Which job? J31 based in Europe or Ryanair?

[captainyonder]

A few days ago I mentioned a friend of mine who was looking to join Ryanair. However a vacancy has now arisen at the carrier I work for which is a J31 operator based in mainland Europe. My friend is now trying to decide which carrier to join, what are your opinions?

J31 Operator Positives:
- Good, small employer
- Happy Work Force
- Reasonable salary (c. €2,100 per month)

J31 Operator Negatives:
- Must fund own type rating
- Irregular flying and roster
- Small aircraft

Ryanair Positives:
- Stable Roster
- Medium Jet
- Quick hours

Ryanair Negatives:
- Poor morale
- Poor initial salary
- Pay for own type rating

This guy is looking to me for advice and I can't really say I'd be certain of who to choose. Part of me say J31 part of me says 738.

What do you guys reckon?

Thanks

[horsebox]

If he would paying for either rating then the 737 would be a better bet.

Where might he be with a J31 rating in 5 years, vs where might he be with a 737 rating in 5 years...

[Luke SkyToddler]

Not a hard decision to make really

You're on rubbish wages as an FO on either type and they're both stepping stone jobs to better ones right?

Do 18 months at Ryan you'll have 1500 glass cockpit jet and you'll be in the ballpark for your local highly paid national airline / Emirates / Cathay or whatever top shelf job you fancy.

Do 18 months in a J31 and you'll have, ummm, a few hundred hours on an clapped out obsolete little 1960s turboprop, and you will probably still have to go do a couple of years at a lo-co jet operator before you can get a real job.

Or, after 3 years you could get lucky and have your J31 command, earning the big 3-4,000 euro for the rest of forever, hand flying around Europe at FL200 and 230 kt right through the middle of all those winter CBs. Meanwhile your mates who went to Ryan also got their command after 3 years, they are sitting above it all at FL400 with an autopilot in, watching the plane fly itself and earning 8-10,000 euro a month in the LHS :sad:

Nobody takes the J31 seriously any more, even if you've got 5,000 hours command on it, you'll still be lucky to get an interview for a jet RHS.

[natterjack747]

Say instead of a job with a J31 it was a job flying a kingair. What would the answers be then?

Luke Skytoddler, if you dont mind me asking what are you doing these days? I remember years ago reading about your instructing job and then didnt you get a M/E piston job somewhere?

[tom775257]

If you have some spare cash, I would personally place Ryanair above any turboprop job, however this thinking is suited to my aim to fly long haul ASAP. It is amazing how many opportunities suddenly appear when you have some medium jet experience.

[CamelhAir]

earning 8-10,000 euro a month in the LHS

Not in ryr you won't be, unless you're robbing all your crew, the bar takings and a bank or two.

[cavortingcheetah]

:hmm:

captainyonder, your post is somewhat ambiguous. The inference could be that your friend wants to join Ryanair but that in the meantime he has an opportunity to pay for his own type rating and get in some J31 flying - while waiting to hear from Ryanair.
If he has a straight choice, Boeing or Jetstream, he must take the Boeing every time for all the reasons given above.
If he still has to wait to hear from Ryanair then perhaps he should go ahead in the meantime with the J31 flying. He will at least be up to speed, current and earning something.
There has to be a reasonable pay differential between that of an FO on a J31 and on a B737. If your chum pays for his Jetstream rating and only flies the machine for a few months before joining Ryanair; it will not take very long, using this differential, even after tax, to pay back himself or whoever has lent him the money for the initial conversion.
The real danger in this is that he might get himself locked in to a three month notice period with the J31 operator. This could be a serious handicap if Ryanair were looking for someone to start a course ASAP. Balanced against this is the fact that many companies require a six month probation period with a month's termination on either side.
In this seemingly very fluid aviation market where it does appear to be a pilot's market, the best advice might be to stay as unfettered as possible whilst gunning for the serious job. Flying a J31 could hardly, in anyone's book, be called a career move and yes indeed, speaking from experience, flying a Jetstream around in European winters is not really a lot of fun, although interesting and exacting from time to time. They're all so old that the cockpits smell of generations of biscuit crumbs and lukewarm coffee and the machine is an absolute pig in turbulence too, which probably explains the coffee smell!:)

[-8AS]

B737 anyday. Light turboprop time is great if no other options are on the horizon, but to take it over modern jet would be mad.

[Luke SkyToddler]

@ Natterjack :

After that multi piston episode I spent 3 years flying J31s round Europe myself, got about 1500 hours on them including 1000 left seat. I'm now in the right seat of a low cost airline (not Ryanair!)

Which is my point exactly, I did all that Jetstream stuff and ended up where I am anyway. Why on earth would you deliberately choose to go and fly the Jetstream now if you've got a Boeing or 'Bus job offer on the table (unless you actually WANT to fly turboprops all your life - and take it from me you don't).

Despite what every turboprop pilot thinks - and certainly a few of my old work colleagues keep on spouting the same old crap every time I hear from them and they've failed another jet job interview - the experience you gain on something like a J31 isn't actually all that relevant to the super automated glass cockpit environment, and above a certain hour threshold it's not that impressive to airline recruitment. Yes it's nice to have 500 hours of previous IFR experience before you get turned loose on a high performance jet, just to help with the situational awareness and understanding of IFR procedure, but that's about the extent of the skills crossover.

I had fun on the Jetstream but I don't miss it. At all. Not even .00001 percent. I probably work twice as hard here but I enjoy it twice as much so that makes up for it. It's just such a nice place to work and such a pleasant and (as long as you know your SOPs) relaxing airplane to fly.

As far as money goes, I know Ryanair takes a caning here on pprune and I don't want to speak on behalf of their FO's, but certainly with my present employer I'm making several hundred quid a month more in the right seat of the airbus than I did in the left seat of the J31 - and I've hopefully got another £1500 / month pay rise to look forward to before long if I get the command upgrade :}

As for you cavortingcheetah what a la-de-dah jetstream YOU must have had, to have cockpits that smelled of biscuit crumbs and coffee!!! Ours all stank of newspapers and fish and offshore oil workers' urine (don't ask :hmm: )