Goldfinger, Check your PM's.
I'd like to try and post something more useful than the usual offensive comments and without having an obvious axe to grind.
Emerald, like most airlines, and freight operators especially, have their good and bad points. Emerald will give you a good start in a first job, with lots of flying and hours, probably with a quick command. OK sometimes you may spend more hours in a taxi or hire car than flying the route but look around. Its the same with many other people.
Depending on which fleet you go, the work varies. Go for the state of the art, ultramodern Shorts,
and you will do runs mainly out of Coventry and Luton with some from Stansted and Dublin. Good hours, good crews. Go for the 'classic' fleet with the 748 and you may be doing LPL - BFS a lot or ad-hocs out of CDG anywhere in Europe at 30 minutes notice.
Both offer the novelty of hands-on flying. I may moan about this now, but I think I'll miss it later.
Salaries are not great but you know that when you go in. This is low-cost the way Stelios only dreamed of. Expect to spend some time self-positioning around the country in a hire car. Expect to be called on days off and begged to work because 'everyone else is flying'. (No, 'everyone else' knew better than to answer the phone).
Communication from management is poor. Expect to be told last or find out about it on Pprune. Expect to work all the days you legally can and if you let them, those you legally can't.
Its not perfect but it has its moments. Night flying is great - direct everywhere, no traffic or chatter on the radio and 'proper' flying. I enjoy it most nights, just get annoyed when you land and someone has not bothered arranging any transport for you to get home or booked the hotel. When you make to the 'big' airlines you'll proably find much the same.
Sorry to go on, but its a mixed bag. Like I say,
- just like most other airlines!
Hope this helps and didn't bore! Feel free to PM me with specific questions. Sorry for being a bit slow answering those recently.
If you really want to know what freight flying is like, this thread kind of sums it up. Its been done a lot but it's still funny.
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...eight+dog+when