Looks like the 330 fleet is also now in the firing line. Two FOs and one CN have received rejection letters from IMMD when renewing their six monthly extension. No more renewals. Non negotiable.

THAT comment is one of the truest things I have ever read on this forum.

I don’t think the rejection of those relocating from a base is much of a shock. The numbers affected are far smaller than the SCMP suggest.

It’ll be more interesting to see how they go about visa renewals.

Settle down. I didn’t suggest otherwise.

When is your leaving bash?

Those 300 slots will be filled quickly. Take out a fair few from failed interviews and they will slot in by end of next year. Just from the FO/SO alone it should be a couple hundred gone. I believe UO is 125ish in the firing line. HKA will be reducing but at this stage I have no idea on their hiring plans.

The downsizing is all planned to make this airline cheap and attractive for the likes of Air China or China southern to put a bid in to take over within a year...that was the game plan all along....

So effectively another great management decision.

Pay large amount of redundancy to Dragon pilots, get forced by immigration to pay another large amount of redundancy to very senior cathay pilots on bases, pay more redundancy to pilots (again some very senior) on bases that can’t get work permits, rehire the dragon pilots (that have already received large payouts that are not repayable) possibly also pay large amount of redundancy to Hong Kong Cathay pilots that can’t get work permit and pay large amount in training and retraining. Fuel hedging, cargo cartel, Paris closure, where and when does it stop….when the shutter comes down?

Yup, sounds about right. Another classic CX management cluster &$X£.

You couldn't make this stuff up.

backspace redundancy doesn’t cost much on COS18

Bases aren't on PoS18, neither was Dragon.

I was told the original plan was to “cull” 30 percent of the crews from the bottom of the list from the 3 group airlines in March. Some bright spark came up with the idea to get rid of KA instead at some cost. If so essentially CX managed to engineer the visa crisis?

They did all the wrong things and the beautiful poetic justice has been biting them in the a$$ ever since. Doing the right things would be to reduce crew count per the long standing contracts, by seniority (this would mean most cuts would be non-PR therfore negating the visa crisis these idiots didn't forsee), and paycuts on a temporary basis giving hope for a worthwhile job once again in the future.

Now they have to let go of all non-PR as if they had followed the contract and kept that one ounce of employer credibility they had. They have zero credibility as an employer now because of cancelling the contracts unilaterally and overnight without any discussion whatsoever and making this a "no contract" job permanently.

They also have to raise the payscales and the pay structure back to something resembling what it was before (more money and yearly increments) once business returns or else no pilots would come even on a temporary basis (not enough and the quality it takes to sustain operatio). The 300 or so local/PR existing in hk would not be more than a drop in the bucket. They will need to hire from outside shortly after business starts ro return. They could have just announced the paycuts as temporary until then and keep some credibility. Now they'll have to raise the pay and it won't help their zero credibility. This means whoever comes will come with the intent of staying for a short while. The cost of constant new hire training will kill them. Good luck with hiring mainland Chinese pilots to fly cathay. Not many Hong kongers will fly on those planes for obvious reasons.

Same shkuld have been done with dragon.. Not dissolving the entire operation overnight. All the millions invested to buy and upgrade and integrate dragon was flushed down the toilet including the routes which cathay will never regain besides a token few.

If they had done the right things, they would end up in the same place anyway. Layoffs based on seniority and temporary paycuts after at lease a presence of discussion.

Everything they were trying to get away with they have to do anyway and it cost them their credibility permanently.

The idiot who was the mastermind of this debacle deserves recognition for the unnessasary predicament cathay is in once again due to it's own management incompetence on a new scale.

ALL of what's happening now I was blurting out all the way to Anchorage the morning forced cos18 was announced. To annoyance of my dear fellow crewmembers. It's ALL coming true. This visa issue, intent to close all the bases and losing all those pilots, people quitting for garbage airlines now a better prospect than cathay, mass of stress leaves, bankruptcies, pilots with families packing and leaving for home with no job yet, etc.

They're losing people at an unsustainable rate and it's always the best ones who leave first affecting not only numbers but also quality of staff remaining. Not just pilots. The back office staff, IT etc are taking other jobs for less money and leaving for some time now. It's a main subject of weekly management meetings how critical the office staff situation has become. The pilots are taking jobs with less money they wouldn't even consider couple of years ago or just quitting with no job to move to. We all know several of those. There are 15+ year seniority pilots leaving to start at the bottom of sh!tshow airlines whom Ince cos18 beat cathay on pay and benefits. I'm one of them and i personally know at least 30 others having done the same.

What an accomplishment! Well done cathay... NOT!

Staticport

As far as I know, no redundancy to date has been on POS18 pay, voluntary or compulsory. On top of that, court cases pending in Europe which may amount to significantly more than a redundancy payment, I believe the Canadians that didn't get a work permit will also be paid a significant sum greater than the contracted redundancy, courtesy of a judges decision (I stand to be corrected if the later is incorrect), and I believe the Kiwis also benefited by an amount greater than the contracted redundancy.

There are about 100 local CX SO made redundant on POS18 in Oct2020

Very very well said VforVendetta. Couldn't agree more.

852, you are indeed correct, although I don’t believe the company actually paid them redundancy. I believe they had there contract cancelled within the probationary period so that the company technically didn’t have to pay them redundancy and they were given an exgratia payment, because the company really cares.

I might also add, that if LIFO and LOFI had been used they may well have been re-employed by now or at least be very close.

Whatever one thinks of seniority based systems they are just that a system. It seems like CX always wants to reinvent the wheel to suit themselves and are surprised when said wheel comes off!

And just to add to the fun, all the 55 year old PR holders will be eligible for a job before sponsored visa holders, assuming they were even interested.
lol

VforVENDETTA

Very senior KA Flight Op's Managers were telling people mid last year that visa issues were complicating redundancy contingencies. Everyone was very aware of the issue at a senior level and they took a punt. Like they have often done.

Where's RL to crunch the numbers and state that the company will be short of pilots in X years time. Been hearing it for years.

KA also had around 50+ pilots on COS18… including those fresh cadets joined as KA SOs for less than 2 years… all with actual RHS P1US hours..
On the other hand, out of the 100 redundant CX SOs, most of the locals were recalled already with a start date. Some of them haven’t even passed ground school yet..

Pilot shortage ? Cmon guys, this is ridiculous.

I think it’s called irony. You may like to try it.

Apparently the Immigration Department was far from impressed to learn about the company’s revolving door of hiring ex-KA crew while kicking Cx crew onto the street and somehow justifying that circus act as to why it was necessary to employ foreigners.

As for the company losing pilots at an unsustainable rate, where is one shred of evidence that management seem in the slightest bit concerned? There are 400 citizens/permanent residents who are volunteering to do anything from loops to extended duties who are being told in the bluntest means possible to not let the door hit them in the arse on the way out.

CX has always had a crisis management mentality. The board/expenditure review committee will first learn of a pilot shortage when planes are parked against fences and hotel rooms are being booked for passengers. The chances of that scenario ever happening again at CX aren’t exactly high. Even this management isn’t so incompetent as to not see that.

Progress Wanchai, you give CX management too much credit. Never underestimate the stupidity of the FILTH. Driven by sociopathic zeal and greed, they’ll stop at nothing, even as the last funnel of the ship disappears beneath the waves.

Globocnik

I think you are mistaken, they are serious.

Well then. Lord help them.

Piet Lood

Bravo mate. Bravo. Not much to add except you're right and always have been. Anyone thinking otherwise is a CX stooge and apologist. The airline is a bloody wreck. The vast majority of the pilot group are stressed to the max. How anyone can even remotely suggest otherwise has their head clearly stuck up CX managements azz. Sheesh...

Sam Ting Wong

Holy mutha of all nonsense. You must be on some high end drugs mate. This is probably the most ridiculous thing Ive ever read as it relates to HK. You're plying a first class troll trade. You in charge of the troll academy? I have no words. 🙄

Well a lot of Flame & misinformation in this thread. The DFO himself said today no visas haven't been extended and they aren't aware of any issues or concerns around visa extensions.

Where? Too busy being training having broken the ban and dashing in to help with the loop.

Drc40


https://asianaviation.com/boeing-rem...lish-on-china/

https://www.pwccn.com/en/aviation-le...l-aviation.pdf


https://www.colliers.com/en-de/downl...a-8230896d5945

https://www.pwccn.com/en/research-an...-bay-area.html

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/da...-en-190415.pdf

https://www.theatlantic.com/business...and-us/253160/


You could either study reports by economists and aviation specialists including Boeing, educate yourself on numbers at play, evaluate population wealth projections, acknowledge the shift of a billion people into middle class consumption areas and so forth. Or you can continue with the old lamentation how all it ends in tears when the yellow man doesn't listen anymore to the white man.

Entirely your choice.

It’s just that CX won’t be around to be part of it.

Which is what this is all about. Hong Kong just went back to China, and unless Hell freezes over there is no way Cathay will be allows to continue operating as a bastion of expatriate mercenaries. It's just not going to happen because it implies that westerners do a job the Chinese can't.

Expats are fine as pure manpower - seatfillers if you will. They've been flying on the mainland as such for decades, But not as owners, not as managers, and certainly not as imported expertise.

Except that expats know wtf they’re doing. In the main.

Locals (in HK, China and elsewhere) know wtf they're doing. In the main.

Your point being?

Hold on to that thought.

You got some better qualifications than locals? If you think you are better than local, you can always go back to your home country and don't set a foot in HK. What's the big mystery about it?

Globocnik

Hehe. And you think that Beijing would tolerate - or oven humor - such a proposition?

Since you're obviously not familiar with China, then perhaps you might look at the Soviet Union under the Cold war for a parallel. Everything Soviet was proclaimed superior; cars, ships, aircraft, spacecraft, military technology and - most importantly - society. To admit that the capitalists, in their plunge towards darkness, could produce anything of value was a threat the structure of the entire system and ferociously denied.

It's the same this time around.

Joke made by the miners crew chief drafted in to Pripyat. After yet another communist :mad: up.
“What’s as big as a house, burns 20 liters of fuel every hour, puts out a :mad:-load of smoke and noise, and cuts an apple into three pieces? A Soviet machine made to cut apples into four pieces!"

And I’m fully appraised, and indeed experienced enough of, the joys of the Cold War. And other wars for that matter. And quite familiar enough with China. Which frankly, can keep its virus. Oh too late. Thanks.

lee_apromise

Sorry. I think I get the cut of your jib. Then again English wasn’t my mother tongue.
Yes I have way better qualifications than many of the locals. And I am back in my home country. And very glad to be out of that dystopian goat :mad: