OPEN YOUR EYES.....
Well, someone has to come out and say it, so here goes:
First some history...This is NOT horn tooting..I've been an expat pilot a long time.
I am fortunate enough to have been on the 777 since its near inception. Yes, I was very young and while all the older guys near retirement were clamouring to get on this beautiful airplane, at 47 I was working for a ME carrier and became an TRE/TRI on it. I didn't renew my contract and moved over to a large Asian carrier.
The adage of 'grass is always greener' stung me but good. One day a couple of us guys decided that this Jet Airways gig would be a good one, so we applied and got an interview.
The first actions should have really opened my eyes, but it didn't. The thought of helping out a B777 'new-comer airline' clouded my thinking. Did I have something to give? You bet I did and still do..I have over 7500 logged on this machine. I am still current and I am also fully 787 qualified.
I was hired 'over the phone'. Then there was silence. Then numerous phone calls, then "why don't you come over and have an interview'. Well, it took forever and a day to get a visa to start with. The security clearance...what a laugh, so after a few weeks, and a 'window' of a few days to make it into the secret society of India, I was off to the beautiful and romantic city of Mumbai. The morning came early and off I went to Jet Airways 'ivory tower'. Now what a mixed up, over-crowded, disorganized place this turned out to be. An elevator that holds a maximum of 2 people...me and the elevator operator...and away we go!
There was an interview and we were off to do a simulator assessment. Joke time. The TRE was a useless inexperienced egotistical sh*t from a part of the ex-Commonwealth located near Antarctica. He should have stayed there. After a total useless series of maneuvers that showed me nothing more than he knew where to find selections to provide multiple failures that proved nothing, I landed a dismantled airplane. Pass.
The fun then began. Sign the contract.
SHELL GAME..........
Well, I had an acquaintance at IBM, a lawyer whom I met several months earlier. This person was in charge of contracts between Big Blue and company clients in the Sub-Continent. I was WARNED....DON'T DO IT!
Well, this is aviation and what did a lawyer know about it anyways?
No sooner had the ink dried, changes started to take place. The TRE position that I was offered, turned into a regular line pilot position. In retrospect that was good. I couldn't have withstood the BS. I had a European base of Brussels. Good. I didn't have to live in Mumbai.
Then, there were the hoops of the DGCA, even more fun. I can't vouch for what its like now, but it was a 'gong-show'.....Prep for an interview with the 'biggies' in their office in Delhi...scurrying here...scurrying there..finally coming out of it with agreement that I could be licensed there based on my current licenses (I was current in several countries).
So then it was all of the conversion course fun...SEP, Security, Planning and Performance, and my favorite...Monsoon Met where some guy came in and tried to sell us his book that he printed back in 1886 or something. Off to get a nice uniform, then sent home.
I should have had some thoughts going through my head here...we were spirited through the Mumbai scenes and had to find a place to get our residence permits...
I eventually ended up working out of SFO as the airline began its BOM-PVG-SFO operation. I had spent 8 years working the NOPAC and SOPAC routes with the 777 and was very familiar.
Interestingly, about 4 months into the contract, my pay didn't arrive. In fact, it didn't arrive for for a few days. It was 9 days late! None of us had our pay. We questioned it and were told...'Oh, we're sorry!' No other explanations. So I continued to truck back and forth between PVG and SFO for a few months...then.....the operation quit and we all ended up in Mumbai. BTW...the pay was arriving up to 2 weeks late and continued that way for the rest of the contract! OPEN YOUR EYES!!!!
We stayed at a reasonable hotel in the beginning but then, over night, we had to move to a horrid place. The food was lousy and we would find ourself in a Tuk-Tuk, going to other hotels to find something to eat. We complained, but no one listened.
Then, tickets began to arrive late. In fact, I was scheduled to be in London to deadhead to Mumbai. I was asked if I could pay my way and I'd get reimbursed. NOPE! NOT ME...If you want me to fly the airplane from LHR, you'd better get me there. They did.
We then got notice that the airline was going to wet least to nearly every carrier in the world....Lets see..6 months in Turkey, 4 months in Bahrain. To their credit, Turkish offered most of us a good contract. Some excellent pilots went over there, but I wasn't interested in a 6 and 2. BTW..the standard contract at Jet always was 6 and 2. If you're going to do contract work, get used to it.
I hung in there and after 42 years of continuous service working as an airline pilot...it took Jet Airways.....TO LAY ME OFF! I couldn't stop laughing for a week. The rest is history.
If you are willing to work on a contract that means nothing, this job is YOURS!
Its been said that there are some who are paying their way over to go to work. Well, you retired guys who are 'double dipping', using your company passes to fly to work (and you know who you are), buy hotel rooms with your old airline ID at a better rate, only serve to undercut those legitimate guys who are actually trying to eek out a living. Its quite amusing because many of those who are doing this were some of the biggest unionists out there. How greed changes things.
'Nuf said.