I agree with some of what cargo jock says but if I may, I would like to (quietly) disagree with the following:
1. Flying / Positioning hours. I have averaged over 50 flying hours per month since joining and less than 7 positioning hours per month.
2. Housing allowance. A bit of lateral thinking is required here. There are several ways of looking at it. You can commute and get a 2 bed unit for 1600$ per month and use the balance of the 3000 towards tickets. Or, you can bring your family over, rent out your house in your domicile and pay a small amount of your own money to rent somewhere nice. Or, you can purchase a condo and use the 3000 to pay the mortgage.
3. Utility bills. I had a pile waiting for me when I opened the door of
OUR condo unit.
a. Combined Electricity, Gas, Water, + Taxes for March - $212.37
b. Cable TV (with nearly all the options) - $124.95
c. Mobile phone bill (self + wife) $143.78
d. Landline Phone bill - $43.00
Monthly bills including mobiles but excluding food + about $550.00
Rostering:
I have not gone to rostering with boxes of chocolates, nor have I asked for any specific trips. I am very happy with my rosters - but I like long haul of 12-16 days as it gives me max time off on return and it is more lucrative. Thats personal preference.
Augmented/Double/3 Pilot crew. If 2 Captains are rostered to fly, one will be nominated by the company as command crew. It seems to depend on who is doing the full COP and who is just "guesting" for that particular sector.
You can fly with 2 F/Os or another Captain and an F/O. It depends on the FTL requirements. See
http://www.caas.gov.sg/caas/level3_e...=1143992899359 AOCRs appendix C1 if you want a nice long read.
As far as roster requests go, there is a mechanism thru which you can make requests but I have never done it so cant comment on the success rate.
Will be on leave and deep and silent for the next 3 weeks guys. Play nicely.
