Recently a pilot meeting was held and many of our concerns were discussed. One pilot had resigned and 3 others were ready to resign if immediate action was not taken to improve the conditions and follow the contract.
This is Chinese business. They will follow the contract only if they must and are encouraged to do so. Contracts in China are negotiable. This is their culture. There are many many many books on this subject. For the Taiwanese, Hong Kong, and Shanghai people of course this does not apply to you. It is not an East/West perspective. It is a Chinese/International business model perspective.
Hotel conditions are terrible. The worst hotel you have stayed in you airline career wlll be the best hotel we have. This was made as a sharp point and the company promised better hotels for us.
Most importantly is out basing. Out basing is occurring against our contract of up to 14 days in a hotel in an out based city. The contract clearly specified Tianjin or Xi'an basing. Upon threatening of resignations the company instantly changed its policy to 2 or 3 day trips for the foreigners.
There are many things that need to be changed and if they intend to hire the 30-40 foreigners we have told them what they need to do hire and keep the pilots. They have the information.
As for the contractors I can highly recommend PARC.
There is only one representative at these pilot meetings from the contractors and that is PARC. There are many many agencies offering this contract but I cannot stress that even other pilots thanked our agency for sending Misty Fu, our PARC rep, to smooth things over with the company.
We have two reps that help us with daily life things to contract issues. They are invaluable.
There is still no official plan on the A320s. I have no idea on what the plan is. And like USMC stated before I don't think Tianjin does either. There is a lan to get the A330 and there is even an A330 model sitting in one of the pilot rooms, but as I said before, nothing, even if in contract, is set in stone. Everything is negotiable in China. Everything.
We have too many foreign pilots in Tianjin. We still need more foreign pilots.
This means you will be based elsewhere in the system if you are hired from this point on. You may in the future be based in Tianjin as the routes grow but for now it appears as if all new pilots are heading to Xi'an. It is a smaller city and was the base for Keunpeng before the crashes. The city is very polluted but has some mountains surrounding it. The airport is a good distance from the city center.
Tianjin is thinking of opening other bases too to foreigners but this depends on many variables. In China, until it happens don't believe it.
Good luck on the recruiting drive. Remember the initial hospitals are filthy. The CAAC E145 checkers are bastards and have a huge fail rate. The pilots for Tianjin are good people. The ones I have encountered are like pilots everywhere in the world. I've met some very sharp instructors here.
Your process is:
1. Initial Eval Sim
2. Acquire Chinese visa
4. CAAC Medical Check and Company Medical
5. CAAC Written
6. CAAC sim Check
7. CAAC ICAO English
8. Visa Medical
9. Ground Training 7 days
10. Evac training
11. 3 Day Sim Training
12. Work Visa Application.
During all of this you will have to run to HKG monthly to renew your visitor visa until all the work on your work visa is done. This will take at least 2 or 3 and sometimes even 4 months. Your crew badge takes 2-4 weeks to process and this cannot be done until after you pass the CAAC sim check. Your work visa cannot be processed until you have passed all the CAAC checks.
The company provides a hotel for up to 30 days until after you arrive in Tianjin. This means that before you are finished with the training process that you will have to secure some kind of residence here in Tianjin. There is a 5% police tax on the amount of your rent you must pay every month. This is outside of contract obligations.
Many crew members have sat 3 months before starting OJT/IOE. It wlll be a long three months as Tianjin does not have much of a night life or interesting things to do. You have to make things happen here. If you have the cash the company does not care where you go to reset your visa. A trip through SE Asia will get your head back in the game.