Cathay Pacific

[Minima-No-Contact]

Hi all,
Just wondering if anyone here has been through the Cathay interviews? I completed stage one and have been offered stage two in Hong Kong in a few weeks.
Obviously with Cathay, Ive been doing a rediculous amount of prep... but any first hand accounts would be appreciated. Had a quick look on PPRUNE but theyre a miserable lot with nothing good to say about anything!

For those wondering, stage one was completed in SYD a couple of months back now, consisted of a 30 min paper - nothing overly difficult (IF you've done some study) and then an interview. The interview was fairly tough, but relaxed environment. The HR guy quizzed me on Hong Kong, my life, career, motivation etc... and then the Tech guy (747-400 Skipper) quizzed me on tech stuff. (Tough stuff only if you havent prepped).
Hours when called up for round one, were approx 4500 total, almost 2000 jet.

Round 2 should be interesting, up in HK for the interview, sim ride, aptitude testing, medical... etc etc...

Cheers,
MNC

[BobDDuck]

Congrats on getting through round one. I know nothing that would help. I assume you have been over at pprun a bunch already?

[777forever]

I looked at posts on pprune for several days to get an idea of overseas opportunity. They do seem like an unhappy lot not only at CP but everywhere else too, Emirates, Qatar, Korean, Dragonair etc. Typhoon Pilot opinion makes it sound pretty decent. I have heard Cathy is one of the toughest technical interviews. You really must know your stuff if you passed through round one. How long did you study for?

[kellwolf]

I talked it over with Nessa and sent in my app a couple of weeks ago. It's one of those "Hey, it'd be cool if it happened" things. She's all for moving to Hong Kong if it comes down to it, though. Although, I don't have a CLUE how to push buttons to get an interview over there.

[Tim]

Well you know Hong Kong and Memphis are about the same....haha

[Bandit_Driver]

Congrats and good luck on round 2

[cmsuav8r]

Well I don't really have anything that would help you, but congratulations on passing the first stage and good luck with the second stage! I did have a former professor that flew the as an FO on the 74 and he seemed to like it, except he resigned after a couple of years to spend more time with his kids.

[Minima-No-Contact]

*update*

Just got word a couple of hrs ago, I was successful after final interview!! I couldnt be happier, I have a start date for later this year!

6 months of study paid off, and am looking forward to the move to Hongkers.
Cheers,
MNC

[n57flyguy]

Originally Posted by Minima-No-Contact

*update*

Just got word a couple of hrs ago, I was successful after final interview!! I couldnt be happier, I have a start date for later this year!

6 months of study paid off, and am looking forward to the move to Hongkers.
Cheers,
MNC

Sweet!!! I have heard that Cathay's interviews are one of the most extensive, difficult in the world. Congrats!

[Bigey]

Originally Posted by Minima-No-Contact

*update*

Just got word a couple of hrs ago, I was successful after final interview!! I couldnt be happier, I have a start date for later this year!

6 months of study paid off, and am looking forward to the move to Hongkers.
Cheers,
MNC

Freekin CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:ra wk:


Cathay sounds like a BAD ASS GIG!

Keep us all posted on it!

[Doug Taylor]

Originally Posted by Minima-No-Contact

*update*

Just got word a couple of hrs ago, I was successful after final interview!! I couldnt be happier, I have a start date for later this year!

6 months of study paid off, and am looking forward to the move to Hongkers.
Cheers,
MNC

Congrats!

[mattp1803]

Congrats!! That is a huge accomplishment.

[bike21]

Originally Posted by Minima-No-Contact

*update*

Just got word a couple of hrs ago, I was successful after final interview!! I couldnt be happier, I have a start date for later this year!

6 months of study paid off, and am looking forward to the move to Hongkers.
Cheers,
MNC

Wow congrats! I might need to chat with you further soon about your experience and thoughts about CP. Among the many thoughts and career moves in my head, they are near the top.

6 months of paid study time off? That rocks! I think I would virtually live in a coffee house for most of that time!

[Brand X]

Congrats. Cathay has been quite effective as a UPS training ground. We've hired lots of their guys recently with many more in our hiring pool.

[GaTechKid]

Congrats!

[bike21]

Also...did you apply for the second officer of first officer program? I am little confused as to how exactly this works. Thanks!

[chris]

Congratulations, I hope to join you in 1-2 years! I have 2 friends there and they enjoy it.

Other than the stuff discussed in the study notes and from pprune, were there any "out of the ordinary" questions? Also, for the questions regarding # of a/c, did you use the website info or wikipedia (numbers conflict)?

[chris]

Originally Posted by bike21

Also...did you apply for the second officer of first officer program? I am little confused as to how exactly this works. Thanks!

The requirements for SO are 1000hrs with the ATP written exams complete. Most people get hired with much more, the lowest I have heard is 2500hrs.

For direct entry FO, the requirements are higher. They want jet time or heavy t-prop (i.e. >20,000kg) PIC or millitary time. The exact requirements are on their website.

As an SO, you usually go on the 747, 340 or 777. All basings are in Hong Kong and you fly the passenger routes. You usually work as an SO for 3-4 years, then upgrade to junior FO. I have a freind who just upgraded to JFO on the 777 who spent 3.5 years or so on the 747.

As an FO, you go to the 747 cargo a/c based in your resident country (or wherever you have a right to live). They have cargo bases in Canada, USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, etc. If you want to switch to the pax operations, you will need to relocate to HKG.

[bike21]

Thanks much Chris! I should have read the website a little more close I guess Do you know if you can get based out of HKG eventually on the pax side? Or it is cargo only being based outside of HKG? APC says there are pax bases at SFO and LAX though.

Looks like I will have the time to apply for an FO position when the time comes. Who knows though...too many paths to choose from

[chris]

It's my understanding that pax bases are in HKG. If you are are hired as an SO, you are guaranteed to be in HKG. The cargo bases are all over the place, like EU, north america, australia, etc.

If I'm wrong, Minima-no-contact please correct me!

Make sure you do a lot of research! Read up on pprune, wikipedia, etc. Lots of good info on the internet. I'd recommend applying as soon as you can, and keep updating your profile every 6 months. I have spoken to people who got asked during the interview "why did you wait to apply, why didnt you apply when you had 1000hrs?" or, "why didn't you update your profile regularly?"

[PGT]

Congrats! You should be damn proud of yourself for passing an interview like that.


777FO after 3 years? Not bad at all.

[bike21]

So I was reading on wiki and saw the management sacked 49 pilots in 2001. Apparently they were all random guys and it was a union busting attempt. I hope it is a different company now.

[scramjet]

Originally Posted by Minima-No-Contact

*update*

Just got word a couple of hrs ago, I was successful after final interview!! I couldnt be happier, I have a start date for later this year!

6 months of study paid off, and am looking forward to the move to Hongkers.
Cheers,
MNC

Excellent! Congrats! Cathay is on my list of desirable overseas airlines.

[Minima-No-Contact]

Thanks for the comments guys!

All of what has been said above is correct. The advertised minimums to get an interview are purely that - 'minimums'... I have been applying for 8-9yrs and got a go when I had over 4000hrs and a bunch of jet time.

Even though I qualified to have a shot at Direct Entry F/O, I decided to pass because that is a freighter gig and I want to live in Hong Kong and fly the pax fleet. So S/O was it for me, I got the A340. They are however, doing alot of recruitment for the 777, as they have 18 777 ERs on order. Exciting times!

Upgrade times to FO seem to be around the 2.5yr mark. Guys in the past have had to wait up to 4.5yrs but now is the time to strike at CX (IMHO) if you want to enjoy a couple of yrs in the jump, then move straight onto a A330 or B777 in the window seat.

If anyone has any questions feel free to post or PM me. If anyone is specifically interested in the process I went through, I will post my experiences in detail - just let me know.
Cheers,
MNC

[Minima-No-Contact]

I had a couple of requests to post more info on my Cathay interview experiences, so here goes.
As far as timeframe goes, I was given 5 weeks notice for round one interview which I had in April. A week later I was notified I was good to go for round two which was going to be in July. A week after round two, I called and was notified I was successful and have a class date for Dec this year.
So all in all, there is plenty of time to study and gather notes and once you get the good news, you have a bunch of time to plan your move and say good-bye to your girlfriends!

Interview process – Round one.
Flew to Sydney at my own expense. You sit a 30 min – 30 Question technical quiz, basic stuff that is mostly covered in the study material floating around. Then straight into the Interview, the two guys that quizzed me were thorough but did their best to make me relaxed. HR goes first (20mins) then Tech (25mins) there is no BS’ing these guys, they both know what theyre looking for and if you start telling stories, it will open up a can of worms and you’ll find yourself digging holes for yourself. Best thing to do, is be prepared and be honest.

Interview process – Round two.
Fly to Hong Kong at CX’s expense, and they put you up in their hotel at Cathay City for 3-4 nights and also pay you an allowance, which is more than enough to pay for your meals while you are there and have a few drinks. The Headland hotel was full while I was there, so they put me in the Novotel in Tung Chung – 5 mins away from Cathay City where you spend your two days of interviewing.

Day one – Welcome brief firstly, where you will hand over all of your photocopying of Licences, medical, logbooks etc etc… and you find out about the way things run for the next two days.

Then I went to a sim brief (747-200), in the info pack you receive about a month prior to arriving, there is a few handling notes for the sim and a rough guide on what to do. GET PRACTICE SIM TIME!! When you go to the assessment, you have 30mins to prove yourself, and there is no time to learn the aircraft, when they ask you to do a maneuver you really want to be able to do it straight away without thinking. Invest in a couple hours of practice. Im told the Sim assessment is heavily weighted.

You will takeoff, clean-up, climb to 2500’ while accelerating to 280kts. Steep turns follow, 30 and 45 AOB then vectored to about a 15nm final where you configure for your first ILS. You don’t get visual, so you miss out and come around for another go where you get visual at about 400’ then land. The assessor will not prompt you nor help you too much, single pilot 747 is the way I looked at it, and talked myself through (out lout) any correction I was making. If you aren’t stable, GO AROUND.

After the Sim, it was straight to the interview. After trying to dry out from all the sweat and trying not to look out the window at the awesome views of the airport – you get drilled by HR and Tech for about an hour. Same format as round one, but I found it much more intense. You get absolutely no feedback on answers, so again… don’t BS them. If you don’t know something – say so.

Day one ended with a briefing from the Flight Crew Resource Manager. By this time you are exhausted, so staying awake is hard! But this guy had some very good info on the company and HK itself, if you have a partner you take them and they have the chance to have any queries answered too. Brief your partner on the importance of doing their research and not asking stupid questions. There was a girlfriend of one of the guys there that showed up with thongs and a summer dress. While the other wives/partners looked very smart and certainly looked the part.

Day Two – Kicked off with a group exercise. Not much you can do to prepare for this one. Use your common sense and obviously don’t be the one that sits in the corner, nor the one that is overbearing and doesn’t listen to anyones suggestions. Two HR managers observe, but you forget theyre there. A 45 min exercise that flies by.

Moving onto the Medical, extremely thorough. ECG, Eyes, Blood, Urine… Cough… etc. If you have a history of any health probs, take supporting evidence because they will get you to chase it up anyway before they offer you a position.

Then onto the Math/Pyschometric eval. The maths is pretty straight forward, I brushed up on High School stuff for prep. 33 Questions in 30mins then Physc was 187 Questions in 30mins.

The two days ends with a Cocktail party on the top floor of the Headland hotel. Spectacular views! This 90 minutes is still very much part of the interview process so its an exercise in common sense – don’t take advantage of the free alcohol. My group had 1 beer each and plenty of water. The applicants with partners there seem to get most of the attention and it’s a chance to prove to the management types that they will fit into HK and its also a chance for them to talk about what they’ve been doing while you have been hard at work in the sim! Ie-looking at housing, using the public transport, talking to other expats about schooling, shopping etc.

A week later, YOU ring THEM for the news. At the moment, if its good news – you will be looking at roughly 4-6 months to a start date. I got A340, others got 744 and quite a few are getting 777. They have 18 777ER’s arriving so they have a lot of slots opening up. And upgrade times to FO are now just over 2yrs.

Out of my group, the majority were Australian. I met a Canadian and one guy from Europe. Most guys were flying turboprops and had around 4000-5000hrs. Only me and another guy had jet time.
I had the chance to meet an American Captain while waiting for my medical, who had taken a base in LA and during his 12 yrs with the company, only lived in HK for about 4yrs.

For getting ready, read and do the following:
How to Prepare for your Cathay Interview – Capts XYZ
Revise ATP notes – specifically high speed flight, meteorology
Handling the Big jets. (A must!)
Climatology for Airline Pilots
2hrs sim practice
Dress to impress the whole time you are at Cathay city
Drink heaps of water, its an exhausting and dehydrating process
I studied my ass off from the day I got offered round 1, the process is much more enjoyable and less stressful if you are prepared.

Cathay put you on full salary from day one. You spend four weeks in Adelaide (Aust) for your licence conversion and HK Instrument rating. Then head up to HK for your ground school, where you live in the Headland Hotel (at Cathay City) until you find your own accom.
Cathay will pay your rent/mortgage for you and pay almost doubles after 3yrs.

I hope this info helps, if I’ve left anything important out I’ll try to ad to it later.
Cheers,
MNC