Advice Please: Airtran, or Cathay

[Pinguin]

hi, and thanks for any advice given.
I been with Airtran for a few months and so far its been very nice, I got a call yesturday for an Interview with Cathay Pacific, Should I get a job offer what to do? anyone any info on Cathay

thanks again

 

[boscenter]

Don't all CX newhires start as relief crew for the long hauls?

 

[Viking]

Just remember, the bigger the airplane the farther it goes and the longer you'll be away from home!

 

[charterpuke]

Sesrch this board for past posts. From what I can remember the previous posts about Cathay were all BAD. I would stick with Airtran. Good luck.

 

[Ty Webb]

Man, I have been very happy at FL, but I guess it comes down to personal preferences. You can find a lot of info on Cathay on pprune or some of the other more international boards. Most of what I have seen about them has been negative.

I think AirTran is the right place to be, at the right time. I hired on in Nov, and have only had a few days of reserve, been a lineholder since IOE, loking forward to quick upgrade, and have flown with a lot of great guys who are very positive about the company and the future.

If you think that long-haul international stuff is for you, go to the interview, and ask them the HARD questions. If you still think you would like it better than Citrus, then do what makes you happy- You'll make two people happy- yourself and one of the guys waiting to get on here!

Good Luck

 

[Cardinal]

Like Ty said, check pprune.org for the dirt on Cathay. The pay sounds alright, but if you were considering living there, the cost of living in Hong Kong is very high. Big, beautiful, long haul airplanes. There was a recruitment ban issued by their union, I can't recall if that is still in effect. This was in response to the arbitrary firing of 51 hostage pilots. Get the full story, tread carefully, eh?

 

[typhoonpilot]

As Cardinal said there is still as recruitment ban in effect at Cathay and you would be considered a Scab if hired on now ? That in itself makes it unpleasant. The cost of living is high in Hong Kong. Try $3000 per month for a two bedroom apartment in the mid-levels of Hong Kong Island, but you can live there cheaper if you are not picky about quality. The recruitment ban is the big issue though and the reason they are interviewing in the states, me thinks, is that there are desperate people here who will ignore the ban.

 

[Freight Dog]

Don't scab - stay away

IFALPA Asks ILO to Probe Abuses at Cathay Pacific

The International Federation of Airline Pilots' Associations (IFALPA) has formally requested an investigation by the International Labor Organization (ILO) into the practices of Cathay Pacific Airways management in the ongoing dispute with its pilots. IFALPA charges that Cathay Pacific management has violated international standards of worker protection agreed to by many nations, including China. The ILO is the UN agency which monitors social justice and internationally recognized human and labor rights.

The letter written by IFALPA president, Capt. Ted Murphy, to the Honorable Juan Somavia, Director General of the ILO, cites violations by Cathay Pacific management of several ILO conventions, including freedom of association and protection of the rights to organize and bargain collectively.

Captain Murphy wrote, "In my long career as a pilot, as a representative of pilots and as President of IFALPA. . . I can honestly say that I have never seen an attack on a union quite like that being waged by . . . Cathay Pacific."

The letter cited the unfair termination of 51 employees without cause, specifically union committee members and negotiators, and continued patterns of abuse. These include intimidation tactics against union members and clear indications of Cathay Pacific's intention to eliminate the effectiveness of the Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association (HKAOA), the representative body for Cathay Pacific's 1,600 pilots.

IFALPA's request for an investigation marks the second time in a month that a UN body has been alerted to the circumstances surrounding the Cathay dispute. In February, the HKAOA sent a letter to the UN's Office of the Commission of Human Rights asking for an investigation into labor rights in Hong Kong.

The HKAOA, has been engaged in one of the longest running labor disputes in history, dating back to 1993. Currently the company refuses to negotiate a settlement with its pilots despite repeated attempts by the pilots to ask management to come back to the table. Meanwhile the 51 fired union pilots and their families rely on their colleagues for welfare support.

In recent weeks, international labor organizations including ALPA, the Allied Pilots Association, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), and the AFL-CIO have expressed increasing concern about the situation in Hong Kong and the government's failure to uphold basic labor rights.

 

[jsoceanlord]

It's possible this isn't totally correct, but I heard a CX capt was recently fired for throwing peanuts at the CX CEO, in a bar.

Apparently Richard Branson then hired this Capt at
VIRGIN BLUE (they said all R Branson would have done if someone threw peanuts at him, is throw the peanuts back).

I heard CX is down on US pilots (I think the way i heard it is that out of 6 well qualified guys interviewing , mostly Americans, only one got hired and he was Canadian)

 

[BoxFlyr]

i say if that's the kind of flying you want to do, go for it. besides, that would be a job opening at air tran, a place where me and alot of other people would love to be!

 

[TurboS7]

Hurry up and go to Cathy so some of my furloughed buddies can take your place at AirTran.

 

[TurboS7]

It sounds like if you went with Cathy you wouldn't be just a scab but a SUPER SCAB known all over the world. Go to Cathy because I know none of my buddies will be going there. Their airplanes are too big and they fly too far anyway, with a 747-400 as a passenger you get get on sober, get totally drunk, and be sober and ready to fly as soon as your feet hit the pavement. That is tooooooo long.

 

[Tref]

Read this thread:

http://forums.flightinfo.com/showthread.php?threadid=2355

and then run like hell in the other direction!!!

BTW, it is true about the Captain getting fired for throwing peanuts. It happened around lunch time and he was off the property for good by the afternoon, which is funny because one of the Fleet Managers attacked one of the First Officers with a beer bottle a few months earlier and wasn't even disciplined. At CX it pays to be in management!

If you do go for the interview look for the sign on the door that says, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Consider yourself warned.

Take care,
Tref

 

[Cardinal]

Well there ya go, Pinguin. A scab told you not to scab at Cathay. If there is any harsher indictment of an organization I can't think of it. Don't forget the added bonus of flying with "indigenous" cadet's that can probably tell a flap from an aileron, but may or may not care. Like the last guy said, Cathay's not a springboard, rather it seems to be the deep end. Cheers!

 

[Freight Dog]

Tref,

Easy bro... Cardinal was talking about TurboS7 who's an Eastern scab.


Aloha!

 

[Tref]

Freight Dog,

I deleted the message after I saw yours. I'm sure you can understand why I freaked out. It looked like Cardinal was refering to me. Maybe he can be more specific next time. My apologies to Cardinal if he managed to read my message before I could delete it.

See ya,
Tref

 

[TurboS7]

That is right, this Eastern scab is telling you to stay away from the complete thing. They are just looking for "outsiders" to solve the internal problems at what will be your expense. When they don't need you anymore they will fire you for dropping peanuts on the flight deck and you will be out the door right now. You will have a type rating and time but all you will do with it is become a Hadj expert and see parts of the world that you didn't know existed. Being an ALPA scab is one thing, being a full-fledged ICAO SUPER SCAB even I wouldn't want to wish that on anyone. Don't go and make my being a scab something worth having. By the way the head of the APA MEC for AA told me to go to EAL as they had an axe to grind with ALPA. Like an idiot I gave it a go with the hope that EAL would merge with CO, or that the rEAL(I like that)pilot's would come back and I would be out on the street but at least with an EAL senority number. Neither happened and I was on a roller-coaster trying to pay the bills at home and I really had no choice but to carry on. EAL was a great airline and all the guys that came back and saved the thing were great. I have nothing but high respect for the guys that didn't walk, for the guys that walked and never came back, and for the guys that came back after walking the picket line. My sincere hope during the complete thing was that the mess would be settled everything would return to normal and I would fade into the sunset. That never happened(I even told a guy that on the picket line, three weeks later he came back flying) the whole thing became a mess after 6 weeks and ALPA knew that had made a wrong decision and everyone lost. As I have tried to say in past post there is a lot to learn from the whole thing if you guys would just stop name calling and listen. STAY AWAY FROM CATHY AND STICK WITH AIRTRAN AND JOE. A BETTER PLACE FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY IF YOU HAVE ONE.

 

[UALU30]

"By the way the head of the APA MEC for AA told me to go to EAL as they had an axe to grind with ALPA."

They always have a story. Pinguin, do NOT ruin your life by becoming one of these worthless SCABs with one of your own stories: "I just didn't know about that recruitment ban, blah blah blah blah blah blah."

There are still SCABs at AirTran, but a lot of good honest guys. This should be a no-brainer.

A SCAB is NEVER forgotten!

 

[Humblepilot]

Freight Division

I have a friend at the Freight Division and had my resume dropped there, from my understanding the firing and the other problems are on the passenger side (which by the way I don't make light of). So if you go fly freight you are a scab? Listen I am 2nd generation union guy and I hate scabs, but I don't see going and flying freight as "scabbing" its not struck work.

Anyone agree or disagree?

Frats,
Humble

 

[Tref]

It's a very screwed up divide and conquer game that they are playing with the freighter side. Back around 1996 they split the freighter side off and tried to tell everyone it was a separate company. Hmmm, they used Cathay planes, Cathay sims and instructors, Cathay office space and used the cargo space on the Cathay passenger planes for their balance sheets (even though the fuel costs still counted against the passenger side.)

See what they did was hire Captains and F/Os off the street, even though there were 9 year F/Os waiting for upgrades. (Historically Cathay pilots flew both the passenger and the cargo side of the operation depending on the pattern assignment.) By hiring new freighter pilots off the street they created in effect a C scale. (Which is a bit misleading because pretty much every pilot at CX has a separate deal based on date and country of hire, but the new freighter pay was an all time low.)

This allowed them to reduce costs on the freighter side. And by using the passenger cargo capacity to boost the freighter side revenues and drag down the passenger side because of the lost revenues and increased fuel costs, they made it appear as though the passenger side was doing poorly.

When the Asian economy stumbled in '98 they also wrote off all of the costs of moving to the new airport and shortened the depreciation schedule of all of their aircraft by five years and applied all of those costs in that fiscal year. It made it look like CX had lost money, when in fact they had actually made a profit.

Then of course, they came after the pilots for concessions and tried to split up the union into A scalers and B scalers. (Anyone hired after April '93 NEVER goes onto the A scale.) They told the A scalers to take huge pay cuts or they would be fired and they told the B scalers to stay out of it because it was an A scale issue.

In 1999 they had supposedly agreed to reintegrate the freighters, but because you can't trust CX management any farther than you can kick them, I doubt much has happened.

People were calling the freighter guys scabs way back in '96-'97 and I disagreed, because as you say, it was not struck work. But here's the rub... In Hong Kong there are virtually no labour laws and there is no right to strike. At that time there was no recruitment ban on Cathay Pacific and they were being called scabs, rightly or wrongly, I don't really know. But now that the ban is in effect I think that it would apply equally to both sides of the operation, especially since they are supposedly being reintegrated.

I would say anyone going to any part of CX right now is not only a scab, but is also either incredibly uninformed or incredibly foolish.

Take care and tread carefully,
Tref