You will make 80K easily your first year at Cathay. You can also take an ANC base (they would give it to you in an instant). Pay doesn't improve too much on the freight side, but it does when your 3 years is up and you can move to the PAX operation (LAX or SFO base). There is the option of a quick upgrade on the Freighter, but you will probably be DQ'ed for being American (seriously). The problems with CX (Cathay), is the amount of hoops that must be jumped through for the interview, getting a class, class, LFUS (or IOE in the states), pre-command, command, failure, back to the right seat, wash, rinse, repeat! It is a tough interview, and it takes quite a bit of time from the interview to a class date (almost a year). Feel free to PM me if you have more questions. Lots of Cathay guys are going to UPS... food for thought!