Nearly all Cathay Pacific pilots, cabin crew sign new salary-slashing contracts

Nearly all Cathay Pacific pilots, cabin crew sign new salary-slashing contracts

Nearly all pilots with Cathay Pacific have signed new contracts to reduce their pay and benefits.  (South China Morning Post photo)
Nearly all pilots with Cathay Pacific have signed new contracts to reduce their pay and benefits. (South China Morning Post photo)

Nearly all of Cathay Pacific's pilots and more than 90% of its cabin crew have signed new, cheaper employment contracts, the airline revealed on Thursday.

In all, 2,613 of its pilots and 7,346 cabin crew accepted the take-it-or-leave-it deals, representing 98.5% and 91.6% of the two groups, respectively.

In its announcement, Hong Kong's flagship carrier also said staff members who refused to sign the new contracts would be leaving the company but receive exit packages that went beyond statutory requirements.

The airline added severance payouts would not be offset against pension contributions.

"We have jobs for every pilot who was offered COS18 [contract] and we wanted a 100 per cent take up," Cathay's director of flight operations Chris Kempis said in a Thursday internal memo tipping how many had signed new contracts.

"However, we also realised that it was possible that some would choose to leave us rather than accept."

In making the official announcement shortly thereafter, director of service delivery Alex McGowan said: "I am very grateful that over 90 per cent of cabin crew who were offered a role have chosen to remain part of our team."

Hong Kong's flag carrier, which has more than 2,000 city-based pilots, previously said it would rehire redundant pilots to backfill positions. The latest memo from Kempis did not indicate if the airline would proceed with that commitment.

Two weeks ago, Cathay asked staff to sign new contracts that cut pay for flight attendants by 20% to 40%, and 40% to 60% for aircrew, according to their respective unions.

More than 90% of Cathay's 8,000 remaining cabin crew have signed their new contracts.

The deadline for accepting the new contracts expired at the end of Wednesday with anyone refusing to sign having their jobs terminated.

The new deals came as part of the airline's restructuring package, in which it also laid off 5,900 people - most of them in Hong Kong - and shut down its regional Cathay Dragon brand, in a desperate attempt to ease the devastating financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

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