according to the latest news, CX and the pilots failed to reach any consensus in the latest round of negotiations that happened from 8:30 pm - 10:30 pm HKT tonight...i believe no further progress could be made in this next hour before the negotiation deadline at midnight...

http://www.cathaypacific.com/intl/news

Cathay Pacific is getting ready for the strike...

Uh oh, I'm flying from Vancouver to HK on June 30, then on to BKK on July 1. I guess I'll find out first hand how well CX has prepared!! (I'll bring a change of clothes in my carry on bags)

Commuter:

You are in luck, I checked www.scmp.com today, and it had an article saying that the industrial action will not start until Sunday:

http://news.scmp.com/ZZZ4XXUBEOC.html

So, on Saturday... well, maybe you still can fly fine, but it's good idea to bring along amentity kits (at least a toothbrush!) and change of cloths.

As a HK citizen, I'm sad to watch the pilots disbute with the management. This gives bad image to the tourists.....

enjoy your flight

Please also see:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum.../000349-2.html

It seems like there has been a development to the situation. I heard that CX pilots are NOT going to go on strike at least until Aug 3rd, and the talks will continue on. This is not a confirmed information (I didn't check this on my own, just heard it from collegues), so as soon as more details comes out, I will update my post.

from the news i just read...it's JULY 3rd, not AUGUST 3rd...that means they pushed it back by 2 days, for extra negotiation efforts...and the pilots will not distributing to their members yet their "disruption plan" (originally scheduled for today)...

so, Commuter, your HKG-BKK should be fine now...

[This message has been edited by tedhl (edited 06-28-2001).]

tedhl:

Thanks for the follow up. This is why I never trust the secondary information Well, JULY 3rd, instead of August 3rd. I thought it was weird in the first place, why delay for a month?

By the way, it has been delayed for 2 days, but are they still going to have a talk?

Well, I'm happy to hear this, though of course concerned for those poor people booked on the 3rd-- I"m sure it'll be madness. We'll see if my bad luck coming here 2 weeks ago (cancelled flight, lost bags) will be compensated by equally good luck this time (like, upgrade, since they're full in economy, though have no more seats available for asiamiles upgrades, I tried). It's always an adventure with Cathay lately. We'll see what the gods produce tonight!

Cathay Pacific turned up the heat on its pilots yesterday, refusing to restart talks on pay and conditions, and saying the union could take or leave the package of improvements it had offered.
The airline dismissed as an "empty PR gesture" the pilots' move to put off any industrial action until at least Tuesday.

The union had planned to launch the action tomorrow and said the postponement showed its sincerity in wanting to negotiate a settlement without affecting passengers.

Cathay gave the pilots until midnight tonight to accept its offer and said it would be withdrawn at that time if there was no agreement.

Aircrew Officers' Association general secretary John Findlay said yesterday morning that members considered industrial action a last resort and urged Cathay to return to the negotiating table.

"We are now giving extra time for the talks to continue, right up to midnight on July 2. We will not be taking any action and the holiday plans of Hong Kong people this weekend will not be disrupted," he said.

"We call on Cathay Pacific to make a similar gesture. Let them show their sincerity . . . and get back to the negotiating table. We do not want conflict."

The union had planned to distribute its strategy for industrial action yesterday but said it would instead put the document out on Tuesday. The industrial action is widely expected to cause flight delays and cancellations almost immediately.

Cathay has said it will charter rival carriers' planes and shuffle passengers on to other airlines to minimise disruption, but is telling travellers to check the status of their flights before leaving for the airport.

Week-long negotiations at the Labour Department collapsed late on Thursday night.

Cathay yesterday dismissed the pilots' offer to resume talks, saying it would be impossible to continue negotiating under the threat of industrial action.

"Our position is simple and firm," said director of corporate development Tony Tyler. The company had offered pilots pay rises of up to 10.5 per cent, extra overtime pay and improvements to their rosters, he said.

"It is the [union] leadership's choice whether or not to accept this deal.

"It's important to understand that when we say something, we mean it. Hong Kong's been waiting for weeks, months, two years for this to be settled. It's make-your-mind-up time."

If the offer is accepted, the union will have to pledge not to take industrial action during the four-year life of the package.

Tomorrow is the day when about 700 of Cathay's most senior pilots are due for a three per cent pay cut - the third in a series agreed in 1999 when the company said it needed concessions from crew to ensure its financial stability.

Cathay paraded 20 of its airport customer-service staff before the media yesterday, describing them as the people who would bear the brunt of any disruptions. "We just want to support our company. If the pilots stop this threat, it would be good news for everybody," said Carrie Chan, who works at a Cathay check-in counter.

Airport Authority chairman Victor Fung Kwok-king said that if industrial action went ahead, rest areas would be set up at the airport for passengers left stranded. Planes that were unable to take off would be moved so they did not interfere with other flights.

Each side blames the other for the breakdown in talks on Thursday. The pilots say it was because of Cathay's refusal to provide data on crews' working hours that was vital if they were to make a proper assessment of how the current contracts worked.

Cathay described this as a "diversionary gimmick", and said handing over the numbers would bring the parties no closer to agreement.
.................
IF EITHER SIDE HAD PUBLISHED GENUINE FIGURES AS A COMPARISON (IE A CX SENIOR PILOT GETS A PACKAGE WORTH HK$ 3.3M /US 426,000 PER YEAR AND PAYS HK TAX AT 15% VS A US PILOT EARNS US 200K PER YEAR AND PAYS US TAX AT 40%) - THEN PERHAPS I COULD HAVE SYMPATHY FOR EITHER SIDE.
I HAVE TICKETS FOR MY FAMILY TO JOHANNESBURG ON 3RD I PERSONALLY WILL NOT GET OFFLOADED ONTO SAA WHICH CHARGES CONSIDERABLY LESS FOR THE SAME FLIGHT WHILST PAYING THE CX PRICES.

http://bbs.hkalpa.org/public/default.htm
Tends to spell it out

one thing that i still don't understand...from AOA's analysis CX's total compensation and per-hour pay are much worse than every single major oneworld partners (AA, BA, QF)...i think many of these pilots are citizens of some of these foreign countries ? if so, why don't they just go back home and work for those airlines ? if they are really that unhappy with CX, why bother staying here...

from their analysis, an AA pilot's salary plus provident fund each year is ~US$280,000 while a CX pilot based in North America is only US$150,000 ?? this doesn't sound right to me...but if this is really true, then no wonder AA and other US airlines don't have much money left to invest in their products and services, and so CX and other Asian airlines are much more superior...

no offence here, but i really just don't understand...if you hate the management so much, complain about the management style so often, earn only 50% of what you could earn otherwise, and you could be home with your family...why CX ??

i agree with CX management that postponing the strike for 2 days, showing the union's "sincerity in wanting to negotiate a settlement without affecting passengers", is just a pure "empty PR gesture"...i really didn't know that they care about the passengers and the poor ground staff that much...

the other poor guys are the local pilots...they are paid the lower B-scale, no housing allowance, no child educational allowance, etc...and since they have citizenship only in HKG, in many cases they don't even have the choice to work for other airlines except KA...and, they have no choice but to follow the so-called AOA's decision because these local pilots' performance evaluations are all written by the more senior pilots, who are now mostly the non-local pilots...

Tedhl makes some valid points, but -
When those pilots joined on the lower B scale they knew what they were doing, didn't they ? so why are they whingeing now ?
When local Chinese choose a career with CX they know the pay scales and terms, they also get training and a licence to fly jets. Many countries welcome qualified professionals whatever their race (how about a re export to HongCouver or Hongronto since there are so many Canadian exports to CX) so they are not 'trapped' by the terrble CX - they too have a choice. The CX pilots have a choice - If they don't like it then they should get on their bikes and drop back to 2nd officer jobs somewhere else, cos that is what they would have to do if they left their jobs with CX. The A scale pilots as I see it have been given share options in return for salary drops, the better the stock performs the more they make, isn't that right ? If the share price drops because of their own 'limited industrial action' they shoot themselves in the foot do they not or cannot they take the blinkers off. I cannot see how they expect to get the necessary local public sympathy when they turn up without a Chinese mouthpiece at a press conference - do they presume all the local press speak English ? As for the gesture, we are not going to screw up your travel arrangements this weekend but we will after that, what a load of ill conceived bull. I can have sympathy with the rostering complaint, they ought to be able to manage their lives by knowing where they will be xx days hence rather than when they get to the airport but it appears they are more than adequately paid and they have a choice.
We all do.

oh, in fact when i read my previous post again, i found it kind of confusing too...to clarify a bit, what i actually meant is, the local pilots are getting paid lower, but it's now that the expat pilots who are bringing all the troubles every year...yes, this year one of their requests is to bring the local pilots' pay to the same level...but, is that really on the top of their agenda ?? i don't quite think so...it seems to me they are fighting for an overall increase in salary/compensation...yes, the rostering problem sounds bad, but, in the end, what they are trying to say is, we work/wait long hours, so our hourly pay is low, so please increase it...

i said the local pilots are poor in the sense that they seem to have to follow whatever the expats said...they are the ones getting paid less, they ought to be the ones doing the strike, then i still might have some sympathy...but now it's always the well-paid expats who are bringing the trouble every year...

expat and local hires getting different packages are no news in HK (or maybe some other countries as well ?)...how unlikely is it for people who join at different times to earn different salaries ?? i would say it's not that uncommon...

and, even with the lower pay, the local pilots are already earning as much as 3 to 4 times, just in terms of base salary, as what an average colleage graduate earns...and they don't even need to have a colleage degree, some of them did not even go to college...and, although i'm not sure if they get paid in their first full year of training in Australia...still, free training for a whole year and the license...what else better could you ask for...i would think that the local pilots should already be pretty satisfied...

right, i really don't understand what they are doing here either...in their press conference today they were actually saying that one of the goals of their strike is to make the overall financial performance of CX to be much worse in the coming 3 months, 6 months or even up to 1 year (or sth like that, i don't remember the exact quotes)...but this seems to me as detrimental to themselves as well...

from the news that i read, the pilots are actually trying to get more international attention rather than local sympathy...although i don't quite think the international media out there are too interested in this kind of simple labor dispute...they probably would be more interested if the central government steps in so that they could accuse again the central government is breaking the one-country-two-systems promise...

but apparently the pilots for some reasons don't think that they are adequately paid, although many of us think otherwise...