Not a totally bad place, contradiction to reputation.
The people of the island are fairly friendly and it's a relaxed environment outside of the company.
Don't know what your experience is, but being totally honest, it won't be much appreciated, you'll be given two bars, lots of sim training to adapt to their sops and be made to feel a bit like a loose end at the beginning. ( training in total I think for my batch was about 2.5 months from start to finish) and you will be on "training pay" which is a lower basic and does not include type rating allowance or housing allowance if my memory serves me well.
The plus side of being a A340 FO is that you get to escape from the small and tedious environment of Negombo, which is where most of expats live. You could live in Colombo, being on long haul. But to be truthful, there isn't much excitement there.
There are SOME extreme little hitlers flying as captains there , bar those three or four tossers and the majority are really quite pleasant. But you will get bored of briefing a full home base arrival on a 4 sector day (320 not 340!!)...yawn....
It isn't everybodies cup of tea, and only TWO from around seventeen who were on my course and the course after are left there.
Maybe they've (UL) have had a kick up the arse since we all left, I don't know..I know a few of us complained with HR about the lack of enticement to upgrade to 330 from 320 etc..
For me, it was a year of exposure to a new culture, new flying environment and I met some excellent fellow expats there, I moved on because I saw it as kind of a dead end unless you stay many years , I didn't want to be there on NON commuting with a wife and kids....
Good luck, PM me for further
Ps: yes you will CCQ and fly MFF after a period of time, maybe a year I think... Nd by the looks of your previous posts, you are Italian, there some Italians there which I could put you in contact with.
Last edited by chai ja; 15th Nov 2012 at 10:34.