Great list

Avia Crews is run by a good friend of mine. It is mostly for finding ferry crews, which is his main business. He is now expanding with some contacts which is where the other job leads are coming from. The ferry positions pay a daily rate and are short term, from 1 day to 1 week or so.

I've worked for PARC. It was a contract that they took over from a now defunct agency in the States. They came in and underbid the original company after our first year was up. It resulted in a pay cut for us so we weren't too pleased, but they did add one benefit that we didn't have so it worked out okay. When the contract came into jeopardy due to the Asian Economic Crisis they were of no help. The contract was terminated short of completion and we were all left jobless. Fortunately that was the late 90s and it was easy to find another job. Since then I did some ferry work for them in late 2002, just a short one week deal to move a couple of MD-80s from Arizona to Florida. Their paychecks come on time to a place of your choosing which is about as good as you can hope for with agencies.

If you are a U.S. citizen then it is to your advantage to choose an overseas agency. They are not required to file a form 1099 and they will deposit your salary to any financial institution of your chosing worldwide. That makes it your job to report income to Uncle Sam. Having the 1099 presents some difficulties as we found out in the mid 90s when working in Taiwan. The IRS wanted us to pay self employment tax, which is clearly not required, but it took our accountant some time to get them to agree to. Better to not have the 1099 in the first place.

For those contemplating any particular agency there is usually some good info on Pprune regards the likes of IAC, Rishworth, etc. The postings don't seem too enamored by IAC and their South Pacific legal set-up. They've set the contract up through an affiliate in some tiny little island nation where you have no legal recourse.


Typhoonpilot