Netjets. The Silver Lining
Netjets USA is different from Europe in a number of ways. Primarily they have union representation for the pilots and get a far better deal. Here, with many nationalities, living all around Europe, there is none. The relatively inexperienced management take advantage of this and some of the stories abound defy belief.
There are many Rumours about this strange company that everone seems to want to work for but who really knows much about them?
My second cousin, twice removed flys for them so maybe I can shed some light on at least some of the Rumours:
The deception begins at interview when a very rosy picture indeed is presented for you. However, once you start the benefits don't quite add up. Don't be too surprised to learn the salary agreed on may have changed for the worse, the loss of licence insurance strangely does not cover loss of a professional certificate or licence, the private health scheme pays back a mere fraction of your claim and the retirement savings plan that you have been contributing to sometimes exists and sometimes does not!
Sim training is done twice yearly but leaves a lot to be desired. It would certainly help if the instructors knew the operating proceedures of the company so the pilots could be trained in using them. F/O's regulary complain that every Captain insists on different calls, settings, and proceedures. There is simply no standardization.
It is also true that management fire pilots for apparently little reason. Nearly half an entire fleets' Captains were fired last year not to mention the Director of European Operations and the Chief Pilot. Surely their selection process cannot pick all these "bad guys"? Trial by sim is one of many tactics. Captains are being held solely responsible for every day-to-day problem and being forced to write reports on every abnormality such as why the caterers used the wrong type of bread, why the fuel truck was late. etc. anything more serious and you will find yourself summoned to HQ for punishment.
The fining of pilots takes place regulary. One was fined a weeks pay for keeping a passenger waiting 1/2 hour whilst the aircraft was de-iced! another was threatened with it after not recording TOD fuel! The Chambery incident. (true), was interesting as Netjets apparently did not know what a CAT C airfield was until very recently. You still went there though. The paranoia that exists amongst crews now is such that i know of F/O's that just do not want command for that little extra money but all that cr#p! On the subject of salaries, a Captain once discovered down route that between himself, the F/O and the Flight attendant he was the lowest paid member of the crew.
Any defects get written up when operationally convenient and management script ALL tech log entries, specifically insisting crews fly on to maintanance and then report even airworthy defects in order to avoid AOG's. Some maintanance appears to be being done illegally! In fact the whole proceedure now requires so much consultation with so many individuals that many pilots unfortunately ignore the defect altogether if they possibly can.
Weekly accumulators have been made up at the end of a week so as to make sure no-one has exceeded 55 hours. There was at least one where all the previous weeks' report times were retropectively reduced from 90 to the legal minimum 30 minutes in order to achieve this.
I can say I know of no communication from the pilots to management to have ever gotten a response, including personal, financial and safety issues. They simply ignore everything.
So it appears that all that glitters may not be gold and whilst some pilots are happy-ish, (mainly Portuguese, who in the absense of similar nepotism elsewhere have little career choices), many are rightly distressed by the operating practices of this company.
To compare their standards to that of an airline is Plane ridiculous.
Perhaps it is obvious: The bigger the silver lining, the bigger the cloud!