Basic Pay ( Per Year )
Second Officers : HKD 538,000
First Officers : HKD 825,000
Captains : HKD 1.8 million
Housing ( Per month ) : HKD 14,000 for Second Officers and HKD 30,000 for Captains
Education allowances of HK$60,000 per year for up to
three children.
New Hire Cadet Pilot
Cathay will
no longer fully cover the HK$1 million cost of pilot training. From
December, cadets will have to repay half the amount and this will be
done over their first three years of employment.
Article below taken from SCMP
According to an internal memo obtained by the Post,
up to 30 per cent of a pilot’s salary will be variable and tied to the
number of hours flown, starting from December 1. The current variable
portion is only 10 per cent.
The change creates “a close link between hours
flown and take-home pay”, said the memo from the director in charge of
flight operations, Chris Kempis.
At present, the airline pays pilots regardless
of hours clocked and some have been known to fly 50 to 150 hours less
than the company’s maximum 900 hours per year.
New second officers will continue to get
HK$538,000 and first officers HK$825,000 in annual basic pay, more than
what rival Singapore Airlines pays.
But the annual basic pay for captains will be
“aligned with market levels” to HK$1.8 million, comparable with what the
Singapore carrier pays.
Annual basic pay excludes allowances, bonuses
and pension contributions. The revamp will apply to new pilots at Cathay
Pacific and regional carrier Cathay Dragon.
Kempis said the changes would help support the long-term viability of the Cathay Group.
“A productivity-driven remuneration package is
widely used by other airlines, the advantage being it enables
productivity targets to be met more easily,” he said.
The airline was confident the new package would
attract the talent it needs. Despite industry experts warning it could
face recruitment problems, Kempis said the revamped package would see
Cathay “remain attractive”.
Cathay Pacific has 3,300 pilots based in Hong
Kong, of whom about 2,300 are unionised. Management and the pilot’s
union have been locked in a dispute over pay, allowances and rosters for
the past four years.
A major sticking point is the higher cost of living in Hong Kong, which is the world’s most expensive property market.
Anxious to return to profitability after two
consecutive years in the red, the airline is looking to cut HK$4 billion
from its costs by 2019, with HK$1 billion – or 10 per cent of costs –
coming from what it pays its pilots. Despite trimming losses
significantly, the airline still lost HK$263 million in the first six
months of 2018.
There are currently wide differences in the allowances its pilots receive, depending on when they joined.
Take housing allowances, for example. Pilots on
the oldest, most generous housing contract now cost the airline HK$900
million annually. Most receive between HK$32,000 and HK$70,000 a month,
but a minority continue to get HK$100,000 every month. Those who joined
after 2008 receive a lump sum of HK$10,000 a month on average.
