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Old 17th Jan 2019, 18:12
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INNflight
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
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Lots of uninformed gentlemen here apparently. In case anyone cares for some facts..:

Good pay in general, low tax regime in Switzerland, F/&O year one pay is around 6'400 CHF/month gross + per diems tax free + annual bonus if company performs well (it does) + Christmas bonus.
CMD top salary is around 17'500 CHF/month gross + all of the perks. More if you're any kind of training captain or instructor obviously. Pay is not super-extraordinary for Switzerland but definitely in the top 10 across Europe I'd guess. "Below average" it certainly is not.

Morale is generally good, lots of friendly people and low hierarchy between flight deck and cabin crew. Lots of part time options ranging from 65% to 100.
Bidding is relatively fair and works well for me, though opinions vary. Seniority plays a role but not like in other carriers - we also have something called "fair share", balancing out block hours more or less evenly across people, so senior guys/gals fly unpopular stuff as well and newbies get the odd nice layover too. Works for most I guess.

Quality of life varies with fleet mostly because work is tough on short haul at the moment, esp. the A320 fleet due to a shortage of crew and lots of expansion recently. CSeries fleet is almost complete now though training mills are running non-stop.
777 is probably the happiest fleet, they got most of the popular destinations from Airbus long haul, where life's OKish from what I hear.

Time to command at the moment around 9-11 years I'd say, with CSeries being available a little faster than the 32X.

Roster stability great on long haul, probably didn't have a change within the past year that wasn't either to my favour or for operational reasons or training of another crew member.
Short haul is a little varied from what I hear, esp. the CSeries fleet gets some less stable rosters. Still flight time limitations aren't as grim as people make them to be - way above EASA minimums. We have a very strong pilot union that takes good care of us, has a reasonably good relationship with management and safety culture / just culture is alive and well in Swiss.

Pilots are bitter old f*rts, but I'd still say the majority is very happy the way things are here at the moment.
There's definitely room for improvement in various areas, but if anyone finds the perfect airline let me know.

If anyone is thinking a Chinese expat mill or sand pit carrier will be more pleasant they're delusional.

BTW: German language is still a requirement for flight deck and probably will not change anytime soon.
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