banner. CX will now be nothing more than a group of companies with an itinerant workforce, working for minimal pay and benefits...and they are quite happy to see turnover at a manageable rate. The days of CX being the "best" job in aviation are long gone...and will never return. The only question for each individual is whether or not they will accept that situation personally or find a real job in their own country. There is no other option available.

Good post!

I dun know why people still believe they own the airline after signing COS18. Seniority literally doesn’t exist anymore and the company can do whatever it sees fit.

Again, everyone just an ERN and nobody here has any say at all.

Thanks Oasis

They were not feelings btw. Observations in fact.

Good luck.


Dingleberry Handpump

I'm not sure about that. I know CX guys who claim they are eating into their savings to stay and are miserable with Hong Kong. Some of them leaving. Some of them staying with hope.

I know it would be very tough for many. Especially younger guys. However, it will pick up gain and so many of my friends and former colleagues have no interest in returning to Hong Kong. Amazingly, many have absolutely no interest in returning to flying. They have made enough money that makes it impossible to put up with what's going on now to be employed as a pilot in Hong Kong.

So you would assume eventually, jobs will return for those willing.

swh

I respect your kind words, and likewise - my greatest respect to CX pilots.
However, I don't believe I have ever suggested a KA employee to be a CX employee.
Instead, a KA employee was a Cathay employee, in the sense that we had the same wonderful "hub", safety department, personel, aircrew management, crew room etc - as has been suggested in my previous posts.
We were told we were part of the team.....except when we weren't.

Not a good analogy, I'm afraid.
I've been working myself in a few other airline groups previously.
Albeit with proper jurisdiction for employees and company mergers - AND with unions with enough foresight to have scape clauses and common seniority lists across the group.
So I know the differences and similarities.

Back to your analogy: OpenSkies was taken over by Level. "On 28 November 2017, IAG announced that its low-cost airline brand Level would launch flights in July 2018 from Paris Orly Airport, which would be operated by staff that were currently employed by OpenSkies and using the airline's air operator's certificate. In preparation for the change, OpenSkies' IATA code was changed from EC to LV in May 2018. The OpenSkies brand ceased to operate on 2 September 2018, after which all its staff began to operate Level flights."

FlightGlobal stated that the retirement of the last OpenSkies branded aircraft "marked the end of the OpenSkies brand, from a public-facing perspective." OpenSkies began operating as Level France, with the same employees since operating under a new brand, with flight crew retrained to fly Airbus aircraft."

(My emphasis in bold)

So following your analogy, with CX taking over the KA aircraft and routes, the KA staff should have been taken on to continue the flights on the CX AOC and Cathay Pacific brand if we were to follow precedence in (European) history and your analogy.
Of course, I have to say, Europe has proper employment laws governing such scenarios of company take-overs. Hong Kong has, well, Swire, CAD and the government. Enough said.

Ok, so OpenSkies formally operated under Level, which actually entered insolvency during COVID.
Again, a very different scenario to KA/CX. Cathay Dragon was never even close to being insolvent. Quite the contrary.
The analogy stops there once more.

Hypothetically, yes ok, let's say OpenSkies, not being integrated with Level, but shut down and taken over by BA - all routes and aircraft transferred within the IAG group to BA.
Would you not think that Europe had proper laws in place, in order to let the OpenSkies crew operate these aircraft ahead of new-joining BA crew as it is a company take-over?

If the routes, the operation, the aircraft of OpenSkies/Level (whatever you call it this week) would be completely gone as a result of COVID and insolvency, yes, fair enough - a parent company could take over and start up an operation under their own brand at a much later time.
But CX is currently swinging (ex-KA repainted?) 330s and soon A321NEOs left, right and center to beautiful places such as WUH, XMN and CTU and has been doing it for a while along with BLR, CCU, KHH, HAN and KTM.
Similarly, if IAG decided to call it quits on OpenSkies, take their aircraft and continue the operation out of ORY to JFK/EWR as BA, I'm pretty sure that the crew would follow the aircraft under these circumstances.
I am not talking about an OpenSkies operation going wrong, their airframes being sold and their crew then demanding a LHR base on the BA seniority list on a completely different operation on completely different aircraft and completely different routes - that would be wrong (unless of course there was a joint seniority clause in place...but alas, seniority was signed away from in Hong Kong anyway).

STP

“a KA employee was a Cathay employee”

A KA employee was a KA employee, with KA being part of the Cathay Group.

“we had the same wonderful "hub", safety department, personel, aircrew management, crew room etc”

CX/KA/LD/UO shared group items, like Group Safety and Group assets like buildings and aircraft, KA had their own flight ops management and own aircrew management. The livery painted on the side of an aircraft had no relationship to ownership. When the Group took over KA, KA assets became Group assets, many leases were renegotiated, many KA leased aircraft left, many CX aircraft changed their livery.

“So following your analogy, with CX taking over the KA aircraft and routes, the KA staff should have been taken on to continue the flights on the CX AOC and Cathay Pacific brand if we were to follow precedence in (European) history and your analogy.”

“Ok, so OpenSkies formally operated under Level, which actually entered insolvency during COVID.”

LEVEL France continued to operate under the OpenSkies AOC which was setup by BA however was marketed as LEVEL, just like Cathay Dragon continued to operate under the KA AOC with a change of marketing. LEVEL Europe the Austrian AOC went insolvent, the Spanish LEVEL AOC is still operating (https://www.flylevel.com/). These were all part of the IAG group, however staff in one part of the IAG Group had no expectation or obligation to be redeployed elsewhere in the Group.

“But CX is currently swinging (ex-KA repainted?) 330s and soon A321NEOs left, right and center to beautiful places such as WUH, XMN and CTU and has been doing it for a while along with BLR, CCU, KHH, HAN and KTM.”

All KA operated flights also carried CX flight numbers, eg KA311 to Busan also carried the CX5311 flight number. CX was already approved, and operated those routes, it didn’t need to do that in aircraft painted in CX livery. This was no big secret, both flight numbers were on the monitors at HKIA, you would have walked past this millions of times without a second thought.

Sit back and think about how KA and UO would have been compared to justify the purchase of UO instead of expanding KA and what UO brought to the Group. UO has approvals do everything KA could do, plus more, at less than half of the KA cost base. Unlike KA, they were already operating NEOs.[


KA never operated or owned the A321NEOs, they were ordered by the Group (https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/pres...-aircraft.html), the Group had already announced that half of the A321NEO order would going to UO well before KA was closed. That was a indication to me where the Group wanted to expand its operations well before KA was closed.

COVID may have been the accelerant, looking at how things have unfolded, it would appear to me that the closure of KA was part of the longer-term Group plan, I think KA lost its relevance to the Group when UO was purchased and the training ban finished.

When I read your arguments swh, I can't help feeling like a teenager being lectured about life by teachers, bound by a certain idealism while being stuck in the past.
To me it almost sounds like you're defending your current employer...
I hope I'm wrong on both accounts.

For your various inputs above - I doubt that UO has "Hub" access and receives emails from some James Evans with "Dear colleague...", updates from Augustus or "Moves Beyond".
It may have changed, but to my knowledge Group Safety never involved UO.
UO is most certainly under a different roof, i.e. in KA house, ironically, and when doing their simulators and emergency training are completely away from Cathay.

I'm well aware of what an airline group entails.
My point was to justify that a KA employee is most certainly a Cathay employee, as being part of Cathay and being so integrated in every moment of the daily operation (except seniority) - and believe me, it was not something that I believe any KA employee was proud of or wanted.
I fully agree that a KA employee is employed by KA. I never disputed that.
And I never said a KA employee was a CX employee.

Codesharing has nothing to do with route rights. Codesharing is for passenger convenience, mileage accrual and for marketing purposes. Christ, even Finnair and American had codeshare on our flights to i.e. Phnom Penh.
That doesn't mean that AY or AA can start up flights to PNH tomorrow.
I'm well aware of both CX and KA's route rights.

However, it's all beside the point.
Point is that CX is now flying KA destinations with ex-KA aircraft.
But no KA staff, many of whom had operated these aircraft and routes for decades and called Hong Kong their homes, their children born here.
This is now all handed over on a silver platter to junior CX crew recently arrived from Oz or SA, who might just call HKG a stepping stone (especially on COS18/21).

Fact is, that a company take-over took place, with all assets - except staff - being taken over by the parent company.
So KA employees employed by KA and taken over by CX would under normal, civilised jurisdictions be transferred with the assets to the new purchaser, i.e. the parent company.

As you could see from my previous, this happened according to European labor legislations in IAG group when "OpenSkies began operating as Level France, with the same employees since operating under a new brand, with flight crew retrained to fly Airbus aircraft."

Doesn't matter if parts of Level is still operating.
If an airline is taken over, certain rules apply in the civilised World.
If an airline winds down or parts of it (even under a company organisation) goes bankrupt, that's a different story. Tough luck for the employees, even within a warm and friendly airline group.

Look also at how Silk Air was transferred to SQ.
Again, civilised World, 21st century, happy days.

You hit the nail on the head with your last few paragraphs and finally I can say that I wholeheartedly agree with you.
It was something that most, if not all, KA employees were well aware of years ago (so nothing new there ;-) )
I have heard however, that since the NEOs are now in-house with CX, senior management has wet dreams of keeping all the 32 NEOs for themselves now...how ironic.

I have also learned that the company name under which certain transferred KA pilots were employed under, was set up well ahead of COVID, proving exactly that this was a planned move ages ago as you suggest.
It doesn't make it more right or less disgusting though so let's stop pretending, shall we?

Interesting posts.

Agreed, CX will be wetting themselves getting their hands on the NEOs and dumping the expensive pilots who were slated to fly them (Dragonair).

And no, they won't be having HK Express fly them. UO will fly clapped out 320s with even cheaper pilots then COS18 on full eco scumbag routes. That'll be fun.

The NEOs will be super efficient, new, and with business class so will do all the high end short routes.

The :mad:‘s in CX management will indeed be very excited, but they're about to get bitten in the arse with the huge amount of resignations and stress leave/victims on the productive 747 fleet.

The 777 and Bus pilots are falling over themselves and super keen to join the active fleets (777 to 747 conversions), as they've been parked on their bums and enjoying 18 months off on full pay. Other than the times they've had quickly approved unpaid leave to go home obviously.

Don't get me wrong - if I was on a dying fleet (777), I too would be keen and scrambling to get on the 747.

The retreads from the 777 seem to be smiling and having a jolly good time sitting in the midfield terminal waiting for hours for their bat flu results. But I suppose I would be too, if I'd been given a new lease of life.

It's a bit of a slap in the face when I get screwed on seniority, yet again, by those falling over themselves to try and help out and/or save their own skin. The 777 is dead, fair enough. And that's the price you pay for a seniority multi fleet system. Only problem is - Cathay no longer respects or acknowledges seniority.

The fun thing, and the sting in the tail for Cathay, is that there are such a high number of resignations, particularly on the 747 of course, that the :mad: is about to hit the fan, and we might finally have some leverage. If it weren't for the super keen 777 brigade. I guess we just have to show them how miserable it is and bring them on side.

The critical shortage, of course, will be on amongst the 747 trainer ranks. And that's where we need to give the Cathay :mad: management a poke in the eye.

Bring it on I say!

The pleasant thing about threads where CX pilots take a crack at you, is by thread's end they are attacking their own ( again ).

Here’s the funny thing about the 777 to 747 brigade. The question has already been asked by one of them if they will have priority to return to the 777 when things ‘normalize’. I mean it’s likely cos it’s a reduced training footprint to re-activate their rating (ie. cheaper) than a full conversion. So once again the 747 long haulers will get left on the shelf to rot.

STP

“It may have changed, but to my knowledge Group Safety never involved UO.”

It does, and LD. Group safety oversees all Group activities, an accident in any subsidiary impacts the overall brand.

“UO is most certainly under a different roof, i.e. in KA house”

KA House is a Group asset, it ceased being a KA asset in Sept 2006. Hence the reason GBS is located there.

“Codesharing has nothing to do with route rights.”

It does, CX could not sell tickets on flights it didn’t have the right to, it has to have the approvals in place in order to do that. CX passengers on flights administered by KA held CX issued tickets, not KA tickets.

“That doesn't mean that AY or AA can start up flights to PNH tomorrow.”

They could, 5TH freedom right. Could they do that profitably with their own equipment is another question.

“Point is that CX is now flying KA destinations with ex-KA aircraft.”

KA didn’t own any aircraft since Sept 2006.

“Fact is, that a company take-over took place, with all assets - except staff - being taken over by the parent company.”

That happened on 28 September 2006.

“So KA employees employed by KA and taken over by CX would under normal, civilised jurisdictions be transferred with the assets to the new purchaser, i.e. the parent company.”

Not with airlines, AOCs require their own staff, manuals etc for the operation of their flights under that AOC.

“As you could see from my previous, this happened according to European labor legislations in IAG group when "OpenSkies began operating as Level France, with the same employees since operating under a new brand, with flight crew retrained to fly Airbus aircraft."

My point was the Openskies AOC never ceased operating, it just had different management and marketing. The staff employed by Openskies had no right, and IAG/BA/LEVEL had no obligation to redeploy them within IAG once OpenSkies (ie LEVEL France) was closed.

“Look also at how Silk Air was transferred to SQ.”

Silk Air was always part of SQ, they were originally the SQ ad hoc charter airline (Tradewinds) then developed into their regional carrier. It was setup as part of SQ from day 1, same with Scoot.

FC

”And no, they won't be having HK Express fly them. UO will fly clapped out 320s with even cheaper pilots then COS18 on full eco scumbag routes. That'll be fun.”

UO has been operating NEOs since 2016 (B-LCL was the first).

Flying Clog,

Falling over themselves? Did you miss the reverse seniority draft that is going on?

Wow swh, you have definitely convinced me now.

Cathay has done the right thing then, I'm sure they will win the "caring company" price this year again.
I must have been wrong all along...It's almost like an act of charity the way KA was eliminated, for sure the fairest dissolution of an airline in the whole aviation history. Textbook stuff, 1st world!

PS - your "facts" above, are still missing the point completely and mostly incorrect in my book, but I can't be bothered to argue anymore. You obviously know so much more about aviation that you are lined up for a Betsy award or going straight for CX management positions.

PPS - I'd love to hear your arguments the sad day that UO takes over all CX widebodies on a COS27 and throw all the green-tail-employees under the bus, such that junior UO drivers can run the ANC freighters and LHR flights.
After all, it's a different group airline, CX was never part of UO.

Good luck with it all...

Oops, missed that.

hmm

Interesting post Clogs, Gnads is right it doesn’t take long for cx guys to start attacking their own. Cx needs guys from the 777 to got to the 747. A few volunteered but not enough so now people are being forced against their will. Not sure any of these guys are smiling at the testing centre? Let me guess, 3 years ago you were crying because it wasn’t fair you couldn’t go to the 777?

STP

"I'd love to hear your arguments the sad day that UO takes over all CX widebodies on a COS27 and throw all the green-tail-employees under the bus, such that junior UO drivers can run the ANC freighters and LHR flights.
After all, it's a different group airline, CX was never part of UO."

That could happen, or the major shareholders being Air China and/or Qatar Airways could take over the Group, or they could close the passenger airlines CX/UO down and become a freight only by moving the freight business over to LD (as they have all the freighter ports and 747 on their AOC). None of that is in my control, and is not a reflection of the pilots working for CX or the other airlines.

Pilots are just mill workers, they don't own the mill, and have no control if the mill is closed or sold off.

Yes but surely if that happened you’d get shirty with Air China pilots and tell them how hard it is to fly to JFK?

swh

Not quite…in the real, civilised world even your mill workers have rights.

I can recommend this world over Hong Kong, you should try it swh, it’s a breath of fresh air, literally.

Living wise maybe, if you're going to be on the bones of your ass in aviation maybe better to be on the bones in your home country. But mill workers rights, are you serious? BA fired their most senior crew off the 744 totally against the employment contract with full govt approval. There are charter operators in the UK returning to flying with the small catch of the 45% paycut and new contract "sign or leave." For years some based crews have wandered CX city on overnights boasting about how they stick it to the company with lawsuits left right and centre to get what they want and here we are. The last 6 months have been the "we dare the company to close bases, we dare them to try, it'll cost them millions in compensation per pilot" and here we are. QF utterly destroyed their pilot union in court not that long ago, how anyone on an aussie base with CX could have looked at that and say we're completely different defies rational belief.

Mill workers rights indeed..........

Pickuptruck

BA didn’t “fire their most senior crew off the 744”.

The bottom 250 we’re made redundant from the master seniority list. Excluding A350 and B787 pilots. These redundant pilots have the right to return within three years. If things haven’t recovered I assume this period will be extended - BA was already struggling to recruit suitable candidates even before Brexit and the residency and licence implications.

The 744 was closed down. The annual bid came out around then. The senior went to where there were vacancies. The others were put in a pool awaiting a seat. The people in the Community Retention Scheme pool are on 1/3 to 2/3 % pay, funded by all the other pilots taking a pay cut. The cost to the company was net 0.

The discussion about allowing A350/B787 pilots who were on Day 1 of ground school having not even got to the sim to stay while working B744/B777/A320 pilots on line for a year got binned is on another forum.

Thanks Cort Dep,
Nice to see misinformation get promptly straightened out.

Pickuptruck

…and none of it related to rights with respect to a company closure or take-over.

I got my info from a 744 trainer at BA who didn’t have the rosy rainbows and unicorns outcome you speak so highly of. STP there are none so blind as those who refuse to see, go look at the losing battles between pretty much any pilot group and associated airline in Australia or Europe, There are zero rights under the COVID distorted business view and legal system. If you want to see yourself as infinitely better than the average QF pilot, you go right ahead. Nothing that CX has done on any base this year should surprise anyone.

Re: rainbows and unicorns - pretty easy to catastrophise when your fleet is off to the graveyard and you’re on the BALPA forum, (or indeed on here) all the time trying to get any semblance of information. The only senior ones that left were those that took VR.

BA wanted to bin the Jumbo Pilots as that was the cleanest legal outcome - BALPA engineered the CRS pool.

The most efficient and cost-effective way for CX to have ‘right sized’ (as far as pilots were concerned at least, as it’s not always all about us) would have been to merge the KA pilots into CX then get the whole lot on COS18 then work out from there who was needed on which fleet with minimal training cost. Stick the surplus on unpaid leave awaiting the sunlit uplands of the third runway with slots to fly and the end of Covid.

If immigration and visas had been a factor from the outset things would have probably worked out a little differently. But they weren’t and didn’t.

Going back to rainbows and unicorns I doubt that in 12 months from now there will be any unemployed HK Licence holders with residency.