You need to work 84 hours a month. AMS to HKG is about 11 hours, Ok 12 hours in an Airbus, call it 13 on the way back. If my math is correct that is 25 hours X 3 trips= 75 hours the last time I went to school. Pairings are usually 4 days long. You have to make up the last 9 hours. Most likely you will flog around Asia with pairing more that 4 days.
Some months you will have leave, reserve, and simulators. Reserve is free, so no credit hours unless you are required. You may do reserve in AMS or in HKG depends where you are needed. Most likely HKG if the fleet is short.
CX will extract as much productivity as possible i.e. up to 84 hours. If you start to go over, your roster will change and put on free reserve and you will be the last person called to avoid overtime.
Stable is a very broad term in CX. Depends if your fleet is short of pilots. Seems the 744 is short at the moment, especially the freighter, hence the General Manager Aircrew is trying to get passenger pilots to waive their rights not to fly the freighter permanently. No Temporary bases if you don’t fly the freighter aircraft.
Many Airbus pilots coming off this year to the 744, so your fleet may be short by the end of the year. The 777 will have a surplus until next year; hence they are offering unpaid leave or 2008’s allocation for 2007. CX will much rather give unpaid leave than to roster a pilot only 40 hours a month. So again, depends if your fleet is short pilots.
They are short of Training Captains 744 and 777, so now are advertising in-house from someone to do free training of the Second Officers in the simulator. Also short of Simulator Instructors, many quit and went to Oasis and hence the advertisement for pilots to do free training of Second Officers in the sim.
They will be advertising for Training First Officers, in-house of course, so you can apply for that job if you wish. Mostly training Second Officers back and forth to AMS.
As of now, you are not bonded but I suspect that my change. They are losing pilots, so they may try to stop that. Not sure if is legal in Hong Kong or in AMS but CX will take you to task on it as you are an individual and usually can’t afford to go to court.
You can request days off 3 months in advance, yes we are a scheduled airline, and request 5 days off in a row 3-4 times a year.
If there is a Capt base in AMS or in Europe, you can request one of those positions up to six months before your command and CX will secure it for you. If not, welcome to the pollution.
When you are in, you can apply for a Command on the freighter, but usually less pay than a First Officer on the passenger fleet.
Good luck with it all and AMS is cooler that Qatar.
