Ve764

800S Kepp me informed what cha gonna do cuz I'm in the same age dilema.

Gillegan

I guess that I would be one of TP's co-workers who is full of it. While it is true that it is all relative and you can surely find places that are worse (pay, working conditions etc.), you have to ask yourself why so many are so unhappy here. While some are happy and I don't begrudge them that, I have to honestly say that if you chopped the most extreme 5% (happiest and grumpiest) from the posts on PPRUNE, that you would have a pretty good indication of the mood of the pilot force.

To be quite frank, we are stuck with a management force here that is literally going to fly this airline into the ground. Rosters and fatigue are a big problem here to the point that the company doctors have registered their concern. The company's response is to petition the aviation authority for an increase in annual flying hours, constitute a "Fatigue Committee" that has NO crewmembers that fly more than 20 hours a month and to hire Flight Department Managers who have never flown at this airline, never seen our route structure and who, quite honestly are so out of touch that pronouncements from on high have the flavor of something out of Catch 22.

I've been here for 12 years now and in the past 4 years I have watched the conditions continuously erode. Maybe the snapshot right now is of something better than what you have, but the trend is not positive. Any person considering coming here would obviously compare what is here with what they are coming from. If the comparison is positive, they will be disposed towards taking the job. Fair enough. Some are even happy though I caution you, the happy ones have generally been here for less than 2 years. There is a saying in the expat world - You have two buckets, a money bucket and a **** bucket. You leave when one of your buckets is full. With the cost of living here, you will be hard pressed to fill up your money bucket if you have a family and the filling of the **** bucket will be slow but constant. I reckon at about 3 years, it will begin to overflow.(I'm just starting my 5th bucket) Now the question is, is it worth it to move my family half way around the world for that? If so, jump in, the waters warm.

Typhoonpilot

Putting words in my mouth

I didn't say that at all, what I said was this: That was drawn in comparison to 121 Supplemental operations. Have you flown 121 Supplemental flight and duty time limitations for a fly-by-night operator?

Have you worked on a contract ( or for a company ) where you wouldn't be paid if you were on extended sick leave?

If anybody cares to read through all these posts they'll find that I do not advocate EK as a first choice. A young person in the States should try for Fedex, UPS, or some of the other carriers that offer a good long term career.

I'm just here to answer questions as they come along. You may view it as one-sided, but it is a real person's view who has been at EK for more than 2 years. The guys on PPrune will destroy anybody who posts something positive about EK. So that has stopped to become a reliable source of information. Just look at the latest example of how they're trying to hurt somebody who simply made a positive statement to the press. One word, pathetic !!

A full read of these threads on APC gives far more useful information to any prospective pilot. There have been good points raised, negative and positive, that should allow a person to make an informed decision.


Typhoonpilot

Gillegan

Not at all, I wasn't even directing my post at you but rather at the chap that referred to some of us being full of ****e. I responded because of the worry that what has happened on Prune - anyone who expresses a difference of opinion is jumped, might happen here. I wasn't reading much difference of opinion, just a lot of back slapping and snaps. It is not all great here and you yourself allude to it. While it's not all negative here, those who choose to simply ignore the warnings do so at their peril. In November more pilots resigned than were hired. In 2006, we started out with a little under 1500 pilots and the target was to hire 300. We ended 2006 with barely 1600. It would behoove anyone who is considering coming here to at least pay attention to those statistics.

Freight Dog

This popular thread is closed to the amount of posts in it. Pick up the discussion in Part 3.