I may be of some help here. Easier to cut and paste:
Does a similar situation exist with Borek's company accommodation? Pilots working for some companies (eg Courtesy Air in Buffalo Narrows, SK) have to pay rent for company accommodation. Are Borek pilots charged rent when stationed away from Calgary and Edmonton? What is the Borek accommodation like? Courtesy's is good but some operators put pilots into squalid, filthy, ill maintained doss houses that indicate what the operator thinks of its employees!
Pilots on rotation are provided accommodation. Inuvik has accomodation in 6 houses for staff. Single rooms. No Rent. Didn't seem particularly squalid on the weekend
Are there many married pilots at Borek? The rotation and/or randomly structured working lifestyle would seem to suit single people. If there are any married pilots at Borek do any stay there on a permanent basis and does working at Borek have any effect on their marriages?
Yes, and I'm one of them. I've been here 20 years. Same job, same wife.If a relationship is going to fail, proximity will not greatly help. For a great many of our married pilots, rotation permits them to live closer to family and friends, or live in parts of the country more hospitable for raising families. Borek's main effect on my marriage is that I can afford to be married. If my wife ceased to be interested in her career, I could afford to have her stop work.
What is Borek's training like? Most 703/704 operators "train to the minimum" to get someone through a PPC or PCC They will not provide the necessary training to ensure that a pilot is fully competent. Where does Borek stand on this?
While I admit to a bit of bias here, Borek started to think more like a 705 operator several years ago. While we would hope that new hires could reach proficiency in the requisite training time, this is not always the case. Where a new hire has not previously been exposed to the myriad ground training items, as well as 704 requirements for: firefighting, first aid, whimis ,TDG, CRM,CFIT, unruly passengers, & SMS; trying to absorb the aircraft systems, limitations and SOPs must seem like drinking from a fire hose. For the last decade, the company's groundschools have become more sophisticated in content, delivery method, and course materials.
Once the initial cash has spent on a new hire, the candidate is rarely washed out. I can recall only a handful in the past 2 decades.
Where failures occur, they are often found in recurrent FO's, who become complacent over a year's operational flying. While we encourage training captains to call the CP and advise him before recommending an ill-prepared candidate, sometimes nerves, complacency, or a misalignment of the galaxy causes a candidate to fail. Once an analysis of the perceived root cause is completed, remedial training to standard is completed, and another ride is completed. Given 230 pilots in the company, with many PPC'ed on 2 types, our PPC ride failure rate is very close to the national 704 average. With 10 check pilots, there is enough mix in the ride scenarios and check pilots to provide a valid assessment of a candidate's skill.
Training on the aircraft is generally given by training captains with significant time on type,versus the 100 on type requirement of TC.Increasingly, client companies are requiring simulator training, and a monitor of actual training.
While my time is devoted significantly to training, and checking, (perhaps 20% of my annual time), the gain in revenue is slight as the salary and compensation is set to pay a daily rate for on duty time, in addition to a base pay. Thus I have no reason to grind out someone's training at the end of a long day, or a day of unsuitable weather.
For Borek, as for most companies of this size, the days of new pilots arriving monday and starting on the line tuesday are long past. Fourteen days from sitting down to fill in the hiring paperwork to starting line indoctrination seems nearer the mark.
It always makes me wonder when people refuse to answer legitimate questions about the working conditions of any potential employer. Could it be that they are embarrassed to admit what they were willing to accept in exchange for a job?
The lack of response, both from Carrier and people in a position to voice a legitimate opinion is more the result of a matching post on a different forum, rather than malice or embarrassment. As a general rule, I find that legitimate questions about a company deserve a measured honest response. I hope this helps.
JC