Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific slashes flying hours required to train as captain by 25% amid flight disruptions and manpower crunch
- Number of hours cut from 4,000 to 3,000 for pilots to be eligible to apply for captain training
- Measure draws flak from the Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association, which said the measure isn’t a solution
But the measure has drawn concern from the Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association, which said that the measure was not a “solution”.
The 25 per cent cut in hour eligibility for pilots who hoped to receive training to become a captain was approved by the Civil Aviation Department in November and introduced in the operations manual of the carrier on Wednesday. The 3,000 hours would include those served by a pilot acting as a first officer on at least 500 Cathay take-offs and landings.
“If we do not make this adjustment, many first officers who fly short-haul flights wouldn’t be eligible to have the upgrade training to be a captain,” a Cathay spokesman told the Post. “In the year of 2024 to 2025, about 100 more pilots will be eligible for the training.”
The spokesman stressed that the curriculum, standards and how a candidate passed the examinations remained unchanged and had to meet standards set by the department. He expressed confidence that enough second officers would be trained in time to replace the number of first officers promoted to captain.
“Lowering the requirements for command [training] eligibility is not a short-term solution to the current shortage of captains,” said association chairman Paul Weatherilt.
Command training refers to a course lasting just over a year pilots take to become qualified captains.
“There isn’t sufficient training capacity,” he added. “They currently have first officers who meet the previous experience requirements who [Cathay Pacific] can’t promote because [the airline] doesn’t have the training capacity and they need experienced first officers as well as captains.”
According to the union, the airline has just 48 per cent of the captains and first officers it did before the pandemic struck, a shortfall that contributed to the recent flight cancellations.
How are customers of Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific coping with flight disruptions?
Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu ordered the airline to resolve its flight capacity problems swiftly, expressing grave concerns over the cancellations, made to ensure enough manpower was available for the Lunar New Year holiday next month.
Weatherilt said the only way to speed up the recovery was to get all experienced pilots who left the airline to return, as they had Hong Kong licences and the Cathay training, experience and procedural knowledge about the aircraft types and routes.
“They can start flying almost immediately once rehired,” he said. “Cathay seems reluctant to do this because they would have to pay pilots more and provide mutually enforceable contract terms to attract them back. It would be an admission of failure by this management of the cost-cutting measures they took during the pandemic.”
How are customers of Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific coping with flight disruptions?
George Tullis, the association’s government and industry affairs adviser, said the reduction in the number of eligibility hours was an acknowledgement that what Cathay was offering to pay has failed to attract experienced pilots.
Tullis said that the pilots’ contracts were also no longer mutually enforceable, meaning that the airline could change what was initially offered to staff over the course of their employment.
“They can just change it once you’ve arrived,” he said. “That’s a deterrent to experienced pilots.”
According to an internal Cathay Pacific memo seen by the Post, an entry-level second officer will be offered HK$34,158 (US$4,382) a month in basic salary starting in January, while top-level captains will get up to HK$114,924.
