Chinese contracts and days off?
 

If anyone has any experience with these foreign contracts I'm curious as to what they mean in the emails we all get.

Typically the email gives a salary amount and a "days of leave" per year. The highest salary given with the lowest amount of "days of leave". Are "days of leave" like vacation to be used on top of your regular days off or are they inclusive of your normally scheduled days off? Anyone familiar with this would be helpful?

Your leave days are vacation days, as in when you get out of China. They are not regular days off like you would have with a 4 days on, 2 days off type of schedule.

Thanks NED. That makes the numbers make a little more sense. Have you worked on one of these contracts

Foreign contracts can work you pretty hard on your weeks on. Do not expect the kind of days off like in the U.S. or Europe. It is not uncommon to get around 5-8 days off a month when you are on your rotation. Your leave is separate. Some airlines only pay you when you are "on" rotation. It all depends on the contract. Take your time and read the fine print. Also remember, no union rep to support you if you have an issue. Go to work, fly, get paid and go home. Some folks love doing them, while others decide early on that it's not for them. The high dollar contracts generally are for those who spend the most time in the country flying.

5 days off a month? Say what? What kind of block time limits if any do they have over there

Friend of mine left Suddern and ended up in south China. Absolutely loves it. Brought his wife and kids over. Kids are enrolled in an international school with about a dozen other nationalities. Wife is really enjoying it as well.

The big kicker? Apparently round-eyes are limited to two legs a day over there, so he's home pretty much every single night.

Where I was in Asia it was 125 hrs in 30 consecutive days.
Being on rotation you could fly close to 125 hrs in a month.
I think 8 days off a month was pretty standard.

My experience was between 8-10 days off during my 28 day stretch. But my days were usually quite long, with 4 legs being most common. The CAAC requires a 36 hour break in any seven day period. 4 leg days combined with a 40 hour per week limit and the 36 hours off requirement resulted in 4-5 days on then 2-3 days off.

My contract paid monthly.

Most contracts say they pay hourly on top of the salary posted over 80hrs a month I guess it's safe to say that that is going to happen and by a lot every single month.

If you fly 80 hours per month that is 960 per year. I doubt you would get much overtime towards the 1000 hour limit possibly 20 hours overtime is about all you could obtain before scheduling would shot you off on the 1000 hour limit.

Do other countries have a 1000 hour limit as well?

UAE (Emirates and Etihad) has 900/year. Of course their way around it is to NOT count any bunk time on the long haul flights thereby having their crews fly well in excess lf 1000/yr.

Kap

You will be under the Chinese legal system

https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/former-f...234329198.html

That article is really enlightening. Thanks for posting it.

See if you can dig out the e-book “Flying Upside Down”... It’s a pretty accurate description of flying in China, (written by a former disgruntled expat pilot)

My current rotation is 3 weeks on/ 3 weeks off. It can br brutal. As was mentioned earlier, time limitation are 40 hours a week, 100 a month. 36 hours consecutive rest required per rolling seven day period. Means I normally work 5 on, 1 off or so.

And pay attention to things that are not in the contracts. For example, vacation rules are not in the contracts that the agencies release. While I am on a 3/3 rotation, I can not take more than 15 days in Jan/Feb or July/Aug... and have to arrange my schedule so that I rotate every year Christmas home or in China. My advice, if you are considering it, get a relationship with someone at the particular airline you are looking at. They can give you the ins and outs and the gotchas at their airline.

It is a different world and takes effort to make it.