My friend over there has pretty much the same things to say. The new Cathay deal sounds like a dead-end for anyone who doesn't plan on making a career out of the place, and even that seems a far less attractive prospect than it has been in the past. Pay's dropping like a rock - they're down to "C-Scale" now for new hires, which means a lower, separate payscale from folks who signed on before they changed the terms of employment, and no housing allowance to boot. The company makes it very clear that they expect you to live in Hong Kong unless you're one of the people who signed on to be based elsewhere in the past. The wildly different numbers people are quoting for RHS and LHS upgrade times are because nobody's really sure yet - Cathay just recently upped the retirement age from their old standard of 55 all the way up to ICAO's 65. That's a lot of people who aren't going anywhere anytime soon. The only thing that could dampen that blow would be if the company was still growing like mad, but that's not really the case anymore, either.

The latest terms suggest they're not really interested in anybody but locals and desperate young expats hitting a wall in their career. If you're one of the latter, I suggest you do a lot more research than hitting the usual internet gripe boards.