But the revision lowers it to flying 3,000 hours and completing 500 flights as a first officer on Cathay aircraft.

Pilots must also complete the training for captain and meet other requirements to be promoted.

“Our existing criteria of 4,000 hours of flying experience has not changed; however, we have an additional option, a minimum of 3,000 hours total time and 500 sectors, simply because short-haul pilots gain the required experience differently as they operate many more flight sectors per year,” Captain Tim Burns, Cathay Pacific’s general manager for flying, said on Sunday.

“This alternative path enables experienced first officers who typically operate to short-haul destinations to be considered for command training within a reasonable time.”

A “sector” refers to a single flight.

Burns said a short-haul pilot could accrue about 75 take-offs and landings with 225 flying hours.

But he added one operating long-haul routes required nearly 900 flying hours to achieve the same number of take-offs and landings.

Short-haul pilots could take more than two years longer to meet the old criteria while those who operated widebody aircraft on longer routes were more likely to reach 4,000 hours before 500 flights, Burns said.

“We believe this course is one of the most demanding in the industry, and all pilots selected for the command upgrade programme are rigorously trained and tested before they become qualified as a captain”

Cathay said about 100 more pilots would be eligible for training from this year to 2025.

First officers can take between three and five months to complete the command course after they have completed six to eight months of pre-command training.

The Civil Aviation Department approved the move in November and it was introduced in Cathay’s operations manual on January 10.

But the head of the Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association, which represents Cathay pilots, said the airline’s move “was obviously a reduction in experience levels”.

Paul Weatherilt, the association chairman, said that with many experienced pilots having left Cathay, it had decided there was a need to lower the flying hours requirement for captain training.

Weatherilt said he was not concerned about standards, but less-experienced pilots could require more instruction and longer courses, which would add to Cathay’s training tasks.

“The quickest way to rebuild is to hire back already trained Cathay pilots, but to attract back these pilots and retain existing [ones], management must make the airline a more attractive destination,” he added.

Weatherilt added that would require improvements to present contracts.

Cathay has 2,532 pilots, about 35 per cent fewer than before the pandemic, the union said. The airline dismissed 5,900 employees around the world and cut the wages of remaining cabin and cockpit crew in 2020, which led many to quit.

But the number of captains and first officers flying on passenger routes was just 52 per cent of 2019 levels, the union added.

A former pilot at axed carrier Cathay Dragon, which typically flew to mainland China and regional destinations, said the normal path to captain was 5,000 flying hours.

He added, with their average flying time being around two hours, this would mean around 2,500 flights.

Andrew Yuen Chi-lok of Chinese University’s Aviation Policy and Research Centre said advanced technology provided more support to pilots so Cathay would review its promotional requirements.

“To maintain the quality of different ranks of pilots, Cathay Pacific should have a better design in their pilot development programme, which does not just focus on flying hours,” he said.

But Yuen added that, because of the shortage of pilots globally, Cathay needed to have a more competitive package to attract them, “especially the senior ones”.

Law Cheung-kwok, senior adviser at the research centre, said Cathay’s capacity constraints could mean other airlines looking to seize the opportunity to expand their services faster in Hong Kong, including newcomer Greater Bay Airlines, “particularly for the regional routes”.

A direct entry captain – one joining from another airline – at British Airways requires at least 4,000 hours of total flight time, including 1,500 hours in command of a commercial jet.

Direct entry A380 captains with Dubai-based Emirates require a minimum of 3,000 hours recent command of a widebody Airbus, and a minimum total of 7,000 hours flying time.