Originally Posted by
ulispranger
I am a NJE owner and I can say that I will always give tips to the crew as well, that should make some extra income
I am guessing your are not a Latitude owner?
I have been at NJE for 17 years having joined straight from the military more or less - I am sure that will tell you how happy I am. There are good days but also bad days as in any job. As RedSnail said - the good days far outweigh the bad in my case.
As stated - 6 on 5 off, leave home on day one for a commercial airline to wherever the NJE aircraft is (sometimes 06.00 show time or earlier). Hotel and breakfast paid for by the company and during the peak months (July, Aug) you may end up in some not so nice hotels as the company only books them in the afternoon due to possible changes and in places such as Nice, Malaga, etc choice is limited. Sim recurrent twice a year (my fleet at FSI in Farnborough) and a Ground Recurrent (GRT) once a year (currently at home on MS Teams due to Covid but the plan is to return to the office in Lisbon when allowed) - all duty time with per diem. Still flying to new airports after all these years - small VFR field in France last tour.
There are opportunities to enhance your pay by taking extra roles (Ground Instructors, Line Trainers) but those positions can be hard to come by (dead non-specific gender shoes) and are not available for new joiners. Overtime opportunities are also available and on a voluntary basis - you can refuse if it doesn't work for you.
Downside - 60 duty hours per tour (6 or 7 day tours) can easily be reached and in the busy times you can be sent home at the end of day 5 as you will be out of hours (positioning day 1 and 6 count as duty time). The plan changes a lot due to aircraft unservicability, crew sickness, new bookings and re-briefing due to crew missing airlines as happened to my colleague only yesterday (luckily I was on day 6 and airlining home). He shut down expecting to go to the hotel only to receive a call from Scheduling to take an airline in 65 mins to London to take another aeroplane. Yes, airlining can be a pain, economy as stated but you will build up your airline status fairly quickly with 6 airlines a month (3 tours a month, airline out and in).
Overall I really enjoy it, fly a very modern aircraft and work with great colleagues from all over Europe. You have the opportunity to live almost anywhere in Europe with the Gateway system and you can also use a temporary gateway at will - a number will change their gateway to say Malaga in the summer and move the family to Spain for the summer. There is a list of available gateways but I do not want to post it here.
Rambled on far longer than I intended but hope it helps.