Well, bringing guys up earlier and putting them in a hotel does increase the pairing length! That's what I wanted to know. As opposed to taking the train/boat/bus/rickshaw right to CAN and operating...as some of the practice pairings had originally shown with ground transport from HKG.

As far as the tax issue goes...money is going to have to be spent somewhere...either the pairings are more expensive because we have to deadhead and crew rest, or the taxes are more expensive because the crew lives in CAN. The people doing the complaining are probably those whose budget is being most affected. In the end, I'll bet it's a 70-30 split at the most HKG vs CAN pilots. So how does a bean counter figure out which is the worse course? Not that there is any control over it at this point.