Originally Posted by
bmchris
Let me say, I do have sympathy for the FAs overall.
But it doesn't make sense to revisit something that was in place 13 years ago - the world was a different place then. Indeed, 13 years ago, Hong Kong was still under British rule - how about we also go back to that?
So, the most productive thing is to see where things are now, and move forward, based on current circumstances.
What are your recommendations that cut costs/increase profits for CX, and also allows FAs more flexibility?
I understand it does not makes sense to talk about something that was already in place for 13 years... however, I do believe in a certain fairness and this should apply to both the company point of view and employee point of view.
If CX believe it is cost effective for them to have Hourly Pay Crew, than they should live with the consequence that a small percentage of staff who might be able to take advantage of the swap rules when combines with the Hourly Pay Crew contract... Remember, the actual cost to the company are probably very small and the percentage of crew who are able to swap away 30 or 40 hours of their roster flight for a day off is even smaller... It is rather difficult to meet all the minimum rest requirements, to align with the particular days off and flight combination that is being swap... To find these flight combination, the cabin crew really need to look hard to find a proper match and a lot of the times, swap probably will not go through because not everyone want to work much more unless the flight is very attractive with a lot of outport allowance. So my personal view of this issue is that the implementation of this policy is probably a stupid idea from some General Manager who has the ideas to try to trim all the fat out of the system. The top management probably has never ask for such changes, as I am sure the top management at CX realize the cost benefit vs pissing off all the cabin crew is not worth their time, hence this loophole existed for 13 years without being fixed or even mention in the past 13 years... and this is probably the reason why such policy are dropped immediately once this issue hit the public domain and the Top Dogs at CX is asking the GM, what on earth are you doing? From looking at CX history, if something is approved by the top management at CX (from man-comm), it is rarely changed even though there are resistance within the employee group... so this particular instance, I am 90% certain that the ideas for this policy did not comes from the top but from some clueless middle management who doesn't understand the big picture.
At the end of the day, every contract has their advantages and disadvantages. The current Hourly crew contract allow CX to cut cost by having a lower over time cost to the company, this is advantages to the company during boom time, as over time is non-existence when compare to monthly salary crew. The disadvantages is that it allow some people to take advantage of the system by working less than 70 hours and yet receiving 70 hours of pay, and this particular issue is more pronounce during a downturn as it become easier to swap away flight when all the crew are working less hours (more chance for the swap to go through). However, as I explain from above, even now, only a small percentage of people who might be able to take advantage of this, and the actual overall cost to CX will be tremendously less than if everyone is on monthly salary and having CX to pay everyone overtime.
Anyway, you has ask what is the most productive things to do and move forward, based on the current circumstance... the most logical things is to leave things as it is... which is exact what CX is doing at the moment. However, what CX has done through this stupid maneuver is that they have stir up the emotion of the cabin crew and they are not going to give up until a lot of other issues are resolve as well. These issues has been building up for years.... and the recent swap policy change is simply just the trigger for other much bigger issue... this include Union recognition by CX, collective bargaining rights, no unilateral policy changes without consultation with FAU, base crew working on other oversea long haul flight, layover time for cabin crew (which impact their income due to out-port allowance), etc. So it looks like it is a rough road ahead for CX management.
Finally, you have ask "What are your recommendations that cut costs/increase profits for CX, and also allows FAs more flexibility?"... I personally do not know. However, my feeling is that for a lot of the CX front line staff, it has reach the breaking point in terms of cost cutting... most front line staff (cabin crew as well as cockpit crew) has not receive any meaningful pay increase since 1999, in fact, new cabin crew hourly pay package has been on the decrease years after years for the past 5 year or so (while their office counter part at CX has receive numerous pay increase over the last 10 years)... so further cost cutting is not going to happen without a flight from the FAU... if you look at CX cabin crew pay structure, it is already quite low compare to their European & American & Asian counterpart... A CX cabin crew pay is equivalent to regional cabin crew pay in the USA (heck, my friend who works as a FA at republic airways [a large regional carrier that do flight for a lot of the majors in USA, but they are known to pay peanuts to their staff], get pay more than your average CX cabin crew) and CX are about the same as the lower cost carrier cabin crew pay in Europe... So for CX to ask for more cost cutting from the cabin crew, I will ask is this a big joke? To be honest, I am surprise the cabin crew has not ask for a pay increase... Cost cutting plan has its limits, if it is overdone, staff become so disloyal that they just don't give a sh&^ about the company anymore... and I think for many of the front-line staff at CX, it has reaches that point... wait for more disruption and threats from the cockpit crew later this year... I smell something similar is coming from the cockpit crew at CX as well...