Bases?
 

Hello,

I passed SO selection!
Does Cathay still base people outside HK? Second Officers? First Officers? I am from Europe and would be interested in a base over here. I heard they are not doing it anymore due to some tax problems? So if I start with them, I WILL spend my life in HK?

Thank for help!

Cheers

...yes...!

Unknown...

Please tell us why you went through the selection process without doing your research first?

Bases are DEAD.

4. If basings ever begin again, there will be LOTS of people in line ahead of you. This hiatus on basings has simply created a huge traffic jam of people wanting a slot.

Bases will not close as there is a reason not to close them. It saves them money and too many guys/girls on bases would quit if they were forced back to HKG. This current mess will be sorted out.

They will only be available in the future if there is a benefit. It will still save them money to get pilots with expat benefits onto a base. It will not save them money to get cadets to take a base. If enough cadets leave when they have experience as want to go back home it may well be worth their while to keep the base slots available. If none leave when told no bases it will remain, no bases.

No one knows what will happen, maybe a commuting contract, maybe bases, maybe no bases and no commuting contract. Unfortunately there is no answer at the moment for your question. Oh there are not and never have been bases for SOs other than temp ones for two months at a time, very unlikely to start again.

It used to save them money to have people on bases. Now, with all the lawyers and accountants and payroll companies and administration of based employees and unavoidable bargaining meetings and extra corporate and payroll taxes, not to mention the reduced productivity, waste of time and waste of money and waste of resources.....not so much.

Of course, this doesn't apply to iCadets, who cost nothing to keep in HKG (10K/month, maybe 20 or 30 soon...still nothing) where they are far more productive and consistently available for extra work.

That is the truth right there, they put the last nail in their bases coffin.

With an 'alleged' 16,000 applications, which must be true as it's in the GMA update...no propoganda there, sounds like they have already found the bottom line at 10K, so no reason to increase it beyond that :hmm:

With those kind of numbers and managements sole reliance on the law of averages to fill seats with such a crap deal, meeting the recruitment target, will unfortunately be a non-event :ugh:

If you have kids, you will understand why trying to teach them what's right, wrong and best for them based on your own painful experience, is a futile exercise.

There is a lot of BS flying around this thread.

Bases ARE NOT DEAD.

They plan on resuming normal service late 2012.

I say "PLAN" on resuming.

Cx does save quite a bit using bases and they'd like it to continue.

What a truly accurate statement!!! Bases are a thing of the past.:sad:

WRONG, try again. They save so much they are seriously considering winding them up and if they can force everyone onto HKPA returning to HKG, then consider that the last straw. My guess is they will offer commutable contracts in exchange for based guys to give up their housing. Look for that in 2012. Once enough guys sign that right away, they will slowly roster longer and longer trips out of HKG

You assume that it is up to Cathay. The reasons bases are in trouble are external to Cathay. If it were so simple, EVERY AIRLINE would have the same basing situation. But the reality is that it does not work, politically, financially and immigration wise. That is why no airline out there has the same base situation we have.

Cathay right now is dealing with the fallout of this. They KNOW basings are dead, but right now they are still very much putting out the fire. As this fire is raging, there are still recruits coming to live in the burning building so it is in Cathay's interest to tell everyone the building is still sound.

You will know bases are dead when you get the transfer letter back to HKG with a nice sign or resign spot at the bottom. Even then, they will still be telling new recruits that they have bases and that they will be available in the future. They will get as much mileage from the dead bases as they possibly can.

That is what many airlines do (Emirates, Hainan, HK Airlines, Air China). Go look at Air China, they have been advertising "bases available soon" for two years now. And it is always the dangling carrot at Emirates, they love how the rumor hangs around. Quick, apply now with a Xian base, it is only temporary. And while you are at it, I have some property on the moon you should really take a look at. The nights are a bit chilly, but you have loads of room and will never complain about your neighbors. Quick, act now, supplies are limited!! :E

Sorry, wrong wrong and ..........wrong.

mate, stop drinking whatever juice they've got you on.

based guys have their head in the sand, sticking to the hope that 'it's too expensive to bring us back' or 'everyone will just quit.' For one, it's not too expensive considering we've got 200 icadets in 2011 and another 300 coming next year. Each new cheap icadet offsets whatever costs may occur over the remaining short life of expats benefits in hk. Secondly, very few pilots are going to quite immediately, proving a trickle of resignations offset by cheap icadets and direct-entry blokes on C scale.

Reality is setting in in hong kong where most expats between 30 and 40 are currently updating their resumes trying to salvage a career job somewhere where their wife and kids can live for the next 25-35 years.

bases are dead. they will not open again. anything else is delusional.

Still wrong wrong and wrong.:D

I hope you are right, NitPick, I really do. I would hate to see the option of bases go away the same way that temp bases did. Every time we loose another benefit makes our reasons for staying less and less.

So lets hope you are right and this is just a speed-bump in the bases. Lets drink to that, cheers! :ok:

Sqwak7700

Would you like to tell me how commutable rosters will fix the current tax problem? The fact is it won’t. In my opinion it will make it considerably worse.

I won’t even go into the labour laws of the on shored countries to explain the legal mine field you hypothesis would create in forcing based pilots back to Hong Kong and then forcing lower T&C’s on them in the process.

absolutely agree nitpicker

that boat sailed many, many years ago.

Truth is nobody knows.

404 Titan.....100% agree.

Cx will re-start the Basings again later this year, I'll bet your left nut on it :p

They have spent way too much time and effort to walk away now. It's nearly fixed ( well Oz anyway )

It's become a "face" issue....

What Cathay need to do is to take Basings seriously. Right from the start they have had that completely inadequate office that is basically run by Daisy as well as she can. No slight meant to her - it's an awful position to be put in. CD was completely out of her depth and DL is even worse as the problems pile up. Again - not really their fault but the whole situation is miles above their pay grade.
Come on Cathay - get some employment lawyers and Tax experts involved and do it properly (dare I say 'professionally') for a change.
The old adage works 'If I flew my aircraft the way you guys do business we'd have lots of smoking heaps all over the place'.
Surely they must deal with this properly before it really blows up in their face.
There are over 100 London based pilots including some of the most Senior Captains in the company, about to take you to Court, about this taxation fiasco, (please contact Cathay FIN whoever they are!!!) Cathay - so you'd better take us seriously.......
£5000 times 100 buys a lot of Barrister so if you're reading this RH - you have been warned. The boys are bloody angry!!!:D

AMS was the test, and the AOA played right into their hand by agreeing to bypass/reinterpret/secretly amend the basings agreement and setting the precedent for Paris' closure while they figure out how to close the rest, including the fake "onshored" companies.

From a recent interviewee......

Wow, here we go again, blame the new kids on the block please!!!! And we continue to wonder why the company has been so successful with their divide and conquer strategy?

If anyone is to blame it's probably all those ex-AOA GC's and A/B scalers who never ever paid any attention in improving the pre-C Scalers' (i.e.: LOCALS!) conditions for the last 10+ years. They've been warned all along that this group of pilots is gonna keep growing with a lot of influence in the future and yet they were still being fat dumb and happy to see their own conditions get watered away until it's too freaking late.

A group is only as strong as its weakest link, guess what happens when you never tried to strengthen that weakest link? Well, ask CX cause they're telling you right now. Don't blame the system nor the new guy, you were the ones that allowed this to happen in the first place. These guys, just like you did years ago, saw an opportunity and took advantage of it, they did nothing wrong in trying to improve their life/career through your inability to do the same for yours.

Now that A scale is virtually dead, guess what B scalers, you have officially taken over the title as the "next bunch to get rid of". Not only have you bid your base slots goodbye but have probably seen one of your last payrises for the next 10 years, just like the A scalers did when B was introduced. Mark my words, majority if not all future rises is gonna take place in the form of special allowance until "C scales reaches the same level as B scales", sounds familiar? They can't do that? Well, can they count FDP increase as part of your payrise? They just did.

Now that I have stuck my head out for some open shooting again, Happy New Year everyone and may your 2012 T&C be prosperous, well, at least not degraded, I hope.

:D Bravo CXChildLabour, bravo. :D

I've had a lot of interviewees on my flights in the last few months, and it seems like most of them are being told upgrade to f/o 2-3 years, command 10 years, and bases open! Although most of them seem smart enough to see through that...
Nothing new that they're feeding lies though. I was told freighter command 4 years, pax command in europe 9 years on my interview.

Still plenty of incentive for the company to get A and B scalers on the bases. C scalers can forget about it. The bases will be all full or "too inefficient" by the time their numbers are called. Mark my words on this. The company is dreaming of all pilots based in HKG on the "pilots allowance" a generation from now. I'm sure they will not get their as the pilot market will not allow it. Far too many will leave once the poisonous HKG living stops being justified by economic incentive to stay.

China Southern
 

One of the biggest incentives for CX to get their sh#t in a pile wrt to bases is China Southern. If CX closed the bases there's now a viable alternative that is expanding rapidly, albeit in the Australasia area for now, and I think a substantial number would go.
And for that reason, i don't think they'll come out anytime soon with a definitive answer to the base question. They'll string us on telling us they're hoping to have it all fixed for as long as they can. And in a mass demonstration of confirmation bias the majority of us will actually believe them.:ugh:

Bauhinia
 

I think the real threat will come when HX start offering basings, with the fleet they have on order they must have to consider it in order to get the huge numbers of pilots they need.
Their first 320 spotted at CLK this week, they've only got 30 of those on order!

In the (not too long) future, there won't be any bases available anymore.

If all the new pilots accept to come to HKG without housing, what would be the incentive for CX to put them on a base?
It would much easier to keep them in HKG at (almost) no extra cost.

So all of you, I-cadets, don't expect any base in the future!