glad I could be of assistance~ all part of the service!

 

Jagpilot,
If you wouldn't mind elaborating a little on what the issues are on hiring into FDA's and what the Chief Pilot (?) said in training about the possibility of new-hires.
I imagine the real questions/answers will come once the bid closes in a few weeks.
Just trying to stay prepared...
Thanks.

 

I get that management said that you will have to qualify as an s/o first to come back up front. But it seems to me that since they are trying to cut costs so bad, that this may fall by the wayside. I will believe it when it is "painted purple and sittin' on the ramp......."

Secret ALPA dinners.... should we stake out Owen Brennan's or are they going somewhere else now?

 

The guys out there will be falling under his jurisdiction. His take on it is if you get hired to the FDA, which will be a decision made by the bean counters, you will need to live in domicile. Once you have been around the company and know the "system" and have a little judgement on liveing out of domicile you can stray more from that policy. But while on probation it probably won't be a good idea to set yourself up for a fall by trying to commute to asia.

 

Not to mention the fact that if you don't live w/in 100 miles you get none of the seed money or the $2700/month.

HKG on $50/hr, that sounds like fun!!!

TSD

 

Thanks jagplt,

Well, I can't imagine how anyone would think of commuting to Asia. That would pretty much take all the enjoyment out of the job, not to mention most of one's time off. I think I would rather get another flying job, if I was that unwilling to move. But I guess there might be those who try to do it...

CDG might be within commuting reason, but from everything I've heard, the lines won't allow it (unless you're willing to jumpseat back to spend 24 hours at home, then turn around and do it all over again ).

Did CQ mention that they WILL be hiring if the FDA's are unfilled? It seems like that was what you guys were hearing in RGS a couple of months ago, but it seems to have changed lately to we will not hire for quite a while... period.

I know it's all speculation for now, but appreciate the food for thought

Thanks for the reply.

 

CS,

It would seem that if they do put newhires into the FDA that they wouldn't have to do it until the end of the training letter (potentially awhile away) so you may have some time. Hopefully by that point this will have settled out a bit and you won't have to go unless you want to. Pure speculation, but I could see a clean up bit that would try to entice a few more near-dead retreads to take the offer to get a window seat. There were a bunch that couldn't hold it on this latest go around.

Who knows, but the best of luck to you,

TSD

 

Maybe, but I don't think the training letter for F/O HKG will be that long, and that is the only people they would have to put in front of a new hire. IMHO.

 

TSD and FDXLAG,
Thanks for the updates.
We'll see what the bid's reality is on Monday the 18th. It'll be interesting to see how close it resembles the practice rounds.

 

jagplt, that may be his take on it, but this ain't the military. If someone chooses to commute, and are willing to give up the $2700, then they have every right to do so. I agree with you that it probably wouldn't be the best idea, but guys could do it.

For those poolies that are considering whether or not to accept getting hired into an FDA, I would even say that it will be easier to commute from the West Coast to HKG than it is to Subic. And there are several guys based there who commute from the U.S.

If the sample HKG bidpack is accurate, there will plenty of week-on, week-off lines, along with large blocks of R-day lines. Not so different from the current Subic bidpack, except for crappy quality of the trips, and the lack of short trips.

As to how to get to HKG from the US, it's not really that hard from the Bay area. Skyguide shows that there are 4 direct flights a day on Cathay (0005 or 1205 takeoff), United (1157 takeoff), or Singapore (0005 takeoff). and, we have a flight that goes to NRT (0245 show time) that could be your backup for the Cathay or SIN 0005 flights, and can connect to HKG pretty easily.

So, it's doable, but as you said, you'd be hanging it out there as a probie if you didn't make a check in.