For those who said they have no sympathy for the cabin crew or that they think there is nothing wrong with the no swaping for <70 hours polcy, you guys probably do not understand the background of the issue.

Before 97, CX cabin crew are usually monthly salary crew who has a fixed monthly flying hours and anything over that amount will be consider over time. CX want to cut over time cost, by introducing hourly pay crew, in effect, there will be no over time payment, crew will be pay according to the hours flown but with a minimum of 70 hours pay. This has work well for CX on their cost cutting point of view but it greatly reduce CX cabin crew pay above as there are no more over time. Now 13 years later, CX notice that they are paying duplicate work because some cabin crew decided to work less than 70 hours and yet recieve 70 hours pay, while others who work more than 70 hours are costing the company extra money. However, this is all within the contract that was initially drafted by CX because they want to cut cost. This time around, they want to change the contract that they imposed on all new CX cabin crew because they saw this so call loophole... However for CX cabin crew who are sign onto this contract, this is not a loophole at all, this is their contractual right! So in effect, CX is unilaterally trying to change someone contract to cut cost... So what happen is that the Flight Attendent union simply ask, CX to return to the old montly salary crew contract and then this swaping below 70 hours will not be an issue... You see what people from the outside do not understand is that CX are the one who created this mess... Cabin Crew has never ask to have hourly contract, but CX thought they could cut cost so that's why they introduce it... Now it is just another cost cutting measure by CX... If hourly crew was never introduced 13 years ago, this problem will have never exisiting in the first place... So CX can blame their cabin crew all they want but CX management are the one who created this mess in the first place and they are the one who has created this loophole by offering hourly crew so they should suffer their consequences and they should not be allow to change the rule once again!

As for overseas based crew operating long haul flight... The reason why HK based crew are complaining is because the average HK based crew makes avout 12K including allowance... Without allowance, at 70 hours at $90 to $110 an hour, a HK base crew salary will drop to $7000 to $8000 a month... Which makes it very difficult to live in HK especially when considering the cost of transportation to go to work at the airport... So this is why CX hong kong based crew are complaining...

CX is very good at bending the truth... So a lot of the stuff is not really what they seem and the flight Attendent definitily has their reason on why they might go on stike!