Air Japan (AJX) B767

[Fratemate]

Umm, not very good at the medical questions, so haven't done those. I've never had call to read the small print; so sorry for being no help there.

Is it possible to get 10 days at the end of one month and 10 at the start of the next, giving 20 days off in a row? Once a year would be gold. Yes, you can certainly do this with AJV. Some guys do it every other month, so once a year wouldn’t be a problem (apart from the obvious Christmas/New Year when you take your turn).

You have to check out of your hotel when on a turn-around flight to Hong Kong or similar, yeah? Yes, if you’re going away overnight then 99.9% of times you will check out, as paying for a hotel when you’re not there is silly.

Is that a drag for you, packing your suitcase, taking it with you on day trips, 10 day trips and all in between? No, it’s not that bad. First of all the hotel has a bag room that you can leave your unwanted stuff in. Most people have some form of big case they leave at the hotel and take the stuff they need for a trip in a smaller case. Again, from an AJV point of view, the longest you’re really going to go away is 7 days on a States trip but this has all changed and you won’t be away that long, as it stands at the moment. Usually you’ll go NRT-Somewhere-KIX-Somewhere-NRT and be away 5 days, getting back on the 5th day. You’ll do plenty of ‘day trips’ (read, flying through the night but away for 24hrs ish) and your blank days will (usually) be spent in NRT. (Don’t cane me here guys, I said ‘usually’).

Public transport to work during training is covered. What about line ops? How do you get to work? There’s a hotel bus that goes to the airport and back again...that’s what we use. If you’ve got to deadhead somewhere (e.g. NRT-HND-KIX), then it’s hotel bus to the airport, friendly limousine bus to HND and the fly to KIX. You keep the limo bus receipt and that gets refunded and the DH tickets are emailed to you.

Do the trains cover all the flight schedules? Umm, lost me there. What trains? We ‘live’ in the Excel and Garden Hotels, so there’s no need for trains to work.

Big question: how do you keep fit? Are there gyms in the hotel with weight lifting equipment and elliptical trainers, running machines, bikes and so on? Well, it’s quite a steep set of steps from the bus drop-off point in town all the way to the top of town and the Barge/Jetlag, so that must burn at least 20 calories. But seriously folks, both hotels have gyms. The Excel (where most people lounge around) has treadmills, crap elliptical things, a bike and weights. It also has a pool, whereas the Gardens doesn’t. That’s all free, of course. Going through training is different. The Mitsui Garden Hotel for the AJV boys doesn’t have a gym but some join Tipness, just up the road, and pay to lose heartbeats. AJX have apartments during training but I have no idea of their exercise facilities. There are also some quite pleasant runs near the hotels.

Is the internet available in the room (probably a dumb question, and one that's answered on the thread, but one I'd really like to ask again because of the level of importance). Yes. In the Excel it’s free, in the Gardens you pay. KIX (ANA Gate Tower ) for AJV, it’s free. All the Skype you can eat and downloading movies to make up for the lack of entertainment on TV.

New B767 freighters. Probably no new type coming then. Or is that on the cards? They talked about the 777 last year but, not surprisingly, it’s gone very quiet on that front. Plan on flying the 767 and nothing else and you won’t be disappointed. After doing the training course, that lovely JCAB seem to think is necessary, you’ll be quite glad to not convert onto another type with a 3 week course crammed into 20!

I read some have remained in Japan beyond the five year contract. Might have missed this, but are you back to year one salary? No. Apparently, according to Parc, a new contract is negotiated but I’m not in a position to say what the pay increments are like after the initial 5 year contract.

Biggie: Can a non resident like yourselves open a bank account in Japan? I’m 99% positive that’s a ‘no’. I can’t really see why you’d want to (there’s ATMs etc around the place that will accept your foreign devil cards) but I’m pretty certain that’s for Japanese visa holders only. Willing to be corrected!

Can the aforementioned acquire a Japanese driver's licence? You can get a driving licence but you’ve got a limited time to do so. Basically, when you go through training you end up getting an alien registration card. This is handed back when training is complete. With this card you can get a driving licence (and a mobile phone if you want one in addition to the one the Company gives you). If you’re a proper driver and have been taught to drive on the correct side of the road then they’ll give you a licence based on your existing one. If you’re American then you clearly don’t know what you’re doing, so the Japanese will test you. From what I hear, expect to fail a couple of times just because that’s what they do....not because you’re no good.

One last one, quite possibly answered already, but you can rent an apartment, right? Yes, you can. Generally, 2 or 3 people rent together as the allowances you get will not cover the price by yourself. Not all landlords will rent to foreign devils but there are well established areas where our boys hang out together and cook romantic meals for each other in their apartments