Bases?

[broadband circuit]

They have spent way too much time and effort to walk away now.

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

[Arfur Dent]

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!!!

[Iron Skillet]

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.

[SMOC]

From a recent interviewee......

Basings are not currently being offered, and for the time being are not being considered. This does not mean things will not change in the future, but we were told not to expect basings. Therefore if they did come up it was a bonus, and if they didn't, then we were fully aware at the beginning of this process.

[CXChildLabour]

The I-kids have undercut themselves out of bases too.

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.

[iMad]

Bravo CXChildLabour, bravo.

[BigLebowsky]

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.

[cxorcist]

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.

[ron burgandy]

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.

[Fly747]

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!

[fly123456]

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!