Captain earning potential
 

Hi all biit of an open ended question I’m sure with multiple variables. And may require general assumptions.

I’ve seen the Pay scales for Captain 4.

How much more can a pilot make if they are part of the training department at Cathay ?

Is there a path at Cathay where pilots can earn 3 million HKD annually and if so how long could it take ?

Im getting the pop corn.

Me too SOPS. I like the choco flavoured ones. Can't resist though.

Captains earning potential was the only criteria that attracted so many to CX in my day. In that day, winning the "Football pools" meant 75000 quid in the bank and the ambition to "spend,spend,spend".

Temptation was that if you stayed the course and retired from CX, you would probably reach millionaire status (UK pounds).It led many to stay the course.

Mate of mine, in early days as FO, had the same name as one of the Captains. Payslips (that is what they got in those days) were put in the wrong pigeon holes and Matey got Captain's. The former was thinking of quiting, having had enough of the aero club, but when observing the "amount paid" box, thought he had won the pools and stayed for a decade.

Don't ask if he made a million (UK pounds) , Officers & Gentlemen of our background didn't ask what was in our paypackets but he long tired of his Porche as I borrowed to buy my first Talbot Horizon.

While you are at it find out

Why is there air
How long is a piece of string
Why does a dog lick his skro tum
Why is a circle round and a square is not


Good to see there are still people in the industry who like yourself like yourself who focus on the key issue and whats of real interest to the industry

Apologies if I offend anyone..its hot in the south of france

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b735b7f2d0.png
According to the annual report, 402 flight staff (AKA pilots) earned over HKD3m in 2024

Back in the 1980s, if you joined CX stayed to retirement AND left with the same wife you arrived with you could easily leave as a £ sterling millionaire. Whilst these days that amount of money won't get you much more than an average house in London, back then it was serious money.

The pilots had a pretty good financial advisor and the low tax environment certainly helped the A scalers achieve their goals.

And pre covid???

Initially I thought you were a journo but it appears that you have been offered a 321 FO position.

First consideration is that it will take 7-10 years on the 320 to get to captain 4. You can’t plan on keeping the current pay scale, let alone an entire career at this place. Anyone who has been here more than 5 years is on his/her 2nd contract, 15 years or more on the 3rd and 25+ on the 4th or 5th - every contract change results in a pay and benefit cut for the majority of pilots (30-40% in 1997 and 2020).

Also you gotta pass their command course (and trainer course once eligible) as well and the 320 command course pass rate is not that stellar thanks to the ex Dragonair checkers.

KA had crazy command failure rates at times, with an experienced pool of candidates.

So CX has either diluted their talent pool of upgrades or management imported the problems of the old KA. That is, whatever the percentage of damaging pilots, who have no business in training.

The good news is that Cathy pay will likely get back to A scale in a few years time. The bad news is that it will have gone through the rest of the letters of the alphabet on its way and it will be a fraction of the old A scale.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....049cda56be.png
811 earned above 3m in 2019. So what is that 811 out of about 1,400 Captains (?) in 2019 compared with 402 out of about 850-900 Captains in 2024?

When you leave the cadet training in Adelaide, they give you a survey to fill in. You get to choose what aircraft type and rank you want to start on. Many people opt for the SO rank as it has more days off, the CN4 training role does not have many days off. It’s a trade off for days off vs pay.

Very funny question.

Since cathay pilots no longer work under a "contract", there's no way of answering that question. There's zero guarantee about your earnings over time spent working for cathay. As it says in the first paragraph of the document dictating conditions of service, the company can change anything at any time at their sole discretion from time to time.

it is simply foolish to think you can have any expectation of earned income when you don't work under a contract.

Vendetta, you truly are a man with a fork living in a world of soup 😂😂😂

Man, you lost this game. Anyone can see it. Move on gracefully, get some closure.

Sisiphos. Vendetta is simply relating a TRUTH regarding the CX contract. Your comment is laughable. "...lost this game"...?...what on earth does that mean. Vendetta called out the significant point regarding the worthlessness of Cathay's employment contract. Perhaps address that fact...

There is no contract on this planet that can't be terminated. If you still believe you once had an eternal contract, how is it possible you lost it? THINK. We never had one of these fairytale happy-ever-after contract Vendetta (allegedly) imagines, nobody has. USA, Emirates, Singapore.. when the times are tough all our contracts are not worth the paper they are written on. Variability is the norm now ( in EK they call it "profit sharing", we call it "productivity pay" etc
Accept it, and don't fall for the travesty play Vendetta is attempting here, its ridiculous amd embarrassing. Our contracts are the same as everywhere: worthless and a snap shot of the current market conditions.

Speaking of 320 training I see the infamous and self named individual “the Rottweiler” is returning to grace the sim with his pearls of wisdom

When contracts were on chopping blocks in US after 9/11, companies had to file for bankruptcy, go to court, show cause for any and all cuts and open their books for a bankruptcy judge to decide and approve everything.

In Hong Kong nothing at all was required to be shown to anyone and it was perfectly legal to rip up an employment contract summarily. All that was needed for this to happen was an extremely unscrupulous employer to decide to do it.

In Hong Kong, it was proven that a contract you sign with an employer (cathay pacific) isn't worth the toilet paper it is signed on. Proven via legal precedence.

This was not what cathay pacific implied up to that point at all. During the interview process the interviewers showed us selected sections of "the contract" including the pay scales making a strong point doing the math about how much you will earn if you spend 10, 20 etc years on that payscale, among a few other strong point in there. Pay, Career progression, last in first out protection etc were harped upon. A very strong effort was put in to make the point how strong and enforceable of a contract it was. All proven to be lies. The outrageous thing is that after all that, cathay pacific is still lying outright about what a new prospect can expect from working at cathay. As if anything cathay pacific says, even if written in an employment document has any chance of being anything other than a lie. You can clearly see this from the type of questions being asked by people considering working for cathay. That they can have any expectations of pay, progression, equipment assigned, job security etc. They wouldn't be asking these questions if they weren't being lied to by cathay pacific. If you too lie to them when they ask for your help... shame on you.

Let them make their decisions with open eyes, with truth in hand.

Don't try to glorify or normalize the utterly sh!t situation you're in regarding your employer to make yourself feel better.

Even if cathay pacific is forced to put everyone back on pre covid contracts, nobody in the right state of mind would take such a document seriously ever again.

If you don't have any other choice better than pilot employment in Hong Kong, then yes it makes sense to accept the high risk employment with the likes of cathay pacific. But only if you're truly that desparate. I'm here to tell you yes I would if I was that desparate or had some extremely pressing reason to be in Hong Kong. Loved ones, family etc. I was lucky to be able to get a flying job making 3 times what a cathay captain tops out at. I resigned with zero notice given overnight, just like cathay pacific ripped up my contract overnight.

I understand that speaking the truth when truth is inconvenient to those who simply have no decent choice and are forced to accept the conditions at cathay which is not only substanrard but entirely unstable and it forces them to see the reality of the sh!tty situation they're in resulting in feelings of anxiety, hopelessness and helplessness. But this is not a valid reason to withhold the truth. No apologies to those who display such feelings here on this form or elswhere whenever inconvenient truths are written or spoken. But yes I do feel for you and your predicament.

Looking at the chart a Cathay captain "tops out" at let's say 4M HKD which is what the top 100 or so captains are earning, 3 times that is ~1.5M USD. You were able to walk into a job that pays that on day 1 on leaving CX?

I'm guessing OP does not have job offers from companies paying him ~1.5m USD per year hence this post.

Sisiphos,
Vendetta comes to this forum with facts that outline a despicable history of employee abuse that he, like so many others, experienced working for Cathay Pacific. His posts are intelligently presented without the adolescent snarking you bring to the discussion.

Two things are obvious: Firstly, that you are unable to market your skills outside Cathay. Secondly, the entire aviation industry has become acutely aware of just how much Cathay has fallen. So much so that only those pilots in the industry that are desperate, or deemed unhirable anywhere else, need apply. All the former Cathay pilots with personal integrity and marketable skills, have resigned or retired.

In Vendtta’s case, the fact he is earning significantly more than what the top line captain earns today at Cathay speaks for itself.

It’s you who has clearly lost this game.

Missed the boat as well, Raven? ;-))

Which boat is that, Sisiphos? The Titanic … ?

just try and find a cathay captain who made 4m last year. very funny.

please see my earlier chart, there were 105 Cathay captains that earned over 4m last year.
So as you are earning 3 times as much as them, please tell us where you are working - if this is a pilot job I’d like to apply!

Ah, slowly it dawns on you and the other haters and doomsayers.. It's really fascinating, I almost can hear your brains moaning in agony, slowly understanding they have to go into reverse.

Sorry, but I waited years for this 😂

My only remaining wish now is for cxorcist and Piet Lood to be with us as well ❤️

SOPS; Run outa chocopos, Can I have some of yours. Now this is what Fragrant Harbour is all about. Gees I have missed the fun in the morning lurkabout.

Sis; gotta congratulate on your flow and articulation. I would have fallen for the goading much earlier and would need restraining as I resort to fistacuffs in time honoured manner.

Your control- admirable.

Your chart doesn't mean anything. Even if its not outright rubbish, it doesn't say what those earnings were from. All manner of shenanigans are practised at cathay regarding paying different people different things under different categories. You won't make 4m/yr on the payscale at cathay. Remember earnings can only be counted on based on minimum guarantee. Cathay minimum guarantee is way lower than the 80~ average out there. Today it's 50. When i dumped cathay it was 35. Thats all. We were all paid 35 hours per month for a couple of years. Today, average captain on 747 fleet flies 50~.This minimum gairantee (called base salary at cathay) number "can be adjusted from time to time, at company's sole discretion." Somepne can be helpful and post a screenshot of this week's payscale and the minimum guarantee amount and we can do the maths to see if it will add up to 4 million HKD/YR.

Or do you seriously suggest one should use a very indirect way via a financial filing document instead of the actual document (this week's version anyway) which will be followed to calculate one's pay? And as we all know, the direct document one's pay is calculated upon, is subject to whatever changes whenever the company wishes.

One would have to be a special kind of delusional to believe cathay won't adjust the min guarantee used to calculate base salary as far down as they want, when they can. How many years will you have wasted having lost the chance and the seniority you could have had at a stable contract job instead of then having to start at the bottom somewhere else after 5, 10, 15 etc years at cathay.

No Cathay line CN is consistently earning ~ HKD 333k/mth, every month, year on year. Even as a B-Scale SCN I never came close. What a load of delusional crap.

These are the figures I’ve come up with, happy to be corrected, as I left Cathay nearly 4 years ago.

The absolute max a Captain 4 on the Airbus can make is around HKD 3.0M gross / HKD 2.5M net per year. That includes flying 900 hours, 6 weeks profit share, 13th month, housing, and schooling. Very few hit this.

After paying for your own housing and schooling, net drops to about HKD 1.9M/year or HKD 158K/month. Most won’t reach this scale anyway.

A lower captain scale brings in about HKD 1.9M gross / 1.6M net, or HKD 133K/month. Deduct housing and school, and you're down to HKD 92K/month.

Now, if you go off guaranteed base pay only, no profit share, it’s a very different picture:

• Captain Year 4: HKD 2.1M gross / 1.76M net → HKD 146K/month
  After housing/school: ~HKD 101K/month
  
• Lower scale Captain: HKD 1.72M gross / 1.45M net → HKD 121K/month
  After housing/school: ~HKD 79K/month
  

People will say “nobody makes just base pay”, maybe not, but that’s the only part Cathay guarantees. Banking on more is risky if you're planning a move to HK as the goal posts constantly move over there.

So tell us about your 'Great Leap Forward' that over 50% of your former colleagues are missing because they 'have to go into reverse':

SCN2 to CN1. Same base pay I received 10 years earlier as an FO
Up to 115K Housing Allowance to 36K HKPA
15.5% DC PFund to 5% Match on mandatory 5% co-contribution
(Mostly) free healthcare > 30k + annual premium
Education Allowance ....

Some screwy logic you have there Boi! Do you also mistake the TOGA switches for reverse?

And yeah, not sure where V for V works (possibly same place as me), but my base pay is 3 x times the amount I stood to get on POS18. Really missing CX, ay! Even the former Airbus DCP is here.

Sure, if you had a job offer at United you would be nuts to take CX especially those who joined in 2022 and ended up getting historically quick commands. But clearly that's not the choice the people applying today are deciding between. So telling a poster from NZ (or applicants from SA, Malaysia, etc) how much better you're getting paid than them is useless and obnoxious.

Response edited to reflect an adult conversation.
T28B

The part where he refuses to accept a factual financial document that is publicly available audited and shows over 100 pilots earning over 4m last year.

OP didn’t ask what part of the pay at CX is guaranteed. He said he’s seen the payscales for Captain 4 and asked “Is there a path at Cathay where pilots can earn 3 million HKD annually and if so how long could it take ?” and here is proof that they can, and many hundreds do..

Obnoxious maybe, but asinine comments like "slowly understanding they have to go into reverse" or "missed the boat" might attract a strong rebuttal from the guys who left and are thriving.

To the OP, a select few Captains may well earn 3M HKD/year (Management, C&T), but it's not consistently achievable by the average line guy and would take years of service to achieve. By which point, the handbook (not a contract) would have been revised downwards many times, as it has been already. You have zero control over future earnings at CX.

I too could produce ALPA data on the $1M (USD) club at the US majors, but I'd never hold it up as realistic earnings during normal times.

It hurts, Veruka. I understand. Be strong!!
😂😂😂

I don’t need to be strong Sisiphos as I’m not the one stuck at CX! Good luck to you 👍🏻

[QUOTE: To the OP, a select few Captains may well earn 3M HKD/year (Management, C&T), but it's not consistently achievable by the average line guy and would take years of service to achieve.’’


There were 402 pilots earning over 3m last year according to the 2024 annual report - there were maybe 230-270 trainers and management (?), so at least 100 line pilots taking over the magic 3m mark among that ‘select few’.

So the answer to OPs question is yes, but I agree it would take years as Commands will slow and it’s slow to get up the pay scales. And VforV will still be on here telling us he earns 3 times more than any CX pilot

My (everybody) package was reduced by 50% so what the hell are some people here talking about ?
Not easy to leave for all of us, nothing to do with moral integrity like someone says or Stockholm syndrome just personal circumstances and choices.
Definitely everybody had a good look around.

Also, total remuneration and earnings mean different things to different people. From CX POV, that is what it is costing them - so will include provident fund payments, housing and education reimbursements or allowance, the kitchen sink

Most people don’t this as ‘earnings’ which they tend to see as ‘pay’ So it can both be right that it costs CX >3m to employ 400 crew, but those crew don’t see themselves as being paid 3m.

thanks for all information guys !

When I look at the images with pay for 2019 and 2024 overall isn’t it still quite similar overall ?