Originally Posted by
The Dominican
It will be very unlikely that anyone will make a career of CX through this program, the flying will be so boring (answering a CPDLC call now and again) you will never get to fly the airplane at all, and your currency will be done in the sim all the time, the salary will get you a place the size of a shoe box in Hong Kong and although it is a great city with tons of night life, you will not be able to afford it! is very expensive to live with any sort of social agenda there. The time line will be more like 9 years to upgrade to F/O and 20 years for a captain upgrade for what I hear, and in top of everything, you spend all that time flying as an S/O, you get sick of it and then you can't even get a job flying in any other company abroad because the vast majority of places will not take S/O time at all, many places won't even take cruise captain time. Do a LOT of research on this so called "opportunity" before you jump in.
Like I said currently 4 years to upgrade to JFO and the current captain upgrade candidates are at the 11.5 year mark when they check out....no one knows what the future holds. There is a 5 year limit on the P2X (SO) rating per the HKCAD, so unlikely that upgrade to FO will ever stretch past the 5 year mark. Also, it seems that I will take 17 years to upgrade due to age 65 being brought in. All that did was delay the retirement of the top 250-350 guys for 10 years. When they start to retire and if CX stays with the current plan to have 200 jets by 2020 then the people joining today will enjoy faster progression than I have. CX could also decide they want to hire captains again like they did in 2008 or FOs ahead of suitably qualified SOs also in 2008 that would slow things down.
I still do not recommend it as a career. I have refused to write letters of recommendation for several friends as I believe that I would be doing them a disservice. They were all experienced guys with plenty of experience. Come to CX with 250 hours, fly all over the world with 18 days off per month for ~3-4 years. Upgrade to FO, fly your 1000 hours in the right seat of a wide body and then find something better before you are 30. While the total time as an SO might not count some places (it is still considered SIC time in the US...as there is no requirement for a type rating to be SIC, requirement for SIC to be typed is ICAO), but you can say that you have 3-4 years of international experience and you can answer questions at an interview about international ops and trans oceanic ops.
Zon,
Approx 600 sq. ft. place in Discovery Bay (south side of Lantau island next to Disney), where a lot of pilots (CX, Fedex, corporate, HK Airlines...) live, will set you back about 12-18K a month plus utilities (water is cheap, electricity is not, cable TV is awful). Western food is roughly 25-45% more than it is back home (a package of italian sausage from the US is $4 back in the US, it is 6-7 USD here is HK). Of course, you could go with the meat and chicken and all other manner of things from China, but good luck with that.
No housing allowance for new joiners or freighter only crew. New joiners get a taxable amount added to their paycheck every month (so right away you lose 15% of it). As an SO, I believe that the monthly Hong Kong Pilot Allowance is 10,000HKD. Compare that to the current expat housing allowance that expat SOs enjoy of near 70,000HKD per month...and if they rent there is only a 10% increase to the taxable salary.
Training takes from between 4-6 months to finish, not including the time spent in Adelaide.
If you can stand the middle east, I would go there. Alot different than back home but a better career. Friends that joined (EK) a year after I did are already checking out as 777 skippers and another friend just offered the job is looking at a left seat within 4-5 years...again I am staring at another decade of a 15 knot crosswind limit (really good for the skills).
FO