why
 

I can not for the life of me understand why those that can have not left the toxic nasty environment that is Cathay Pacific.

I left after 14 years and 2 1/2 years later I could not be happier.

There is life after Cathay and a much better one at that.

Goodbye and Good Luck..

Fear not, that process is well underway. Not a flight without at least one (sometimes 3) members of the crew acknowledge they are making active plans to leave. In fact, many have interviewed in the past 6 months, and are waiting for course dates. The tide has definitely turned. :ok:

Good on you mate. Cx operates with fear from Fop/training to staff travel, ultimately management.
It is true.Many colleagues have interviewed or are in that process now.
Complete utter stupidity from management

Is the ex-head of Australia's CASA running the operations side now?

Yes, but only paid to their FO's, cabin crew and ground staff. The Captains won't be receiving it.....oh, wait. Wrong airline, sorry.

(remember, it's flu and cold season. Or would you rather go to work 'unfit'?)

Why Exactly
 

Plans have been made, I won't reach retirement age here and a date has absolutely been set...
I will not be here for the next 13th month "conditional" year end gratuity bull**** that only some get.
Had enough of the mean spirited Swire despots and their sycophant pilot pals.

Life is tooooooo short..

Tic Toc can't wait

Let me get the facts straight, so swire came up with the strategy to get rid of senior ranking pilots and replace them with cheaper FO's and SO's, but there is a training ban so no one is getting command and upgrades, and I speculate there is lack of training captain too? Whilst regional competitors continue to headhunt for CX pilots and other leaving for ME3 through disappointment and rage, so they started hiring DEFO but did anyone mention to management there is currently a global shortage of experienced pilot.

Can you see where I am going with this? CX sounds like the next Ryanair! Many of my colleagues here in Europe see HX as a training school with a free type rating for widebody before ME3, UO is not expanding either. Whilst all this is going on, ZGGG is busy building their 5th runway. Hong Kong is truly going down...

Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Pretty well nailed it. Uncontrollable death dive. :ooh:

I might add, many of the senior pilots have come up with their own way to get rid of the Swire's. Time will tell who has the most successful strategy. The only group that's really being gotten rid of is the middle ranking pilots, the very ones they thought they would build the future of the airline with. Nearly every single one of them is looking for another career choice, as the past few years have shown most of them what a completely untrustworthy, vindictive group they are currently working for (nobody wants to spend their career feeling bullied, intimidated and disrespected). What an amazing management we have. Apparently their strategy to build confidence and make the job attractive is a juvenile attempt at social networking, with great comments such as "We are Cathay Pacific", and "Come on in" (I kid you not...). The twelve year olds will love it. :bored:

btw AT, met one of your 'new' DEFO pilots last week. He had just finished his interview with a major EU airline. He said to me, and I quote: "I had no idea how :mad: up this airline is, and I can't wait to get home". He also told me that the worst European airlines have a rostering system 10X better than what he has had to endure on his several months on the freighter (an epic disruption that messed up his commute to see his gf, that cost him the loss of a gpb 300 ticket). Also told me that the company 'deceived him' (his words) about the true cost of living in HK, even after he asked some pointed questions at the interview. Additionally he told me that several of the new pilots he knows are planning to leave in the near term as well. So keep up the good work...i'm sure the rest of the worlds airlines appreciate CX squandering their training budget on their behalves. Own goal if there ever was one. :ok:

I left CX in 2009 after 4 1/2 years of experiencing CX. I had a great time in Hong Kong, it was a great basing point for travelling the region, and can I now say that I've tried ultra long haul flying on wide bodies. Been there, done that and got the T-shirt. Cathay Pacific Airways as a company was (and it seems it still is!) truly pathetic. The training system was sick and there was just too many sad w@ankers around in all departments. I left the dump and went on to truly greener pastures. I still have old friends with this outfit and I really do feel sorry for them. It's been 9 years to the day tomorrow! Freakin' awesome. Good luck guys.

At least you saw the light Klimax. I wish I had left 9 years ago :(. Regardless, it's my mission in life to at least educate and warn the younger pilots in the industry to not waste their careers here. Best wishes.

Yup, you're doing well at that mate, keep going. Then again, I can't blame any young kid for coming to HKG, join CX, sit back for a while, upgrade to JFO and then get the f@ck out of there.. Leave it all behind after 4 years of fun. NEVER join with a family and NEVER plan on staying for longer than the JFO upgrade and 500 hours. If things work out differently for the individual, there's the choice to stay. Some companies, like CX, does not deserve to be treated any other way than the company choses to treat its staff. I resigned by a sloppy email from a PC at a random Jomo Kenyatta airport lounge in Nairobi, Kenya. Pole sana. ;-) A bunch of clowns is what they are.

"a bunch of clowns" Cannot argue with that description.

Clowns are at least entertaining and keep a circus running. CX’s “clowns” actually make the airline worse. It would be far preferable if they just did nothing instead of their daily efforts to “help” which is code for rape and pillage the airline.

Rape and pillage?, how about 'collapse and destruction'?

As long as their bonuses are intact, what’s the difference? They get the money, and we get to be stakeholders in a failing airline.

I resent the term 'shareholder'. Firstly, other than the controlling interest in CX that both the Swires and Air China hold, the 'public' shareholding is small. Secondly, those 'public' shareholders have in general small holdings, and are fickle. We, the employees, dedicate our very careers, and our families futures to this airline. Yet our management seem to value the shareholders over the long term employees who REALLY invest in the airline (the substance of their lives). I am disgusted and appalled by that realisation. Our management should be ashamed. The REAL shareholders are the long term employees, who deserve respect, consideration and reward. To have been treated as we were with the annual bonus only hardened my heart towards our managers, who are not fit for purpose. My life, the dedication and the sacrifices I and my family have made for this company will not be trivialized. To continue to manifest such a thing will not end well. I take that very personally.

Traf, that’s why I used the term “stakeholder” rather than “shareholder”. I would never own CX shares, but my interest and stake in the Company is much greater, at least for now. I have decades invested.

If a casual observer may ask, does CX publish a seniority list at regular intervals that would allow documenting the net size of the pilot group over time ? Much is being said about people leaving so it'd be interesting to see the results.

They do every few months, but somehow the names of those who have left, retired, or even died stay on the list for months, sometimes for years. Truly confusing...

That’s absolutely disgraceful.

I suppose that is the only way CX can crew the flights: with imaginary pilots. They had better start getting used to that situation...

And perhaps intentionally so ?

It might not be in their best interest to document attrition if it's happening as described anecdotally. Still, it'd be informative to see exactly what's happening.

There are a couple of threads on the AOA fora which are attempting to quantify attrition.

yeah, well, i am gone and 2 more guys junior to me are working where I am. One in my class the other joined about 2 months later.

we were 2004, 2006, 2007 CX hires. I was cat A'd for command but bailed out.

When I joined there were 4 of us, two left, myself and another who is now flying in the UK.

It IS a very useful metric, indeed.

It can be calculated from the annual report - page23

2015 number of staff 26,824. % cockpit crew 14.2 so 3,809 crew (CX & KA)
2016, 26,674, % crew 14.6 so 3,894 crew, gain of 85 crew

Block hours (page 112) from 823,000 to 826,000

Crew grew by 2.2%
Block hours by 0.4%
Block hours/ crew from 216 to 212, so reduction of 1.9%

Page 25 of the annual report - CX & KA recruited "around" 240 pilots (230 CX, 10 KA)

So attrition rate was 155 crew, or 4% (includes retirements)

However, it also says that 85 cadets graduated. If these are not included in the 240 pilots recruited (but I would think they are) that bumps attrition up to 6%

It certainly is. I expected to see a much larger number based on what appear to be the circumstances at CX.

There is more than enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that CC has been calling many of those who have left the building. Could you please do .....
Seems the list is more than a little outdated. BY mid-2018 they will be hoovering the sim centre for live bodies.

The two FO's on my flight this past week are both leaving in the coming months. One to Europe, the other to Aus. Good luck to them both. Interestingly, they each told me that they were both informed at their respective interviews that the recruiters were 'surprised' at how many CX pilots they have had applying. The FO from europe told me that 3 CX FO's and SO's were being interviewed that week by the same airline he had joined. Another comment worth sharing: they both told me THE main reason they were leaving was due to a complete lack of TRUST and FAITH in management, and that they had NO confidence in risking their careers with CX. And they both told me that nothing would change their minds at this point. In one case he had already sent his wife home to start a new job herself.

That info is from ONE flight. I can recite similar conversations on many, many flights over the past 6-12 months. This snowball is now gathering speed as it rolls downhill. It will only stop when it smashes CX's planning department into little pieces. :ooh:

I can second this with similar conversations on my flights. It seems CX has found the bottom, finally. Expats are only willing to stay in HK on B scale if housing is included. Cadets are figuring out rapidly that living in HK on HKPA is not worth staying for long term. Additionally, trust in this management team is almost nonexistent.

So which path will CX choose? Further self destruction on the current course OR listening to pilots and acknowledging that bases are the only effective way to save on crew costs and simultaneously keep the masses from leaving. Tick-tock, tick-tock...

Landed this morning from Europe. The other FO and SO are both making plans to leave. One of them has already interviewed, the other applied to 3 airlines. I don't think management have any idea of the tsunami of resignations about to hit them. The FO in question said that 6 CX FO's have already been offered course dates by the airline.

Cxorcist,
You have been here long enough to know the answer to that question ,and it doesn’t involve talking to the pilots

Same thing on a recent flight:
Fo and SO leaving
So back to Oz Fo stays in Asia
Cx is on a slippery slope with their crew

Same thing happening in KA. Six resignations over the last couple of weeks I hear. HKA, Emirates, Jet 2, corporate.

Heard it was 8 Captains in one big hit/walkin at KA....

As for the figures of 6 % attrition seems small......but you go back in time and who would have thought even that number would exist ever at CX....plus its gathering steam.....thats only who has left not who is in the process of trying to get out and from my flights its always at least 1 if not more

Perhaps the CX/KA managers don’t care because their remit is to lower costs, consequences be damned. If they aren’t going to be held accountable for increased attrition, why should they care? They’ll be gone in a couple years anyways, with their bonuses firmly banked.

Again, I think the greatest failure as it pertains to CX/KA is at Swire in the UK. Apparently, short term management style is still in vogue. You would think looming pilot shortages and competition threats from the likes of HKA would make them think twice, but obviously not. So on we all march towards the proverbial cliff of airline graveyards.

When I started we were 9 in that class. Only 3 remaining.........

They probably like the high attrition rate. Fewer pilots; less cost!
Much like the previous CEO proclaiming that low fuel prices were good for us..

Covering their ears and chanting 'lalalalala!' is what they are doing.