Hong Kong’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific is seeking to hire 2,000 new flight attendants, as the city strives to regain its status as an international aviation hub after easing entry requirements following after two and a half years of strict Covid-19 restrictions.
But a union representing the airline’s flight attendants said frontline employees occupied a “passive” position with little opportunity to raise monthly earnings on top of their base salary, which could be as low as HK$9,100.
Cathay Pacific on Friday held its first open recruitment day since Hong Kong was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. The recruitment campaign that began last month aimed to find more than 4,000 new frontline employees, including some 2,000 cabin crew.
The company slashed its workforce by close to a quarter in October 2020 and shut down its subsidiary Cathay Dragon, which mainly flew short-haul flights within Asia. The large-scale redundancy move led to a total of 8,500 job losses, with 5,300 of them among Hong Kong-based staff.
The latest recruitment drive would help the airline meet its operational needs in the coming two years, Cathay said on Friday, after the city axed its controversial compulsory hotel quarantine arrangement for inbound travellers last week, more than two years since the policy was first implemented.
“Currently we have more than 6,000 cabin crew, we have enough cabin crew members to fly the current operation… the recruitment is planning for the future recovery,” said Jeanette Mao, Cathay’s general manager of inflight service delivery.
She added the airline had received more than 1,000 applications so far and the company would meet around 200 candidates on Friday and Saturday. The hiring exercise would continue in the next 18 to 24 months.
The base salary of the new recruits stands at HK$9,100, but Mao estimated that flight attendants could earn HK$17,000 to $18,000 a month if they were given a full roster of flying 90 hours when flights were “back to normal,” plus other allowances and productivity pay.
While the pay was “different” compared to before, the remuneration package remained “competitive,” the general manager said, adding the airline would ensure it could attract the best talent to serve their customers.
‘Not guaranteed’
However, the expected wage outlined by Mao was “not guaranteed,” Grace Siu, vice-chairwoman of the Cathay Pacific Airways Flight Attendants’ Union told HKFP on Friday. The approximate wage was calculated based on a full roster, but the union representative said cabin crew were usually given around 80 hours instead, even during pre-pandemic times.
The final salary would also be subject to the number of long-haul flights assigned to the flight attendants, which could differ every month, according Siu who is a flight purser with nearly 20 years of experience at Cathay.
The airline used to allow cabin crew to amend their flying schedule themselves, potentially swapping flights or taking on more long-distance flights to earn more. But the practice was banned following the mass dismissal in October 2020, when the airline amended its employment contract for the remaining cabin crew, including cutting their base salary.
“Everything is not guaranteed… we are in a passive position in terms of how much we get paid each month,” the union vice-chair said, adding some existing employees also raised concerns that the the airline may only assign a full roster to the new recruits.
The union estimated that around 800 flight attendants had left the airline since September last year. Many junior staff members left due to the low base salary, Siu said, while some senior employees who were originally from overseas decided to return to their home countries after their housing subsidy was axed following the large-scale redundancy in late 2020.
In late May, Cathay invited employees they had sacked to rejoin the company as flights resumed gradually after the fifth wave of infections ebbed. But many former staff members did not take the airline up on its offer, Siu said, as it required them to “start at the bottom” regardless of their previous rank and experience.
So far, several hundred former Cathay attendants have returned to the company, the airline said on Friday, without disclosing the ratio of rehired crew to the total number of attendants that were laid off.
While the union had concerns over the monthly salary, Miss Wong, one of the candidates who interviewed for the job at Cordis, Hong Kong on Friday told HKFP that she still wanted to role despite the potentially “unstable” pay.
The 28-year-old applicant who worked in finance and customer service prior to applying to a flight attendant said she was interested in joining the aviation sector due to growing demands in the industry.
Asked if she was worried about the previous large-scale redundancy, and whether the company may axe its staff again if the pandemic takes a turn for the worse, the candidate said it was not a major concern.
“For a lot of things… you never know if they will happen. And frankly, other industries had similar situations where people were laid off. Knowing that I wanted to do this, I would not worry too much,” she said.
Pilot resignations
On Thursday, an association representing Cathay pilots warned that the flagship carrier was “unprepared” to fully resume operations owing to a “record number of resignations” among aircrew officers.
The Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association (HKAOA) blamed the airline for prompting around 1,500 cockpit crew, especially senior pilots, to resign after they saw a “ruthless permanent reduction in pay” and changes to their conditions of service imposed after the mass redundancy in 2020.
According to the group, the carrier currently employs around 2,500 pilots compared to 4,000 before October 2020. Resignations were mostly concentrated among senior pilots with decades of experience, whom the group said quit at “unprecedented rates.”
“With a record number of resignations from the Company’s most experienced pilots, CX stands unprepared to fully resume its operations, failing to meet demand in a resurgent travel market,” a statement from the union read.
Paul Weatherilt, the chairman of HKAOA, explained to HKFP on Friday that many pilots saw a 45 per cent pay cut as the airline slashed their fixed income. Some officers will also see housing subsidies reduced by half by the end of this year, together with reductions in pension, annual leave and education subsidies for their children.
“The biggest thing was that the company didn’t keep us all together in the same team… if you stick together, you could sustain yourself through quite hardships,” Weatherilt said.
The captain who has served the airline for nearly 30 years added Cathay may not be able to recruit experienced pilots, which could impact its operations, as training young and inexperienced pilots would be a slow process.
Responding to the pilot group’s concerns over a shortage in aircrew officers, Cathay’s Corporate Affairs General Manager Andy Wong said at the recruitment event that the airline was “confident” that it had sufficient manpower to operate the current level of flying.
The carrier announced earlier that it would be flying at one third of the passenger capacity and two thirds of cargo capacity of pre-pandemic days by the end of this year. Cathay’s training could help ensure it can fulfil the requirements, Wong said, adding the airline’s cadet programme, which has operated in Hong Kong since 1991, had a “long-standing reputation” of providing good and safe training.
“We welcome people of all levels of experience… we welcome people that are outside of the industry and all the youth and youngsters in Hong Kong to join us,” he said.
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