"Some" money maybe, don't know about "the" money.

Reading this thread is like watching the anchor chain being pulled up on a cargo ship, with refugees holding on to it…

Any semblance of dignity has evaporated with this airline and the pilots have now become a low cost skill.

Engineers are better qualified.

Yes, but consider the fascinating work, the family-friendly hours and the high social status that comes with it.

You remind me of my ex-students who got into flying as a status symbol instead of a chosen career and 99% of their personality is tied up in “being a pilot”

STW, please don’t lose your job, HK doesn’t need anymore suicides.

I certainly don't think that pilots have a particular high social status, but maybe you do?

PS Pretty tasteless reference regarding the terrible implications of suicide. But just to highlight another prejudice implied in your thought chain: against common belief Hong Kong actually has not a particular high suicide rate by international comparisons (lower than the U.S. for example)

Not back to this lorry crap again. I won't go home just to drive between Blackpool and Birmingham for 400k. The M6 is pathetic enough in a car let alone a lorry.

So you don’t think being a truck driver is high social status? Judging people by their profession? Very low for you STW.

you also stated you never met a pilot with an exit strategy? What’s your definition of an exit strategy? (Waiting for a turn in the industry and applying for other jobs is an exit strategy - a basic one - yes but still a strategy)

What would you do if CX folded tomorrow, do you have a backup plan? Well to execute a backup plan, a strategy needs to be in place.

I personally don’t care about HK suicide rate but the way you’ve been conducting yourself on these forums would indicate you’re a person with a social circle of one.

Sam Ting Wong

Well, during my stretch there I came to notice the sickening and miserable statistics around Child Suicide in Hong Kong. The details are all here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studen...s_in_Hong_Kong
Between 2015 and 2017 there were 70 child suicides, and many of them were 11 year olds. Jumping out windows seemed to be the commonest method. What inspires such children to kill themselves? I’d hazard a guess at the majority being related to unloving and demanding parents who reject academic failure.
So yeah, maybe you’re right and HK doesn’t have higher average suicide stats - but the age group is surely unique and abominable.
No place to raise NORMAL kids.

Jnr380

waiting for a turn in the industry? Guess you will be here until retirement because the industry has only gone one way and that is down. The so called looming pilot shortage never eventuates, by the time it does we will be down to single pilot ops anyway.

The fact so many pilots on the bases that closed attempted to return to Hong Kong to keep their jobs makes it pretty clear that there aren’t any better alternatives.

Also, a back up plan (for if Cathay folds) is very different than an exit strategy.

Just to bring a a little fact and context to the unpleasant subject of youth suicide.
Hong Kong rate does not feature in the top 70 countries worldwide but the USA, Australia and New Zealand are unfortunately high on this list with the rate in the US being approximately 6 times that of Hong Kong. According to the UK Guardian 7% of teenagers in the UK between 15 and 19 have attempted suicide - if correct a truly horrible statistic.
I have had several children at schools in HK for the past 25 years (and still) and have only ever been aware one suicide.

noboloco

I don’t know what small world you live in, but the shortage was here and it will come again. You want to cherry pick details so it cements your confirmation bias.

Fact - China was so starved of pilots that they paid $300k USD for captains to fly around the region

Fact - Vietnam Airways increased pilot pay to attract more pilots as a lot were leaving

Fact - EK parked Jets as they didn’t have enough crew to operate them

Fact - American regionals got so desperate for pilots they started hiring Australians and pay also increased to retain talent

Fact - The Jetstar Group was crying for pilots

Fact - Qantaslink hired people from South Africa to drive their Q400

All the above is from 2016 onwards.

The fact you call the shortage a myth is laughable at best and reflects your simplistic views.

If you want to talk about pay, pay stayed stagnant and was actually tilting towards favouring the pilots but then Covid hit.

The industry will start up again, it’s all supply and demand for the job. Come visit this reply in 2024 and tell me I’m wrong!

Single pilot will not prevail for at least another 20 years. LH has a single pilot framework but they never implemented, the collaboration with Airbus is more of a data gathering exercise in exchange for most likely a discount on something. Good luck also convincing the CAD, they’ll never go for it, unless it’s been ticked off by one or more of the major regulators, they won’t approve it.

Nopes, to think those facts mean anything close to pilot shortage is a overly simplistic understanding of facts.

First of all the Chinese weren’t looking for f/o’s or career pilots. They were mostly looking for quick skippers to accomodate their over inflated aviation sector.
That money was needed because no sane 40-50-60 yr old westerner would gladly move to a communist nation to live in a box and be subjected to communist rule. So they needed incentives. That’s it, nothing else.

As for EK the same counts as above, remember it’s a mega expensive muslim city in the desert, people in general do not want to go live there. Those other little feeder carriers you speak of lost many pilots and had crappy contracts. Their lack of pilots was not due to a shortage but due to bad contracts.

Next time you even think about “shortage of pilots” ask yourself why BA, KLM, LUFTI, AA, CX, AF or Qantas never had planes on the ground due to pilot shortage. There has never been nor will there EVER be a shortage of pilots but there will always be a shortage of good contracts.

As for the future of aviation, nobody knows really. It’s just a guess and every decision is a bet. 2024 is so far away and anything can happen,one thing is for sure the world will have too many pilot by then as well.

I can tell you why the above mentioned airlines weren’t hiring (but in reality they actually were. I personally know of 3 CX crew who left in 2018 for QF). Those airlines weren’t really expanding to new destinations so they’re just replacing staff who were retiring or chasing the money as elsewhere.

When you have countries like AU, NZ and US putting pilots on their “shortage” immigration list and issuing respective visas like hot cakes, it’s because they’re running on data, a lot more substantiated, verified data not anecdotal evidence, which you seem to be running on.

Why they weren’t hiring, I never spoke of that. I suggest you go read my post again, everyone hires from time to time, I spoke about planes on the ground due to a lack of pilots. None of those carriers were canceling mass amount of flights due to pilots, and that was in the biggest aviation boom we’ve ever seen(2017-2019).

I’m sorry but you are totally mistaken, here in the US pilots are NOT on any immigration shortlist nor have visas been issued like hotcakes in aviation. I have no idea where you got this from or maybe just fabricated but it’s absolutely not the case. With this visa rubbish I’ve noticed you’re out of your depth in this matter. Ciao.

Jnr380

I love the blind optimism that we're one day going to go back to the PanAm 1960's in renumeration and social status. Vietnam contract jobs currently are paying skippers $2-4 k a month, the regionals in the USA are paying marginally more. All the shortages are at places that had such piss poor pay and conditions that the locals didn't want to work there. Had nothing to do with a pilot shortage, or maybe it's a shortage of guys so desperate to get into flying they'll do it for marginally above free......

Jnr380

You might want to check before you spread misinformation. Particularly when accusing someone of going off anecdotal evidence since that is exactly what you seem to be going off. There is no shortage of pilots in NZ and it is not on the skilled shortage list, nor was it prior to COVID. You can check the immigration website yourself. The are no “visas like hot cakes” as you speak of. In Australia there was only a temporary shortage due to the mainline snapping up regional pilots but COVID has resolved all of that. Qantas has setup its own training school and will be more than capable of meeting its own demand going forward.

There is actually peer reviewed journals on pilot shortages! My god, you seriously can’t be that stupid that you think you’re smarter or have more solid information than that, that has been peer reviewed…. Worse than Anti-Vaxxers

Please post a link to these fantasy articles so that we may benefit from the wisdom within.

https://www.alpa.org/-/media/ALPA/Fi...ines.pdf?la=en

University of Nebraska study. (civil)

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...rational_Units

Military shortage

OK, so the first one is from 2018 before the pandemic and the second is from 2012 . You’ll have to do better than that.

Maybe take a read through the thread, where people were stating that there was never a shortage. Ive proven their view was wrong and I’m not going to entertain goalpost shifting.

This management consulting firm Oliver Wyman have posted an interesting article regarding pilot shortage in the US post Covid
https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expe...-shortage.html

My nephew flies for the AA regional Piedmont. He got a signing bonus as a new hire in November, 2019. He was never furloughed despite the fact that it was the Rona and we were all gonna die. Now Piedmont is offering this: Piedmont Retention Bonus. I worked in the US regional airline industry from 1989-1997. There was nothing like this. Nothing but pauper's wages. "Paying our dues". In fact starting in 1993 or so my regional required new hires to pay 10,000 dollars for training. They could opt out halfway through and get 5K back if they were failing. There was a pilot surplus, but now, in the US at least, there is indeed a shortage. My nephew will go further faster than I ever dreamed of, and thank God he has never mentioned Cathay.

8driver, good on your nephew, but you need to consider the base line. As you said yourself, the regionals offered salaries that were hardly survivable on. Plus a shortage at Hilbilly Air in Kentucky doesn't mean a shortage of real jobs at real airlines. Most pilots at Cathay don't have the right to work in the US anyway, so it's all a bit (peer reviewed!) academic rubbish.

Every new airline in Europe offers automatically worse conditions than the competitors. Every single one. The packages on offer are hideous, as are the working conditions. As e.g. Flying Clog will shortly find out, some operate a 777F with 3 men Europe-India- Far East in one go. Enjoy and repeat. And that for maybe half of what they earned after tax at Cathay. Some in this forum still see a future in the desert. Have a look at the offered pay and conditions, especially the block hours. Plus these places are absolutely terrible, who really wants to live voluntarily in these artificial, soul-less fake societies with medieval legislation and culture? Maybe if you are from a certain country in the southern hemisphere that makes their pilots worry about the safety of your family while they are at work,but otherwise? Have a look at formerly guaranteed sick leave, pension plans, etc. Shambolic. Some praise 90% free school in these places. Well, they are 100% free where I come from and you don't have to stay indoors half a year and you have human rights. Decisions, decisions..

Long gone is the hardship pay for expats, the new normal for a skipper in Asia is maybe 10k a month, 100 hrs block ultra-long haul with 24 hrs layover at a two and a half star Airport hotel, plus a "villa" in an expensive country I don't want to be. Or make that a shoe box in Tung Chung or some other suburbian dystopian nightmare somewhere in Asia. Awesome.

The universal trend of T&C is clearly downwards, and you need to be a die-hard and blind optimist to reject that.

How often have we been told there is a "looming" pilot shortage? I keep on hearing this since day one in the industry.

Jnr, I actually read the papers you linked. Did you? They do NOT say there was a shortage, they report of a brief recruitment issue at airlines that believed 15k a year is sufficient to offer. Its a fabricated myth. You have a "shortage" of everything if you offer below market pay. Everywhere. Its absurd. The studies only talk about a FORECASTED shortage, and well, we all know how that worked out. Again.

The future pilots will be working-class if they decide to live in their home country and mostly from unsafe/poor countries with useless passports abroad, that is my prediction. The US may offer some shelter for now, but in the long run it will see the same cut-throat race to the bottom conditions.

Any "exit strategy" is rendered useless if constantly all run to the exit at the same time.

Outside work is for 99% of us an illusion, a pipe dream, exit means, well, to exit the industry and retire, become a sand rat or a work slave at a low cost. If you want to call that a "exit strategy" go ahead, I for my part think it is a euphemism.

Well said STW. Yes an illusion for many of us for sure and the exit is as you say retirement or quit with not likely better prospects. Talk to the based guys who have been let go all them how their hunting is going.

STW:
1.How can you NOT call yourself a defeatist?
2.Two wrongs don’t make a right.
3.HOW did we get to ever declining CoS’s?
You know my answer.

3. By people like you and me, aka the market.

Whatever airline you joined recently, it isn't a well paying one, that is certain. After many years in Cathay you can afford it, you have different work-balance needs as you had 20 years ago. You just want to be home. It suits you and that is totally ok. I have no problem with your career choice at all, but you must see that you are part of the problem, not the solution.

You are accepting market conditions that others can't or don't want to accept, and nothing else is happening everywhere all the time.

If you actually retired, maybe a younger (and poorer) version of yourself might have made a different decision. You maybe got hired directly in the left seat, which again your younger self might have met with less enthusiasm.

You are the demand, you are keeping this market alive, we all do. Don't you see that?

You make quite the assumptions.
And your assumption makes an ASS of U but not ME.
I make more money now than I did in cx.
As far as being part of the problem: I voted with my feet in stead of continuing to complain or resigning to my fate.
As far as being “home”: wrong again.

Ok, let's assume this is true. In the midst of the worst crisis this industry has ever seen, Piet Lood found a better paying airline than Cathay. Fine.

What you don't see is: it is not about the absolute package, it is about your personal judgement what an acceptable package is. There is no right or wrong, no moral aspect whatsoever.

We are all just a bunch of homo economicus making self-centred decisions. That's it.

Another THREE wrong assumptions, so I should probably give up on “educating” you, however…
my original premise was not about understanding market forces. I believe you and I BOTH understand those quite well. My premise was about you being a defeatist who is too afraid or comfortable to stand up for what is right, two wrongs not making a right and being on opposite sides of influencing said market forces.
You do you. I should have given up long ago on the idea of people like you changing their mind or being able to use some self-reflection.

Piet, you can't claim to accept and understand the market on one hand, and on the other ask me to "stand up and fight". Against whom? Fight how?

Think about it, you and a few hundred left. What changed? What would change if I leave?

If ONLY you left, NOTHING mate.
But maybe you can put all that gathered wisdom, wealth, experience and preaching pulpit to some good and lead by example.
I know you want/need those last few silver pieces, but as Uncle Joe says: “Come on man”.

You sound like every other defeatist out there: “If I won’t do it, they’ll find someone else who will”.

It’s allright man, I get it. It’s hard.
All I am asking you own up to your defeatist label and wear it with pride in stead of making up excuses of why you are still selling your soul to the devil.
:mad: the next generation right?
You had to “fight” for where you are now, so why shouldn’t they?
We left aviation in a worse state than we found it and I for one am ashamed for my part in that decline. At least I TRIED to put my 2 cents in, in stead of throwing my hands in the air stating “it is what it is”.
”Better to have tried and failed, than to not have tried at all”. (Too lazy to find the reference, but google is your friend).

But what you are saying is not true. You did stay and accepted lower and lower conditions, for years and years, right up to your individual line in the sand.You had no problem to be on the demand side as long as it suited you. You did not leave for moral reasons, you left because you saw less benefit in staying than in leaving.

And now you declare your personal threshold as the universal "right" one, the line no other pilot shall cross. That is irrational and imperious.

"Hunger is the best sauce in the world."

Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

Fair cop regarding the personal limit, but as I said: I take responsibility for my share in the decline and am ashamed of it.
Care to acknowledge your own part in the decline and apologise for your part?
Oh, I forgot, people like you are never wrong and don’t have anything to apologise for.
Good for you mate.

Frank,
like STW you make many ASSumptions and some of them are wrong.
I already acknowledged that STW has a point in stating that I cannot expect others to abide by MY line in the sand, so I’ll repeat that acknowledgement to you if you want.
Let me assure you that I fought harder against the decline than most. Did I achieve anything? Apparently not. But again: I tried.
What did YOU ever do to try and turn the tide?
I gave up the good fight after realising I couldn’t get enough people to join it and that was well before covid and the current cos18 debacle.
If you guys don’t stand up now, you never will, but that’s no longer my problem.
It just pains me to see defeatists like STW who are extremely well off to try and convince others that it’s not worth fighting for what is right and try to achieve what he has achieved: a very comfortable lifestyle.
HE is allright Jack!

The surprise with the Berlin Wall was that it did not fall much sooner.
The surprise with Cathay Pacific's Pilot's Pay is that it has not reached realistic levels sooner..

And the surprise on the top floors (and STW) will be that “the market” is not just pilot jobs. Many will leave Cathay for a job that has nothing to do with aviation. Many already have….. many more than 100.

Wake up!

Bueno Hombre

So what is a 'realistic level' to live on in Hong Kong then? Please enlighten us all.

AtoBsafely

They will say something like pilots can't go into another job, have to start from the bottom, too late for that etc...

I am sure everyone has worked hard to get to where they are now, and they have every right to not want to start over again. But if one is so unhappy about the condition with his/her current employer and especially it has been going on for so long, why didn't he/she start seeking alternatives earlier in life, be it another employer, a side business or study something for another career....

Some did and come on here to share their experience only to be told: “why don’t you move on in stead of hanging onto your past experience”.
In short: you are only allowed to comment on here if you’re happy with the current situation or agree with whoever posts such comments.