It's an awesome city to visit. Used to fly into it all the time before our merger. There are poor people everywhere, but the city is a great place. I met many expats there and they all seemed to live in an enclave together.

 

For you and mmtang, both: type "pprune" into your browser, register - it's free and you don't get any garbage, go to fragrant harbor forums and read all the posts related to Hong Kong/Cathay. There are many issues related to accepting a job at Cathay and living in Hong Kong; that can't be covered on this thread, in short order. Read the threads on the other Hong Kong carriers (Dragon Air, Air Hong Kong, etc; as these companies are inter-related in some ways).

For turtle91 - unless your wife gets a well paid management/executive job with a HK based bank, you will not be able to afford this job with three kids!

For mmtang - HK is one of the most modern cities in the world and a former Brittish colony. The only issue "might" be with the Britt/Aussie pilots. They already look down on Americans; as we are not as technically trained as they tend to be, we aren't "standardized" as they are, and pretty much, we're lazy compared to them, when it comes to studying for re-current/new hire training (many Americans expect to be spoon-fed their training). Otherwise, it is no different than being in New York, for a woman.

Biggie

 

Thanks for the heads-up guys. After much discussion we decided to pass on CX. If Fedex wants me to go to HKG then we will rethink our decision!

Cheers to all!

 

I did 2 interviews the cx, didnt get the job though!

 

cost of living is too high in HK

 

First off, thanks to all of you for making this a professional forum. I just finished reading the 160 pages of mostly garbage on pprune which was mostly 2 guys arguing back and forth. In the few pages here, there's rum 151 of information compared to pprune's watered-down coke. I got the invite to the SO initial interview for Aug 18, but just turned it down. I did 10 yrs USAF, 2800TT 1600 Turbine PIC, Family w/ 3 kids, now an FO in a regional.

Here's why the only people that should accept the current SO package are under 25, single, with little to no flight experience: You get no flight time credit recogized by other airlines, no T.O./Landings, 6 year bond, 4-6 year upgrade forcast just to FO, and a compensation package that can't cover your cost of living in HK.

If CX wants talent w/ experience, 1. change the SO T&C to what it was 3 years ago, or 2. recruit DEFOs.

I just got off the phone with a buddy that went to a recent CX pilot meeting and he said they spent a long time discussing the SO dilemma. The pilots feel the SO package should be improved to attract better talent; management feels that since they're going to fly with 2 SOs and 1 FO (instead of 2 FOs) that they don't need to compensate the SOs. The pilots suggested to the CP that they should allow non-HK based SOs to attract more talent, but the CP pointed out they'd still have to go to HK when they got upgraded to FO.

Looks like we need to hold out and wait for the SO needs of the company to get dire, and maybe then they'll improve their offer!

 

Right now the companies that have good compensation packages are having trouble recruiting, little alone the companies that have a laughable pay structure

 

Hope that trend continues!