No sign-on bonus??

Yep, that too….

Great post V

V. The most on point post i've read in a long long time. Cathay was subsumed by a bean counter mentality that took it to level 12. No accounting for the true nature of the professionals who they ultimately relied upon to keep the airline functioning, and sickeningly betrayed . More importantly, no accounting for the fragile reputational legacy that kept the "name" of CX at the pinnacle of the industry. Now squandered and lost. You are correct...there is probably no coming back. They never foresaw that their own mendacious tenancies would be outdone and consumed by that of the HK Govt (and the PRC). The perfect storm, and now only wreckage is left. Sadly not even at the bottom yet, a place that will surely be recognised as one of the great business and societal tragedies of the modern age. I can only stand in stunned silence as to the complete devastation caused by a coterie of the worst and most self serving people this industry has ever brought together in one place at one time.

I fear it is wishful thinking and emotional reasoning of V. There is no such dramatic shortage. As we speak still hundreds sitting idle or on minimum hours. As someone rightly pointed out before, if Cathay can't recruit, how could LCC's in Asia then? The most important factor regarding pay is the benchmark. Not inflation, not cost of living, not difficulty of task, not days in quarantine.

No airline in the world can be instantly ready for a rebound at an unknown point in the future. Impossible.Hence the worldwide (!) problems with cancellations etc. Everywhere the wheels came to a halt and are now slowly spooling up again. Except in Hong Kong, where still nobody knows what insane government plan will come next. And of course it will take time to expand again should Beijing come to senses one day. Nothing to do with pilot shortage per se.

PS Mole, it is the precise job of management to cut any employee until he boils of anger but juuuust still does the job he is told to do. I believe they will succeed, simply because of the even worse market elsewhere. I hope I am wrong.

That is the most inane frogsh!t I have ever had the misfortune to read! What complete and utter twaddle...

You suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

STW, Next time you are at an outport, please ask the ground staff what they want and then ask them why they can't have it. Report back here if you don't mind.

I don't get your point, but in general you guys totally overestimate the interest in what any minion employee wants. Nobody cares, wake up.

Consider the nature of the business. You stop a route for years and it will take many months to open it up again. Selling tickets, promotion,getting the aircraft out of storage, renegotiating traffic rights, slots, handling etc etc. You guys are too self-centric. Pilots are just a small piece of the whole.

But I thought we all are wrong?

STW, the conversation may go something like this. "Hello Ground staff at xxx my name is STW, what do you want? "Thank you for asking STW we NEED more flights" then ask them why they can't have more flights like this "Oh interesting, why can't you have more flights?" see what they say and report back here please.

STW, your talking about a free market with no outside influencers. You give no value to a HKG ATPL with 4000 hours and 500 in company aircraft. Your not taking into account that it takes a cadet 8-10 years to get to that experience level the way we log SO and FO relief time. You assume a mobility of work force that doesn't exist at the moment.
On a different note, I counted back 50 or so of my last conversations on WhatsApp. 12 guys gone, or resigned already, 3 say going by end of the year and 16 staying or I've got no idea what they're up to. Lets call it half leaving, and this sample would average about the 20 years of service. The head of the mother company wasn't sniffing around the 3rd/9th floor last week handing out Freddo frogs. Suspect he was asking WTF is going on with his peoples investments capability to spool up when required.

Your echo chamber of whatsap contacts may not be representative. How many locals are in your contact list?

There are hundreds of possible reasons why you just can't pull a flight out of a hat when you need it. To assume it is definitely pilot shortage is hybris in my opinion.

Yes, you are right the HK pilot market is unique. But apparently the company is gambling on enough staying and recruiting sufficiently in the future. I don't believe for a second experience counts for them. It's about costs and bodies in flight deck seats for X number of aircraft.

The company can hire anyone they like, captains, contracted guys, fast track first officer, anybody. Again, if LCC's in Asia can do it Cathay will be able to do so as well.

They know how big they want the airline to be, we don't. They have all the data to the fifth decimal behind the comma, we have whats app groups.

Don't you see the fallacy here? You want it to be true so it must be true.

I'm simply reporting what the board of directors has been told when asked why restoration plans keep falling apart. They've been told we don't have enough pilots and can't seem to recruit or stop the attrition. The 60% normal ops by September plan was set 4 months ago and were still 2 months away from it and it has been decided to be unachievable. 50% by end of the year is still 6 months away and yet already decided to be un achievable. Nothing instantaneous here. I don't see news articles about "cathay cant stop pilot exodus..." and cathay city interview GH being confronted about historical attrition and inability to recruit and admitting "perhaps cos18 is not adequate for everyone..." about any other airline, even Emirates. But I do about cathay. The writing is on the wall, even without confidential behind the scenes information about the board panicking due to inability to execute restoration plans. Grey Hose himself, the engineer and executioner of cos 18 has just publicly said perhaps cos18 is not for everyone. If that's not admission of defeat and F'up I don't know what is. Are you not aware of the bloomberg news article about the press event at Cathay city just recently?

Watch for an announcement to raise cos18 pay to prove it all. If all is well as you say why would they do thatdoit will of course be too little too late but it will be proof of their desperation and panic.

Rest of your delusion is equally uninformed but I don't have time for it.

I can’t tell if you’re taking the piss or not. Or is CX paying you every time you post on here? My goodness…

To this date, for the past 20 years, any prediction of crew shortage in this very forum was plain wrong. Each and every time.So who is taking the piss?

Of course they might raise the pay a little. As I said, just enough to crew whatever their plan is. I am not holding my breath it will be much to talk about.

Vendetta, you do anything but " simply report'. Your conclusions are exaggerated and wishful thinking. You read way too much into any mail or press release. Every word is a lie, an attempt to deceive, to distract. Management is warfare by other means. Machiavellian characters playing their dirty game. Bloomberg article by Denny? Give me a break please.

Trust me, if they really would be panicking about a pilot shortage we would notice first.

STW
I don't expect you to know what I want, could we start with what we all don't want. "Missed opportunities"

It pains me to say it guys, but he's 100% spot on in one respect. As far as the company is concerned we are still 7-800 pilots heavy. They don't give a **** about people leaving.
Now we all know that it's the numbers it's the crew composition that's going to bite them. And it will. But you'll have to be willing to stick around for a couple of years to reap the benefits.

Correct, we don't know what the shareholders want for this business, we can only assume, and the only assumption I can make is expansion.

As much as I want to say STW is completely wrong. I am afraid much of what he says is very correct and valid. The other opinions are what our ego's want to believe is true. I want to believe it's true, just like I want to believe things will go back to normal soon. But the pure fact is a lot of what is being stated is complete fantasy. Especially when Margaret Thatcher was quoted as saying you want workers to be rebelling to know that you are not overpaying. I don't see any rebellion just volunteers to come join, volunteers to stay ( yeah sure some are leaving... But not enough), volunteers to train ( if ever it was a crappy deal now is the time, but no shortage of wannabes), volunteers to do FDAP and all manner of free stuff. When this stops, maybe then STW will be wrong. But until then a spade is a spade. I so wish it wasn't!