brunos

Indeed.
But the market for pilots is not as fluid.
Pilots have the "industrial action" leverage. When CX tried to reduce the package benefit for "old-contract" pilots a few months ago, they were threatened by action from all pilots. Solidarity is a big thing and pilots are heavily unionized.
CX could have easily found "cheaper" good pilots to replace the "old-contract" ones. But even junior CX pilots felt that they had to defend the senior ones, otherwise CX would keep attacking on other fronts.
If I were in pilot shoes, I would probably do the same...
But cost cutting is done at the expense of pax, not pilots.

Cambo

Certainly, though where accountants and whatever are significantly tied to a country, pilots are international with their qualifications. As such, they can browse around the world for airline provided food stamps. CX & EK are currently among pilots the most abhorred airlines, for reasons company culture, fatigue, living environment, promotion chances and payslip (in that order).

Take out the housing allowance and CX pilots of the less than grumpy old men generation aren't paid better than at other legacy airlines.

As explained earlier, many pilots do mentally still live in the age that the pilot was a major influence party inside an airline. That changed and now pilots are just fulfilling a job (with a high responsibility, each pilot being able to break down the companies' reputation in a blink).

It just takes another generation, before the top salaries are more down to reality.

Cambo

Sorry, I think you are (at least partially wrong).

The pilot market is not fluid, though neither solid, it goes in bursts. Bursts which flow, when the pilot demand is high, as is the current situation. Airlines with a bad situation are loosing pilots.

CX can not find cheaper pilots, at least not trained according CX standards, which is quite extreme, so to say. A SO needs to be around 5 years in the company, before a promotion to FO becomes possible. SO's don't get stick time, so no flying experience, only monitoring the autopilot and the CPT/FO, to learn how to deal with the chaotic world of piloting (nowadays, only a very small portion of piloting is the actual stick movement). Even CX does realize, that an inexperienced crew (jn fatigue situations), will create smoking holes. Many of the recent fatal (or nearly fatal) incidents can be explained from these items. Think about the EK777 crashing on the runway, two times an EK380 at 100m above ground far outside the airport, AirAsia LOC when confronted with manual flying, AF447 the same, FZ head on in the runway, to name a few.

In the current market, CX does not have options to squeeze out on the old-boys. It is as simply as that. So they backed out. Give it another year and that problem is solved.

Cambo

I am to far away from CX pilots to tell you about the figures. Have a look at PPrune and make up your mind. I can remember to have seen CX pay scales, though can't find it back. All I remember, it wasn't that high for SO's to get happy about.

Ah, have a look at the face of the SO on board of LH flights. I've never seen a happy face ......

SCMP might be a good spin doctor........

C17PSGR

There is a worldwide shortage of pilots and all airlines are under pressure to raise pay for pilots. US flying schools are packed with Chinese students and instructors will tell you they are under pressure to push them through, regardless of rough flying skills.

That being said, pilots at most world airlines are tied into their union seniority list so movement isn't fluid. A CX pilot with 10 years of experience who wants to change airlines will go to the bottom of the seniority list at any new airline. CX is in a tough spot and is trying the cadet second officer approach. Five years ago, it could attract qualified FO's but it's way more difficult now since US and Australian airlines pay better and are actively hiring. And .. top salaries in world airlines are increasing, not dropping.

Cambo

Yes, the seniority lists, that is why I wrote "Bursts which flow, when the pilot demand is high, as is the current situation.".

The SO cadet approach did work properly, in the past, for a lifetime job in an undisputed company. Current new pilots want to gain flight hours, which for 100% conflicts with the CX Cadet approach. Time will tell what happens. From the security point of view, I tend to favor the CX cadet approach, though I also realize in nowadays world, it might not be the best for the cadet individual.

ermen

1/ why would the autopilot kick off because of turbulence? and even if it did, and you were at cruising altitude and you needed to hand fly, big deal. passengers will be in for a bumpy ride regardless of how well you think you can keep level flight. you exaggerate the flight envelope. that is trivial for commercial aviation these days. you are not flying the U2 spy plane here. AF447 was a different case where pilots did not have reliable airspeed indications.

2/ i do your math on 5 on 2 off. assume 1.0 hr paid flight time x 4 sectors a day x 5 days x 50 weeks = 1,000 hours (i.e. over hours). AND... and i am being generous. which flight sectors are 1 hour push back to gate??? hyperbole.

And by the way you previously said pilots had 18 hour days for days in a row...

Your writing is really off.

do i have a view on whether pilots are overpaid / not overpaid. no. everyone will want to fight for their rights / entitlements so its their right. but are they well remunerated compared to the general population? yes. even a job at CX is considered to be "good" by HK standards. i saw a job fair at my local mall a few years ago (granted in 2012). Cathay booth was BY FAR the most popular with long queues. And i think the SO direct entry course is widely popular for locals (who could otherwise not be able to afford flying training). But senior pilots don't like that because they somehow think it impinges on their "prestige" or they just maintain a superiority complex from days gone by (funny how I don't hear SQ senior pilots complaining as much as the CX ones)

As an aside, I make the observation that the seniority system seems rather stupid. but maybe that is the only way. reading PPRUNE seems like they are filled with bitter old senior pilots complaining to no end. but they can't leave due to the "seniority" system. reading about their gripes and unhappiness, makes we worried though if one of them would want to "do a postal" one day with the plane...

triplefives

I feel the same way when I read the postings on the PPRUNE but it's probably best to take those with a grain of salt. Any forum can be skewed by a small vocal minority whereas in reality the majority feel differently.

There are winners and losers with any system and the bitter ones are the ones who take the fight to PPRUNE. Ironically enough, the ones that complain about losing seniority if they switch are the ones who are actually benefiting from their current seniority - a bit like pot calling the kettle black.

Cambo

Autopilot kick-out: Yep, when the autopilot considers itself, to not being able to keep within the parameters it is designed for. I drops the ball back in the lap of the pilots. Here you go.
Flight envelop: Lookup the expression "coffin-corner" and you would be surprised how small the bandwidth between a stall and an over speed situation is at 40K feet altitude. There is a reason for its name.
Handflying at altitude is a real challenge and pretty exhausting, especially when doing so on the AI. Think about the pilots alternating every 10-15 minutes, when this happens. Especially those pilots who did not have old-school experience, tend to make a mess of handflying at altitude. That's the reason why AirAsia went down.

Yep, even with unreliable (or no) airspeed, it'll be possible to fly the airplane, provided you immediately switch to "pitch and power". Pitch on the Ai and power, you know.
Yep, add some overhead and you get to that figure. It's the legal maximum number of flight hours a pilot is allowed to make.
But those flight hours are spread over the duty time of 12 hours a day.
Pilots are a whining species, but regarding the duty time and fatigue, they are 150% right. The official ie legal regulations are intended to be a maximum, though most price squeezing airlines tend to consider this maximum to be the target. The result is extremely fatigued pilots. See the recent EK/FZ incidents. CX pilots do complain about the same.

There is a difference between LH and SH. Due to its nature LH can become "long", have some departure delays out of HKG to the US, some bad weather in the US and the crew easily gets a duty day of 18 hours. Add a diversion and the jackpot is complete. EK and other ME airlines do expect the captain to exert his authority to extend the duty time, etc. This happens more often then the general public knows.

Sure, though now back to reality of fatigue and long days.

Cathay SO popular by locals: Yep, though the way children are growing up in Asia, does not match with the needs for piloting, ie skills and being prepared to speak-up against a captain doing something stupid. Korean airlines are an example of that. And now the new entries (for significantly lower salaries) from locals does introduces a dangerous culture in the cockpit.
CX pilots do complain, largely because of the rapidly changing company culture, being the chinazation of CX, just like HK itself).


Yep, a lot of grumpy old men on PPrune, though read between the lines and you should be able to distinguish between the different aspect being relevant.
Seniority list: A lot can be said against that, though also at the pro side: Without seniority list, the FO could easily be challenged to "forget" to speak up (or speak up late), when the captain makes a mistake (and gets booted due to that), which would enhance the promotion chances of the FO. It simply rules out the human aspect of revenge, etc.

CX HK

What? Sorry to pick and choose what I respond to, but this particular segment has attracted my ire. I don't think its a problem in Asia - Korea, perhaps - but this doesn't automatically apply to all of Asia. Perhaps what CX should be doing is understanding the changing demographics of the workforce, as more kids in HK and Asia are growing up bilingual and educated and able. It's easy to hide behind the "China-zation" of something when the reality is the pilots miss the good ol' days of Brits and Aussies and Canadians running the show, 6 figure housing comp, and so on.

We've seen this before in banking, where the senior guys miss the old days of waltzing straight into a senior position at a bulge bracket, or large retail bank, and immediately start socializing in HK Club parties and happy hour at the MO Captain's Bar. This type of arrogance and complacency leads to a swift end.

Cambo

What, yes. There are reasons, native HK pilots like being SO at CX. It's not the training, because CX does not pay for their ATPL. Young China/HK pilots A) like to live "close at home" and B) can't get piloting jobs elsewhere in the world (where the pay is substantial better than SO at CX, because being at FO level). The B) has a reason: Considered not suitable for the piloting job, with reason the way they grew up. [That's not my invention, I only replicate the opinions and what factually happens, whether the reality is likable or not].

Have a read about CRM, rote-memory & check-box training as well as cockpit gradient and you probably understand what does and what should go on in the cockpit in Asia.

Seems to me, we do have the same impression about that, ie ".... good ol' days ...." and "Grumpy old men".

Yep, the world is changing. Many branches can work the "Asia" way as good as the more Western way.

For piloting, the general opinion among the experts is, there is only one way, the Western one (largely established after the biggest airline accident ever, at Tenerife 1977, the KLM bigshot, ignoring his FO and engineers words and continuing the fatal action). Also Russia is moving that direction. Africa and South-America do have (in general) a long way to go. EK did shoot itself in the foot, expediting captain promotion for locals with insufficient experience because of political reasons. Korea hired professional trainers to change the corporate culture, after a couple of expensive mistakes, long before the near-ditch at SFO (and still seems needing to learn a lot, given the recent KE turmoil around a peanut package in First Class). How about CI, until they hired the Western experts to change the cockpit culture, some 20 years ago, it was considered the most dangerous airline flying LH ? How about the smoking habits of Chinese senior pilots in the cockpits, it signals a disinterest in complying with regulations.

Airbus is popular in Asia and gives as "advantage" their unsinkable (ie unstallable) aircraft status due to the way automation is setup, until the automation hits the iceberg and the inexperienced pilot has to be up at 110% (AirAsia): don't reset your computers inflight, if not explicitly allowed by the books (Asian captain), it's not your home electricity network. Even a brand new $100M airplane can be landed just short of the runway in the water and subsequently float ashore, recently somewhere in Asia (Indonesia, I forgot where ?). A couple of years ago, a local flight crashed into a river in Laos. Tracking down the Cambodian captains' whereabouts, it turned out, he was a tuktuk driver the evening before the crash. It is largely about culture of the locals.

No pun intended

brunos

This is getting quite funny.
That reminds me of a discussion with some American colleague who claimed that only the US were raising their kids in the proper fashion.

CX HK

I'm sorry, I think you're reading too many articles focusing on the 2nd generation rich kids, the ones who are spoon fed by their maids until the age of 10, and so on - essentially, the extreme cases. I'm not saying the West or Western employees have no value - heck, in my industry (banking), they practically helped build the Asian S&T and investment banking industry from the ground up in the 80s and 90s. Barristers, solicitors, prosecutors, judges - many were from England or Commonwealth jurisdictions. They were here to help raise the standard - and it was invaluable, but this was the 80s and 90s.

Fast forward to today, the number of expat bankers are drastically lower than before. Barristers, judges - these are slowly becoming localized, with the exception of top Silks from England who come work on high profile cases - again, helping raise the local standard here. They have value, but the role is diminished.

The pilot who was a part-time tuk tuk driver - I don't doubt the story, but is it relevant to HK? How relevant is it to modern Asian pilots, anyway? In your words, Western experts were hired - rightfully so - to change the culture, for the future, not to be the only pilots "raised" the right way. In fact, if these Western experts do their jobs well, it would result in more local pilots.

Sorry for straying OT!

1010101

He's not wrong though. CX is having to lower piloting standards to get some of the local kids through the cockpit door.

Cambo

I think, you need to give my writing another read. What you claim, is not what I write

In general, I don't claim a proper fashion. I DO state, that universal experience shows, for the flying industry to be safe (safer), the current Western methods are the only option.

Youngsters being raised in a situation they do have to accept state control to the level China does, will be very reluctant to speak up towards authority (be it towards the captain, be it in a later life towards ATC, towards company hierarchy, etc). That's something in the genes to so say (though actually not the real human genes, but how people are raised). Or better, people who grew up in such a situation, have no idea what and why this is happening, simply, because they never came to that point finding out.

Oh, and this is not something like discrimination.