Luke;
Please re-read my post. The numbers are accurate, unless I said otherwise. Why? I have 7 months left on my current contract, and looking at other contracts. The numbers I posted are from contract agencies in the last 30 days.
Not Luke:
All of us are different, with different personnel requirements. I am happy you are happy in Saigon. About half the pilots that get a job there are not, and leave in the first year. I am one of the "other" half, that stayed. And I would go back someday, but right now the pay is not competitive with other gigs I can get as a 320 skipper. Just this morning I talked to another former VAC skipper, and he says the same. He would love to go back, but not to make 65% of the money he can make somewhere else. 10% less - no problem. But not 5k a month.
VAC treated me great, it is a reasonably secure job, and it is probably, without a doubt, the best place for a 320 FO to become a Captain, at least in the contract world.
It is a great job. VAC, like all airlines, is trying to figure out how to get pilots to work for them, for less. VAC's strategy is to get some poor smuck low time Euro-FO to pay them 50K USD for an upgrade, then pay them less than a PIC, with a 3 year bond. It is working, both for them, and the FO's. I give both a thumbs up. The airline gets cheap skippers, and the FO's get a command. Brilliant.
But that is keeping me from going back. No worries. Lots of other jobs that pay much more, in better places to live. Maybe someday it will change, maybe not.