True $10k for housing isn't a lot, but we're talking about a $45k package. You can get somewhere decent to live for not hideous % of that. Admittedly, to have enough left over to enjoy yourself, you wouldn't want to spend more than $15-$18k. Dare I suggest that you chose to live out in the New Territories? For the kind of money you're paying in, for example, DB (I know, I know) or even the pilot haven of South Lantau, you'd get a really pretty comfortable pad. That $15-$18k in those places would get you 1000sqft or so.

Are all banks no longer able to offer 90% mortgages now?

You SYD pad sounds pretty tidy.

$45,000 is not a bad salary in HK and you can live pretty well on that as a single person. Ignore the whining above and give it a go would be my advice.

My god, have people forgotten what this housing allowance was for? Why guys are willing to come to Hong Kong without one is beyond me, unless you are single with 0 flying hours it is crazy. You are coming here to be a professional pilot, you should not have to get by, it should not be questions as to weather you can survive or will I be able to buy the things I do back home without going bankrupt!

It is all about comparable living to attract experience. As a professional pilot for BA or VS back home I could buy a 4 bedroom house near the city and live comfortably. In Hong Kong, even WITH the expat allowance this would be hard as this sort of property is anywhere from HK$15,000,000 up to whatever you can think depending on location.

If you join without expat benefits and are an expat you will spend you WHOLE career paying off some tiny flat next to the airport, lovely place to retire once the whole 800 sq/ft are all yours!

Yes you can survive on what they are offering but why the hell would you want to. I got into this profession so I could do more than survive, why people continue to enter it is a mystery.

Really? Have you seen the joining salaries of BA recently? Or time to command?

Rubbish. By the time you get to captain on $130k+ if you can't afford a decent place to live you've screwed up somewhere.

Read my post(s) again - $45k is more than survivable, and by FO, $90k+ is pretty good in anyone's book. It's definitely not what it was under expat terms, but looking at it without those tinted specs (or from the point of view of having never had that!) it's OK.

etrang

And what happens when he/she is no longer single my short sighted little friend.


Voiceofreason

What is your motivation for wanting to degrade our CofS? Be truthful. For someone that claims to be a Voice of Reason, all you really are is just a voice for selling out our profession. You seem to fail to understand that:

• Most expats couldn’t live in the areas you are comfortable with.
• Most expats won’t be single very long.
• Upgrades from S/O to JFO when I started were running at 18 months. They are now running at about four years and will most likely blow out to 6+ years if CX starts crewing long haul flights with two SO’s. Yearly pay increment for SO’s stops at year four.
• The new house assistance of HK$10000.00 isn’t indexed to the Hong Kong Housing Index and therefore isn’t indexed for inflation. You want to have a guess what the inflation rate for housing in Hong Kong has been running at for the last few years and what that HK$10000.00 will get you in a few more years if inflation goes the way it is predicted to go.
• After tax on the housing assistance you are only left with HK$8300.00.
• The HK$1,100,000.00 forgivable loan after 6 years ROS to CX is 100% taxable by the IRD and if you are from the US by the IRS. That would be an interesting tax bill. Even if the entire loan is used to pay for the training in Adelaide it is 100% taxable as it is now considered income.

I could go on and on. The majority of CX pilots want same pay for the same job, including cadets. That’s full expat terms for everyone including cadets. Even if CX only gave 50% of the full expat housing for six years CX comes out in front.

Sloppyjoe,

you may be a little out of touch old fruit. A 2 bed property in Tung Chung HK$3M (GBP 232k), 4 bed house in Southall, very near to the airport and the city of London, GBP 224k (HK$2.9M).

Best Regards,

N1 Vibes

N1 Vibes isn't Sloppyjoe pointing out that for 3M in HK you get 800' near the airport and in London you get a 4 bedroom home so if you want a 4 bedroom home in HK you better start thinking 15M+++.

Voiceofreason are you an expat?

I have no doubt about that, no doubt at all. And i'm sure you will.

Lots of things change once you start a family, but he wasn't asking for relationship planning advice. He was asking if HK$45,000/month is enough to provide a reasonable standard of living for a single person in HK. It is.

404

Not degrading anyone's conditions - mine (and a few hundred others') just improved in fact. Not saying either that this isn't less than what the equivalent experience bought you in CX (as an expat) just a few years ago - it certainly is. Again - just trying to get some perspective and say there isn't a lot better out there, and what is being offered will let you live to a reasonable standard in HK.

Point by point:

I don't live in Mei Foo or Tai Wai either and wouldn't want to.

Maybe not - neither am I, as I have said. My local package supports us just fine.

Upgrades to JFO when I joined were three years. 6+? We'll see, but that's not what we're discussing. If you can live on $45k in HK at SO year 1, you can live on whatever you go up to in the future.

Neither is your salary. Didn't stop us from asking for more salary last year, and most likely won't stop us from asking for more allowance in the future. I'm not even thinking of this as housing, but as an increase to my salary.

17% tax? When was the last time you paid that much? Standard rate is capped at a max of 15%.

Really? And you're source of that advice is? Don't know about the US, but I think that only "income derived from employment" is taxable. If any part of the loan is paid out in cash, yes taxable - that's income. Otherwise, why wouldn't all current cadets have to pay tax on their training in Adelaide? Same principle.

SMOC

Sloppyjoes point was that you couldn't buy a 4 bed house in London as a BA pilot, my point is I think you can. And for interest I pointed out that Tung Chung apt's are the same price, which for a single man would be mosta acceptable.

Best Regards,

N1 Vibes

So Voice Of Reason, if you see it not as housing but an increase in salary I trust you will be petitioning the company to apply this to everyone's pay scales? It would be contravening the RDO otherwise wouldn't it? :O

Really? He says as a BA or VS pilot he could buy a 4 bedroom home.

Sure - why not!

etrang

That is the typical short sighted mentality that screws people in the long run. Yes we all know that as a single person the package is doable. Once you are married with kids it is completely inadequate. As you obviously don’t work here I suggest you keep your nose out of what clearly is none of your business.

Voiceofreason

Do you have family in Hong Kong? As you were born here I would imagine you do or at least grew up with your family in Hong Kong. Please don’t tell me that this doesn’t give you an insight into Hong Kong life, a feeling of home and a sense of street wise an expat couldn’t possibly dream of.

For the life of me I can’t see why when others (the AOA) are trying to get full expat conditions for everyone, including yourself that you would get on this forum and try and sabotage the work that is going on behind closed doors. Why is that?

It is obvious that you haven’t been here very long but a look at history would show you that CX has done this before. The end result last time was a letter in hundreds of CX pilots mail boxes with a sign or be fired ultimatum. If you don’t think this won’t happen again then you are very naive.

Tax, you don’t want to have a debate with me about tax. Do you know the difference between progressive tax rates and standard tax rates? Do you know which is the most efficient and at what income level a tax payer will be required to go to the other taxation method? In Hong Kong the IRD will tax all tax payers using the progressive tax rates up to about HK$1.5M. Above that they will use the standard rate. With the exception of a few, most CX pilots would have their tax calculated using the progressive tax rates. That would mean that the housing assistance that is paid into your income would be taxed at 17%, the top marginal tax rate under the progressive tax rate method.

I’m also an accountant if you haven’t already figured it out. That’s how I know. Go and ask the IRD for yourself if you don’t believe me. As far as the IRD is concerned the day the forgivable loan is forgiven the entire loan becomes income which is chargeable in that year.

It’s not the same principle at all. The difference is the company use to just pay for the cadets training directly to FTA. Now they give the cadet a loan and they pay for the training themselves. It’s the same as saying here is an advance on your future income to go and learn to fly in Adelaide. It's all treated as income unless it is paid back to CX. Period.

Haha, 404, I'll give your suggestion all the consideration it deserves. Seriously, if you're paying even 15% tax in HK you do need a new accountant.

Behave. We're talking about Hong Kong not Kinshasa.

Do grow up, 404 its just a message board. Do you stalk around the DB residents club telling your pilot "friends" to be careful what they say because the man from Swire is listening? Actually you probably do.

Who ever said anything about living in Central London? I for one would not want to, Cambridge, Bath, Bristol, Reading, Brighton. Unlike Hong Kong there are many places that are nice to live in the UK and still close enough to LHR.

Yes you can survive in Hong Kong on this package but it really is not worth it as everyone will prove when they start leaving after they have 1000 hrs in a jet. This will do one of two things. Push out SO time to the absolute max or increase your package once more. It is not JUST about a house and buying food. It is about living in your home country with your long time friends, close to family, close to the things you enjoy. Hong Kong is OK but it is not my home and I know for a fact that this package is not enough for someone to leave their home for, be it saving potential, standard of living, or any other number of arguments.

This is not enough money for an expat widebody pilot to live in Hong Kong. It is enough for a single cadet with no flying experience or maybe someone with no jet time trying to move up the ladder. Once these people become widebody pilots they will know by then that this is not enough and they can find better opportunities elsewhere.

OK i'll bite.... If you put your Total income in one box and your mortgage/rent amount in the other box, send it to the Inland revenue department, and get a bill for less than 15% I'd like to know how you swindle it. :sad:

It is not about surviving!!! You are screwing yourself and everybody else for the rest of your career.
If you are willing to accept substandard pay/terms now, they know you will do that later when you upgrade to FO/CAPT. It is naive to think you will be receiving a huge pay increase later!

Prices up, even in Tung Chung
 

A regular, small 2-bedroom (each bedroom less than half the size of what most think a bedroom is, with the "master" bedroom the size of my parents' bathroom back home) is now going for a minimum of 3.5M on a low floor with no view of the oldest ones by the MTR, and most others in the 4-6M range.

I understand your point on the 17% progressive tax rate, but at the end of the day, I look at my tax bill and see how much tax I've paid versus how much my income is. When you factor in the standard married person's allowance, I paid just over 10% last year.

Thanks for the reasoned debate anyway. Much more than you get from others here. I can see we're coming at it from different angles, so there's no sense in pushing this too much further.

I get your point about living elsewhere in the UK. But again, $45k is far more than you would earn (after tax) working for a Sleezyjet or similar which is the choice facing most new joiners these days. It ain't glamorous!