Agreed, China can be a crapshoot. Been doing the China thing a year and a half, pay has been as promised so far, but have seen many guys get dinged a significant amount as punishment for silly little things. I was threatened with losing close to half a month of pay if I did not fly illegally. The company cut short my required 36 hour break (due to delays) then said they would change the times to make it look legal. But if I refused to fly it they would change the times to make it look like I did fly illegally and would be punished and be grounded until the CAAC investigated. The money is good, and I went with a 4 week on/4 week off option so my stress gets a nice break. But even with only working in China 50% of the time, I don't know how much longer I can do it. Between the illegal schedules, the sneaky and underhanded way they do things (which is explained as 'that is just how we do things in China'), and the constant delays, it gets to be too much at times.


I live in Europe and my wife works in crew planning for a small airline that is desperate for pilots, so I might end up moving there in the not too distant future. The pay is not nearly as good, and not nearly the same amount of time off, but the stress is far less and they do take good care of their crews.