Originally Posted by
EXPAT1
Obviously you don't know much about Chinese Airlines and work rules. All Chinese pilots fly 900+ hours per year. Schedulers are rewarded for getting maximum productivity from their pilots ie if a pilot flies 998 hours per year then the scheduling department will receive a bonus as they were efficiently scheduling. You can always tell how long a pilot has been flying here
by asking his total time. If he has 10,000 hours he has been flying about 10 years, if he has 15,000 hours he has been flying 15 years and so on. This is not a profession for them it is a lifetime contract in which they are indebted and obligated to fly for their entire working lifetime as an employee for their employer's training and opportunity offered. You cannot quit a Chinese airline and change jobs as a Chinese employee, you are obligated both societally, legally and contractually to continue for your entire working lifetime with your employer. It is Hotel California batman, you check out but you can never LEAVE.
I actually know quite a bit about China ops. How long is the training that qualifies one to become a commercial pilot in China? I would think that it would take at least 1 year just to have a commercial license that still "dripping wet". I average about 700 hours a year where I work and I fly into and out of the PRC at least 3 times a month. I'm just saying that the "experience level" is not there. This Captain could, at most, only had 4 winter seasons total. This doesn't give a lot of background to call from when faced with all of the challenges that go along with operating in the mainland. I would not want to put my family on his airplane.
I'm not begrudging this guy anything. The fact that it took me 8 years and about 7500 hours to make it to a major and then another 10 until I checked out as captain is irrelevant. You can use your equation to roughly determine the number of hours that an active commercial pilot has in the US too, but it's once they're established with their employer, not from their first "intro" flight.
fbh