Andrzej Jeziorski/HONG KONG
Cathay Pacific Airways pilots have begun to disrupt scheduled services after the collapse of pay talks between airline management and unions.
Three flights were cancelled on 28 May, when "a higher than average" number of pilots called in sick. Although airline management says it does not officially see this as industrial action, it is implementing strategies to handle further disruption. The airline has frozen bookings for the next two weeks.
The latest management pay offer has been roundly rejected by the Hong Kong Aircrew Officers' Association (AOA), which has labelled the offer and 11 June acceptance deadline as "colonial arrogance at its worst".
Cathay pilots are faced with accepting substantial pay cuts by 11 June or losing their jobs. Cathay corporate development director Tony Tyler says that they have been given a choice of accepting the current offer or taking voluntary redundancy. "We have made it clear there is no third option," he says.
The Cathay offer requires senior "A-scale" pilots, hired before 1993, to accept pay cuts of up to 22% in return for stock options. The airline says that the offer is a significant improvement on its initial proposal, rejected in March by the AOA, which required cuts of up to 27%.
According to Cathay, the average salary concession required from senior aircrew in Hong Kong has been lowered to an average of 7%, to be phased in over two years instead of the previous one year. Aircrew will also have 10 years to exercise their stock options, rather than eight.
The offer proposes "B-scale" salary increases of 7.1% to 10.2% over the next two years. Aircrew will be offered improved conditions of service. Jobs on freighters will also be returned to Cathay aircrew, signalling the scrapping of the Aircrew Services recruitment system which introduced separate freighter crews. The airline adds that, even after the pay cuts, Cathay pilots will be among the highest paid in the world.
Source: Flight International
