Did you make this up yourself?

$169 billion deficit this year, economy contracting by 3%, Stamp duty income down by 83%. Building a bunch of islands in the harbour for close to a trillion dollars for govt housing. Socialist economies don't exist on planet earth on 17% income tax.

Yep, all made up.

So if not made up, why don’t we hear any talk about this anywhere else? If a media outlet or the actual enlightened business & finance people on GeoExpat started mentioning this then I might have started to worry, but not on a pilot’s rumour forum.

Are you aware that the government is actually considering LOWERING stamp duty TAX for foreigners? They aren’t gonna raise income taxes either if they are so desperate to stop the brain drain. They still have a crap load of money in the war chest and it looks like things will FINALLY recover in 2023.

Also, please provide sources for your $169 billion and 83% figure. The only number I could find was “over $100 billion”, which ≠ $169 billion.

In a Bloomberg article dated Oct 13 2022. The deficit number forecast is cited at $159B and the shrinkage (GDP/economy) 3.2% sourced from a survey of 12 economists by bloomberg.

HK government's own website says -3.2 % shrinkage in 2022 alone, going down 3 years in a row so far. Interestingly it still states the budget deficit at $56B when Paul Chan financial secretary himself said " ... revised to over 100B" on Sep 18 2022. They can't even manage to put out the same official number, so how much credibility does it look like they have if you didn't already know their troubled relationship with the truth, HK gov.

So... do you get your news from the geoexpat? I F;ing hope you're joking.

What’s wrong with getting news from “the geoexpat”? The only way to get news there is if someone shares actual news articles from the news websites we all get our news from anyway. It’s not like people just make up unverified news. That’s not the point anyway. Point is it’s highly unlikely HK will raise taxes, especially when they are desperate to retain/attract talent and the economy is finally allowed to make money again.

For the record, I’m not defending anyone. I am just as pissed off at the HK gov (and CX) as anyone else. Just trying to be unbiased, but for some reason that seems to be illegal on the FH section of Pprune.

If you leave, you'll have no reason to be pissed off anymore....but I'm biased!

Bit irrelevant/off topic, but thanks anyway.

I had the distinct pleasure of flying HKE last week, and aside from the fairly prompt timings and decidedly younger crowd, it wasn’t too bad. ATC got in the way of landing on time here, but we deplaned quickly.

Not sure what CX will do to win over that market as they grow older for near destinations? We got from A to B with minimal fuss, decent price, and no surly cabin crew…

Obviously didn't try to carry golf clubs or other sporting equipment

ANA and JAL widebody pay is on par and above CX... And I am not even referring to the ANA expat contract.

Chinese carrier and Korean carrier contract job is above CX rate.

SQ current rate is about 15% below CX rate assuming 70 hours... Above 70 hours, CX paid will just get higher and higher as the CX hourly above MPP is much higher then SQ hourly rate.

The issue why you can't really compare CX salary to every other asian airline is because CX only has one salary regardless of aircraft type. Not many airline structure their pilot salary this way. 99% of the worlds airline pay their narrow body lower paid, and then as the aircraft gets bigger, the paid is higher. This results in our competitor having narrow body FO and CAPT being paid less then CX pilot, where our competitor widebody FO and CAPT can be paid more then CX. CX salary just essentially average that out.

Which is also why, it is not really fair for some expat who just say 747 or 777 or 330/350 CAPT at Delta or BA or Qantas or whatever is paid like 30% more then CX CAPT... They should go ask those same FO and CAPT, how many years it took them to get onto the 777 or 350 CAPT seat? 10, 15, even 20 years? While in those 10 to 20 years, they are earning pay that are what, 20 to 30% below CX pay? And how much even lower when they are flying the regional jet earning less then someone who works at McDonalds?

Ok to be fair, in recent years, the likes of North American carrier has increase their FO paid by a lot due to lack of pilot and retention issue... but you get what I mean... CX salary has always been higher on the bottom end and lower on the top end. Which is how CX used to stay competitive...

Now they have just bring it to another level really...

Cope.

Although the internal downturn for employee's has been known for years by anyone interested in looking, V for V's comment on the customer is spot on. When you fly with a third-rate airline you are not surprised by third rate amenities, service, etc. However, it is very obvious when flying with what was a first-rate airline that no longer is, how much that decline is noticed.