Cathay Pacific offers early retirement to older pilots

Cathay Pacific has projected that they have lost around 10 billion Hong Kong Dollars in the first 6 months of this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

So far Cathay has not laid off any pilots, and they have historically never done so before either, but as pilot costs is a big expense for them, they are now offering some of their senior pilots aged 50 and above early retirement.

Captains and first officers with a retirement age of 55 (who signed contracts in 1999), will be eligible for the deal if they are now over 50, whereas those with a retirement age of 65 (Contracts signed in 2008 or 2018) will be eligible for the deal if they are over 55. The deal that is offered is 3 months salary for each year until their nominal retirement age, plus a one month bonus, capped at 12 months salary total.

This news comes soon after it was let know that Cathay will send about 60 of their aircraft to long term storage, meaning they are planning on reduced traffic numbers for a long time. The first batch of planes sent to remote storage are all Boeing 777s, which are planned to Alice Springs in Australia as the dry climate there is less harsh to the equipment.