Hello everyone,
I couldn’t really pass on the opportunity of sharing my experience of 3 years working for CAL.
I was employed there as a Captain for 3 years. Do not come here unless you are jobless, which is going to be hard in today’s industry unless you are not rated on a Boeing or an Airbus.
First things first: the advertised salary is already very low, but you will be on training pay (and you only learn this when you sign the contract in Taipei the day you report for duty) which is not even half of the advertised salary. And they will collect taxes on that salary, so you can expect roughly to be making about $1500 for an FO and about $3000 for a Captain for a period of 4 to 6 months. It doesn’t matter if you are rated or not guys, you will endure a whole training period of at least 4 months with that kind of pay, you have been warned. They are compulsive liars in anything they say or do. They will have you sign a bond if you are NTR that is ILLLEGAL (according a local lawyer in taiwan who actually won a case against them). And you will have to provide them with an amount of cash that will vary according to...God only knows what. Some guys were asked $6k, some guys $13k and I heard they are asking some guys close to $20k. Depends on your face I guess...
Then the training part. They are racist to the core, although senior managers, FO’s, and the whole local crowd can barely speak English and should not be awarded a Level 4. Expect it to be more like hazing or a rite of passage. They memorize everything, and they are unbeatable at that game, so they expect you to do the same. Don’t even think of asking questions during training, for them it means you don’t know and they will ask you even more questions. They do not follow manufacturers’ manuals, they have invented their own manuals and procedures. If you dare to raise your concerns, they will take it as an offense and an act of defiance, although they themselves have no idea what they’re talking about. Let’s be clear, there is no training. Not for you, not for them. There is no learning culture in CAL, there never was and there will never be one. The statistics of the incidents support this: in my 3 years in CAL there was an average of one incident every 2 months, some more serious than others, but in that sense, it’s closer to Lion Air than it is to EVA. You can look them up on AvHerald, all this is true. Incompetence seasoned with racism and bullying is a lifestyle in CAL, from the very senior VP to the baggage handler.
Let’s assume you finish the training, and you wonder how your life is going to be. As a Captain, you are told that you will be on a “special watch”, meaning that you only get to fly with their “trusted” FO’s whose role is to report to the CP anything you say or do. Just to make sure you stick to what they want you to do. Most of these guys are “Relief Pilots” on the Airbus or Boeing widebody fleets, but they have their trusted lot in the 737 as well. They never trust an expat. Especially if he’s Western. Sorry gals, no game here. They are mysogynistic with expat women pilots, I neve saw one here.
And this is for an undetermined amount of time, unless you go an complain about it. In which case they may just continue the treatment or chose to give you their local “fresh off the oven” talent: guys with 250 TT on the right seat of a 330, 777 or 747 that can barely speak English and come out of a useless and endless training period where the only thing they learnt is how to please a bully instructor. Not to mention that some of these guys are well in their 30’s and when you ask them “what were you doing before CAL?” their answer is, 90% of the time : “I was a physical education teacher”, or “a Marine biologist”. Why did you decide to become a pilot: “oh, CAL opened a cadet program and I thought the money is very good”. And it is indeed in a country where the average professional is paid $2000/mo on a good salary. So you are given to choose between the Fleet Office’s snitches or the local “scientists” or “athletes” that became First Officers.
I was fortunate enough never to be called up for anything to the office, but from guys that got into minor instances, they are just a bunch of hungry hyenas. They will try to blame you for anything they see reflected in their sacro saint FOQA. And from their on, it’s a downslope race to the bottom. Any FO report on you will be taken as the truth, even though some of them lack the most basic problem solving skills that you will ever see. Once again, I never had to go to the office for this reason, but I know many guys that were reported on their back. If you choose to work for these people, be ready to put up with this.
All but 2 expat FO’s that joined when I did left. Not one finished even the first year. I will skip the details of the things they endured, but they paid a very high price, I know one very nice guy went into a form of depression because he couldn’t take it anymore. They (CAL) are hideous when it comes to having some form of compassion. They are relentless to show you who is in power. They think they own you, and will do everything they can to prove it to you. One of the most ridiculous things they had is this “Improvement” or “feedback” forms that you as Captain had to fill for the FO’s. For an undetermined period, FO’s had to have a “feedback” form filled up by the Captains. Just imagine...
Finally, the commuting part. If the lady/guy that does the rostering likes you and is not under the Fleet Office directive to screw you, you pretty much get anything you ask for. BUT. You will commute on your days Off guys or your Annual Leave days. Meaning that, in my case, if I was in Europe, I had to waste one full day in my commute back to base in TPE. I know Korean and the Chinese lot give you the commuting days, but in CAL, it’s on your Off days. So if you’re lucky and they don’t dislike you (because they will never like you unless you’re Japanese and I will comment on this later on) you only loose one day, but you may loose 2 days if they give you a duty that doesn’t meet the minimum rest after you are back from home. And the Business Class thing is an absolute lie: if there are seats available and the station Staff are nice, you will be given one. If C class is full and/or the station staff don’t like you, they will upgrade passengers to C class and put you on Economy. Happened to me more than once. Luckily AMS staff are amazing and they did everything they could to put me in C class. Just to share with you, I was offloaded from the flight once and put on the freighter run via BKK & DWC to AMS. This is real guys. Like I said: do not trust them.
Most of the expats that joined when I joined have left except for a few guys that stick to it because they barely fly and are closer to retirement than pursuing a career, truth be told. For the few expats that got used to the bullying, slander and overall lack of respect over the years, I am lost for words. Some of them are Japanese. The Taiwanese have this unhealthy and strange relationship to the Japanese where they think of them as a superior caste. They will give the Japanese a special treatment and the rumor has it, even a higher pay. I could never prove this because, as you may expect, neither the Japs nor the company share this info.
So this is it guys...you have been warned. And the salary they advertise is a lie: they collect taxes on allowances (!) and this is the best part: if you don’t fly the minimum guaranteed hours (69 on the 330), they collect taxes that increase all the more the less you fly.
Good luck on your endeavors, but please, don’t go there. There are lots of other much better places to get a widebody command or a TR. Not to mention that the TR you get on a Taiwanese license is Non-I