BlunderBus

What are you doing? Now is a time for unity between all in the pilot group... including freighter blokes!

Together we stand.... divided we fall.

Reading all this drivel, no wonder CX divide and conquer!

looks like handbags at dawn again..........................and CX will be the winners....................you have a vote, and the only vote they will take notice of is if you walk out the door.................

HAPPY ENDING Re your earlier dimwit comment...

Normally I can see sarcasm from far off - but am not so sure of your comment since you only been here from April 07???

Please tell me you are joking.

Obviously we will be given a pay INcrease. Even management knows that the boat is rocking a bit, and they do pay attention to the fact that a lot of NAM pilots are walking off to greener pastures and even the odd S/O is leaving for other options arising in their old backyard.
What is also obvious from the AoA updates is that nothing comes from nothing. We will pay for the expected pay INcrease by means of supplying the company with the required "here and now" requirement for pilots to man the new ships. For a lot of guys that will mean extra time to upgrade, possibly like some of you have mentioned 3-4 years. But please pay attention to the fact that 3-4 year of extra time to command can quickly turn into 3-10 years if the !!!! ones again hits the fan. Those of you who do not get command within the next few years will also be the ones to suffer should another sars, birdflue or Asian crises arises, you will simply be cut off.

The company will man those shiny jets - whatever it takes - whatever means they will have to use. Accept it.

You call 5% a pay increase???

ok lets get real..................increase in hours from 84 to 94 a month is worth 20% for starters.........................

5 years with no pay increase at 3% year is worth 15%

3 man crew to europe...................name your figure

age 65 retirement........................who knows?? too many varying viewpoints if your over 45 it rocks, if your under it sucks

so between 35 1nd 50% pay increase should stop sll those resignation letters that are written from hitting the desks on 3rd floor.............

Signed: Hans Christian Sizematters
(Purveyor of fine fairy tales)

No doubt about it, you will sign!

Mr Bushcat said
"Of course voting NO is an obvious way of showing your disgust at your future being sold down the toilet for a bunch that have had it good for so many years already, at the expense of US, the junior officers"

Buddy if you are going to sling mud expect some back your way. I am not sure why you are slagging off at A scalers in fact there is another alternative school of thought that has been around for years..... that you junior crew came in, accepted low pay and undermined A scalers and your own careers dramatically. The Freighter crew came in and undermined the B scalers,the DEFOs are undermining the current S/O's rah rah rah blah blah. If you are going to be duped it is will come from CX management not your collegues.

NR must be rubbing his hands with glee, he has got all his pilots in fighting.

I do agree that as many people as possible should join the AOA and have a vote on the proposal, if it is not a reasonable proposal those 100 awful A scalers are hardly going to railroad it thru. I think it is a bit premature to start accusing any one of selling anybody down the toilet without any official proposal in hand.

More like 350 A Scalers

I must have missed something in'99:ok:

Slowly gents
 

Here is an idea : Let's stop throwing mud at each other. Let's face it - we all made decisions along the way thinking that they were the best for us and our families.

Rather, let's channel our frustration and energy in the right direction. The company is the "bad guy" in this story. If the package is no good we say no. OK, maybe we get a sign it or leave deal but somehow I don't think so. The company needs pilots, lots of pilots. It won't be too keen to push more bodies away by being militant.

I hope that the blokes who can leave and said they will, will go if the deal is crap. That is the only language that is understood in this part of the world.

A scale, B scale, DEFO, Freighter, etc, for once lets remember that we are actually on the same team - like it or not.

W2

whodunnit is right, unity is the only way to achieve anything here.

whodunnit2..

Yes, lets hope that the bunch of the guys who have not already left, but have said they would, will leave. Vote with the feet or whatever its called. Sure they might take a bit of a paycut (money money) - but there is so much more to life than money. The sooner you join a company that actually knows how an airline company is supposed to be run and operated in its aspects (and NOT only in making profit), the sooner you will grow your seniority and have fun at the same time, at tha new airline.
You can actually have fun flying - remember :ok:

Happy operating. :D

Just found out yesterday two mate are leaving real soon. One took a base late last year and is off to Royal Brunei and the other after just completing his -400 command and taking a London Base is off to Oasis.:ok:

Titan, what does your mate know that I don't? Why would anyone go to Oasis as an FO after just getting his command? I'm intrigued as to the reason.

I have a mate in Dragonair who has just done the same. He is a training captain and has handed in his notice to go to Oasis as a FO.

Reasons,

Had enough of HK.
Boring routes.
!!!!e company.

Fair play, that's what I say.:D

Yes, I know Oasis doesn't have much of a route network but I guess they are up and coming, plus maybe bases in the future.

Ah the join as an FO and become a captain next day trick, especially holding a training ticket. Opportunities are there if you have the gonads and believe the promises!

Demographics of the General Committee
 

After receiving the same email that bushcat posted I decided to have a look for myself at the General Committee makeup.

There are 16 members on the AOA GC according to their website. 8 are A scale CNs and 8 are B scale (6 CNs, 2 FOs).

There are 2 B scale FOs who represent the 1300 plus guys who will be most adversely affected by this deal. There are 14 A and B scale CNs representing the 750 who have the most to gain by this deal. Are any of them due to retire in the next few years? I suspect there is one A scaler on a base and one B scale TC close to retirement. Of the 8 A scale, 7 are based. Do the based guys have anything to lose on this deal? So out of self interest there is likely to be 9 GC members actively pushing this deal and 2 actively opposing it!


Is this GC really in a position to give impartial judgement of this deal?


My advice, get more FOs and SOs into the AOA so that we can reject or accept the deal inspite of the self interested recommendation of the GC.

I honestly couldn't care about a pay increase anymore- its way too late anyway.

What we should be fighting for is an annual scale increment based on inflation!!!!! This will ( stating the obvious ) ensure that our conditions do not deteriorate further and nothing else. :ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh::ugh:
Every single decent global company on this planet does that.

We would like to see a 24 hours strike, we still have some people to terminate, ones we missed the last time or some newbies beating their chest. Do you think some will put their provident fund in jeopardy?

Is that the same as the GOLF days where only a 100 or so put their head above the parapet? Out of 2000 pilots you would be fortunate to get 100 to stop working for a day. We knew who those pilots were and took appropriate action.

Most know that we will not hesitate to terminate more pilots. It only takes a few and the rest will fall swiftly into line.

You are dreaming.

How many pilots will be able to pay their mortgages in Hong Kong and in those favorite ski resorts around the world? We can drop by the housing department and have a list of the biggest mortgage holders in Hong Kong.

Many Mangers have been to these many ski resorts and from talking to various pilots we know which ones have several mortgages in these areas. We don’t have a problem terminating these pilots’ contract. We could always hire them back onto the freighters in a couple of months or years on lower conditions. Ha Ha.

So beware and you have been warned.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank the many many pilots who still acknowledge their roster changes in crew direct, answer their phone at home and in the hotel, work on G days, flying the freighter, operating into discretion, support the HKAOA and for generally going above and beyond the call of duty for US.

From the bottom of our bonus, we thank you.

We will offer you a generous pay increase but there are certain items we need from the pilots.

The freighter agreement is too constrictive. We need all pilots to fly the freighter therefore we will be offering the ASL pilots an opportunity to join the Cathay Pilots Seniority List. This will be most beneficial.

We need the Retirement Age to increase and the only way to expand and still save my bonus is to do this. Career progression of pilots is not our concern, making money is. We are sure the most junior pilots understand.

Here’s to my Bonus!

The Management.

404

May I respectfully suggest your two mates (well one in particular) needs his head read.

Royal Brunei is an absolute basket case of an airline. I personally know a couple of guys who were there for many years and ultimately left when it became totally intolerable. They push the envelope more than any other airline with the possible exception of some of our Indonesian friends.

Not only that, I assume that he has gone to work for Rishworth. Double jeopardy.

As to Oasis. Big gonads required. Their cashflow situation is frightening and I am not sure how deep the pockets are. Their seat costs must be at least 1.5 times ours and look what they are charging.

ULR said
My advice, get more FOs and SOs into the AOA so that we can reject or accept the deal inspite of the self interested recommendation of the GC.

Agree, and a recent update from the President stated there were still not enough volunteers to require an election so it is up to the members to apply.

I certainly disagree that the members join the GC for self interest, most do it as a sense of duty, it has no financial reward. When you consider the company sacked 3% of the workforce but that included a whopping 25% of the GC we should be very grateful for those that still choose to represent us. Instead there a few posters on this website who throw foul insults and accusations at these hard working representatives and attempt to draw all sorts of conclusions from spread of representives.

Based on those assumptions cast by some it could be argued that as there are no females on the GC that all the females in the company are going to be screwed by this new deal.........and thats why we should not vote for it!!!

The opportunity to consider the deal will come shortly as advised by the President. The members will vote on it accordingly after considering all the facts and it will either pass or fail....simple.

or fail, then get voted on again:hmm:

Yes all female pilots will be screwed because none of them are A scale CNs close to retirement. Thanks for helping to make my point Cyril.

I have had friends on the GC. I know they have given up time for the greater good. But in the past all votes have affected the entire membership reasonably equally (arguable on housing vote and 49ers). Point is there was no conflict of interest.

But now we have a deal coming that is to the great advantage of all CNs, particularly A scale, and no benefit to FOs or SOs - and if wombatico/bushcat are to be believed, no bypass pay for based FOs.

The last time I remember a conflict of interest vote was back in 93 or 94 when Tucknott pushed some basing deal...he then rushed off and took the basing, got paid $100K for his troubles.

So I will say again, how can we expect an impartial recommendation from a GC that has 14 people with so much to gain representing 750 people whilst the 1350 with so much to lose have 2 people representing them?

Will the GC A scale CN close to 55 or the GC B scale TC close to 55 reject the deal for the greater good????

a-ha
 

just tired of hearing freighter guys whingeing about delayed commands..transfer to the pax fleet...can't live where they want...didn't get the basing they wanted...etc etc...pretty much everything they did to the original cx f/o's when they turned up and took a job when cx was all out screwing the pax boys.

whoa...
 

instead of trying to drag the original guys conditions (a-scale) down ...why not suggest moving B-scale upwards???

bushcat400
 

are you suggesting that the freighter crews 'saved cx ass' during sars?....
pleeeeeez

to suggest moving B scale upwards would require common sense and solidarity. Why blame the company when you can point the finger at other people........."those freighter guys took my command" etc etc. At the end of the day if you are here at CX no matter what terms and conditions you work on , we need to get together to fight , not each other but the company.
We have no right to complain about people taking a job on any terms or conditions as they are probably better than the ones they had before.....................................AT the end of the day if we don't have the balls to withdraw our labour or co-operation in support of our justifiable cause, are we really stupid enough to expect people to refuse a job to support us...........???? ..............................

VR-HFX
 

totally agree....if you'd already flown 8 years as an f/o in cx why not do a freighter command and then go to brunei?....duh
take gun....shoot foot!

Quote:"as to Oasis. Big gonads required. Their cashflow situation is frightening and I am not sure how deep the pockets are. Their seat costs must be at least 1.5 times ours"

Hi VR-HFX,

You must be a top insider.
Could you share all your financial secrets with us, I'm quite interested.

Cheers,
Xavier

Funny thing is, I heard that went cashflow POSITIVE as early as March this year...from a really reliable, well-placed source, FWIW.

404 does not know them too well!

One guy has recently come out of the closet and wants to move with his partner to a country that does not frown on their lifestyle choice, the other has amassed a small fortune from an internet porn site, and does not need to work. I would post the web address but the bastard has made enough!

hey if all he can afford is a closet due to the low housing allowance, so what, why knock the guy??

CX has had bases for many years now, and age discrimination has never been a problem. But it`s funny that since the company wants to increase the retirement age it has now become an issue. Or is it really?

I'm not sure that Cyril would agree that he's helping ULR make his point.

ULR continues to bash the committee whilst Cyril correctly points out that those few who dare to serve on OUR UNION's representative body get no thanks for it whatsoever. ULR still manages to allege self-interest.

Ah, Tucknott. So presidents going back that far were also into self interest? Tucknott did not go onto a base until some years after the original basings deal was signed and he didn't get the $100,000 that the early based guys did. That was stopped in 1993. But what has fact got to do with committee bashing?

The point ULR is if you are unhappy at who's on the committee do something about it. You have had friends who have done so, why don't you have a go? The life of a left hand seat armchair critic is much easier and carries no responsibility - we know.

Back to Harry Potter.