Director of Flight Ops Message
742:
This was forwarded to me by a friend who has been at CX for a year and a half. Emphasis below was added by me:
DFO Update 21OCT08
My apologies for issuing a mid-week Update but there appears to be some confusion and concern regarding the recently announced recruitment freeze by the company.
I would like to confirm that the recruitment freeze does apply to all ground staff in all departments in the airline, including Flight Operations, but it does not necessarily apply to flight crew i.e. pilots and cabin crew.
The number of flight crew required by the airline is driven entirely by the Budget Operating Plan (BOP) and the first version of the BOP, issued in August, resulted in a recruitment target of 100+ pilots in 2009 and 250+ pilots in 2010.
Of course, a great deal has changed since August and the BOP is being continually revised.
The first revision (currently being worked) is to account for the Boeing strike and it assumes that all of our Boeing aircraft, due for delivery in the next two years, will be behind schedule by approximately 3 months. This will certainly have some impact on crew numbers but the details have yet to be finalised.
The second revision will be based on the updated sales forecasts of the various CX passenger and cargo sales teams around the world in light of the changing economic circumstances. This revision may result in a reduction in operating capacity on some of our major routes or a redeployment of capacity between routes.
Any change in the BOP and the number of crew block hours is quickly evaluated by the Crew Planning Team and subsequent revisions are made to the recruitment targets and the training plan. Only in extreme circumstances, if the operating capacity is cut back significantly, will the flight crew recruitment machine grind to a complete halt.
I will keep you posted in my weekly Updates about any changes to the BOP as they occur and their implications for Flight Operations. In the meantime there is no change in the policy of offering extensions to flight crew beyond the age of 55 and we will be offering a job to the ten cadet pilots who graduate in Adelaide tomorrow!