A colleague of mine recently went to STN for an interview with RYR. She is a fairly low houred pilot who payed for her own B737 type rating. After managing to secure temporary employment for the summer her contract is due to end, hence the search for continuation of employment and a chance to up her B737 jet experience.
She told me that RYR are offering 55 Euros a block hour. That's it! Base can be requested but is not guaranteed and can be re-allocated at short notice. If time away from base is required for duty then an extra 20 Euros are given. Accommodation has to be arranged by the individual but RYR do give a list of approved accommodation that should be able to help.
Had this colleague been on a permanent contract with her current employer flying IT flights to the usual European holiday destinations, her basic salary would have been over £36,000 a year plus £2.20 per hour duty pay and all the associated 'extras' such as free uniform, medicals paid for, licence renewals paid for, loss of licence insurance, death in service benefit, crew meals, free water, tea and coffee, etc. She would have flown busy summers and reasonably quiet winters for an average total of around 700 block hours a year and been paid for 28 days leave too (leave usually given in blocks of 5 days with weekends attached at either end).
In my estimation, considering that 700 hours a year is tiring enough considering the mix of earlies, lates and nights, never mind the extra workload of double the number of shorter sectors and the regime of working to maximum legal flight hours of 900 in a year, 55 Euros a block hour all in does seem a bit pathetic.
By my calculation, assuming that my colleague flies the maximum permissible hours in a year, she will only earn 49,500 Euros a year before tax and other necessary expenses such as uniform, medicals, hotac and transport for sims, insurance etc. That equates to £33,700 before tax and extras at todays exchange rate. That represents the MAXIMUM earning potential.
No doubt my colleague will take the opportunity to build her jet experience but there is no way she would look at RYR as a good career move except as a stepping stone to something more prosperous once she has gained enough experience. Definitely a step forward as far as she is concerned for hour and experience building but two steps back as far as she is concerned in trying to overcome the expense of her licence and type rating.