Are you still in CX? If so, without sounding rude, you're slating all of these carriers who are inferior to CX's package yet all of y'all are complaining about CX? Just sayin...

Yes you're right it's not the complete opposite, but the trend has certainly been downwards in any case. All one can do is accept this reality, or move on from it.

Any look at the Classifieds in the Saturday SCMP will show that in addition to English, Cantonese fluency and Putonghua is mandatory. Even in the most English essential jobs such as NETS, English teaching in schools, and lecturing in the various Uni's. Sadly or not, this will be a prerequisite in a couple of years in the Airline world, where other than the Cockpit, it's pretty much evident now.

Defeatist much?
You can also try to put your 2 cents in and fight that “inevitable” change.
But if you want to join the likes of STW and eat every !!!! sandwich that is thrown your way, have at it.

Fight the change? Yeah right, that’ll never happen. What’s left of the pilot group doesn’t have any sort of backbone, and the ones that do packed up and left. A toothless “union” and the muppets in management will ensure nothing ever changes, for the better anyway. I do wish my ex-colleagues all the best though, there’s plenty who had no choice but to stay and I respect that.

Mr/Mrs Lood, I admire your colonial chutzpah!!!!!

Aoa going for industrial action. And I have to say that they couldn’t have picked a better time in history to do so. Many there are actively looking to get out anyway so they DNGAF.

With all due respect, but "actively looking to get out" ? What does that even mean? From a management's perspective they are showing up at sign on, and that is that. Nobody cares if they do so happy or sad. Frank A. Memphis, Tiger Pork, Dream 746 and Klinger all make good points in my opinion. Reality is Cathay can recruit globally, with no experience. Possibly soon infinite numbers from up North. Delta can't.

Fact is the majority is interested in keeping their job and will not go on strike, and with fair reason. The picture of the brave and heroic Westerner who is fiercely defending his contract is fanciful. There is almost no risk involved at home, legislation protects union delegates etc. I find it a bit rich to look down on locals who are somehow not "brought up" to fight. Maybe watch the Joshua documentary and spare a thought for the hundreds of locals in confinement as we speak and then think again. Some are just lucky and live and work in the right country, that's all. No personal achievement. The political system in HK is realistically most probably too dominant, the pilot group too diverse. Industrial action most likely will not happen, it's not very useful nor fair to scapegoat. Market forces reign here, for the better and the worse. For what it's worth, my vote is in favor of industrial action, but I have almost zero hope it will ever happen. Is anyone today denying the almost ridiculous picture of past "actions", like training and union membership ban? If we go for it it must be more serious than that, no more pretending, it must be real with all the possible consequences. Everything else is embarrassing. Against the notion of Piet I am not against industrial actions, I just don't believe it will happen. Bring it on.

Speaking of the devil, Piet, as usual, obsessively I dare say identifies individual misconduct and cowardly opportunism as the culprit. After joining as B scaler himself and leaving without a single day on strike he is now pointing fingers at his old colleagues. Ironically, after Cathay, the Piets of this world often join a low cost or start-up back home, because it serves them. The very companies in competition with the worshipped unions (and hence often closed-up) flagshps. Undercutting the colleagues on bigger pay at home then suddenly is ok. Or even better, they come back as direct entry captains to Cathay. After finally realizing not all is so rosy out there. After the cuts, with no housing, but conveniently on their fleet of choice. To be very clear, I personally have no problem with that, things change, but to point fingers after an entire career purely following own interests, this is really textbook hypocritical behaviour.

I also find it quite interesting that a lot of colleagues I flew with, especially Americans and Brits, quite often are politically positioned well to the right. Which is fine of course in principle, none of my business. They move voluntarily to a place they know has no comparable labor rights, they happily enjoyed the free market in HK resulting in cheap labor while it served them, domestic helper for instance. The low tax, only possible because of a hardcore neoliberal system. More than once I heard colleagues arguing the political unrest should stop, better to accept the circumstances and live with it ( read: don't protest if it damages the airline business/tourism). They shook their heads when Uber was restriced in HK, and every taxi fare rise was met with disgust. They accepted based positions, simply because the pay was alright and it suited their lifestyle. No real union power was just fine as long as the pay and the number of G days was. They lived and breathed free movement of labor, as expats, following market forces, always on the look out for the best deal. Adam Smith's free agent incarnations. Living the capitalist dream. But the moment it's against their interests they turn into little Trotzkis or Brexiteers. Well, different discussion I guess.

​​​​​​This is simply not true. Chinese proficiency, Cantonese or otherwise is not normally a requirement for a NET position in a school, learning centre or even private tutoring. My significant other is currently employed at a government primary school teaching English and there was no expectation of Chinese proficiency now, or when they applied.

Probably Cathay won't probably get candidates from the US, but all other parts of the world. They must decide themselves, whom they compete with regardings T&Cs, and the main employers in this field are Low Costers from anywhere and the classical ME-Airlines. The latter have their workforce compelled to live in countries (passport withdrawn) which are no inch better concerning democratic/free systems than HK.
But anybody is free to decide where to apply. At least job offers are by far better then they used to be in the last years.

Incorrect. Some guys over here who are heading back have been told that whatever fleet they left on they go back on. There is no "fleet of choice."

What is correct, is that no industrial action will happen. Things can't be that bad if people are returning. I was lucky enough to join a legacy carrier but many are finding that here in the US the grass is definitely not greener. The economy here is in sharp decline helped by a President who has lost his mind and the alternative that could possibly win the next election will further ruin whatever economy we have left. I doubt there will be a pilot shortage then.

I see that Oasis is as usual is in the vangard of the failed nonsence brigade - has it not dawned yet that their battle to down Cathay Pacific by what ever means possible failed some time ago and most of the troops have already fled the lost cause.

I know of two ex-Cathay 747 pilots who got a personal call from TB to ask them to come back, on fleet of choice. I don't know how many in total received this offer, but I know 100 % these two have.And it makes sense. As usual, Cathay FOP is purely cost driven. We have demand on two fleets and no demand on the third fleet which nobody wants anyway.
How convenient.

New hire fleet
 

I hear the 777 has been quiet at least up until about June or July of this year and theA330/350 has been busy. I don’t know about the A320 fleet or how busy it is but where are most new hires being sent now?

A lot of 777’s still in ASP with no crew to fly them…….

The real reason those jets are still there is that cx don’t have the engineering resources to get them out. The board has decided its billions are better off being spent buying the government’s share of the company thereby removing the two pesky observers rather than spending on the airline’s infrastructure or its people.

But I understand this is a pilot’s forum and pilot’s know best and FOP is the only department in cx that is important. So I’ll let you all get back to explaining how your life satisfaction is dependent on your pay cheque, fully appreciating that the average expat who has made the move to Asia or the Middle East is a mercenary and by definition is driven more by money than the average citizen.

But obviously not driven enough for two of you to write a motion initiating industrial action. Far more effective venting on WhatsApp groups.
The strong have left, the weak remain.

How often did "the strong" initiate (real) industrial action before they left ? ;-)

Well, industrial action was strong enough in 99 to force the Company to concede on their ridiculous demands; and in 2001 to cause CX to summarily fire 49 pilots, including the AOA committee members, without cause. But lately, not so much….

Maybe they were check/training in CX before they left or had perfect training reports and P files but the people I know were not given any choice. Also, the rumours here are that some guys were told they'd go to a specific fleet and when they arrived in HK they were switched to the B747F.

No, line captains. Just have a look at the seniority list.

On the original topic of a looming "implosion" of Cathay, an interesting comment in the SCMP today, Looks like a lot of political will at force to increase HKIA revenue in the light of the expansion..

Lavinia Lau Hoi-zee, the chairwoman of the Board of Airline Representatives of Hong Kong and also a Cathay Pacific Airways executive, said the single biggest obstacle to the Post-Covid recovery of airlines’ full capacity was labour shortages at the airport and about 20 per cent of the group’s 72 members had yet to resume flights to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong authorities have approved 98 per cent of nearly 2,900 applications from non-local aviation workers under a pilot scheme to import labour to ease a manpower shortage in the industry.

Among the 10 job categories under the scheme, passenger services officers, ramp services agents, and aircraft maintenance mechanics or technicians took up more than half of the approved application