HNA what it is like
There is a small group of pilots at Hainan that has been flying here for a while, about 6. The rest are all new hires. Here is what you need to know:
The general feeling is that since Hainan is the golden child of private China and an airline where locals rape and pillage the system with cabin crew carrying more off of the aircraft than you can imagine a person to be able to carry.
The recruitment
Recruitment is long and painful. Most have taken around a year to finally report to Haikou to start working and collecting some pay. This pay is between 60 and 70% of your basic depending on contract. During this time, if you see a refund for a ticket you are better than superman.
The year is spent messing you around. nothing you have is recognized eg licenses, medicals.
After 1 or more years, one or two have been lucky with 6 months you report to start your contract.
During this time you do a company acceptance simulator checkride. The logic of this checkride still defies me as it is the same as the old checks of the more than 20 years ago aviation culture in other parts of the world.The instructors simply destroy the simulator and you must cope. Multiple illogical failures and very little structure.
The next checkride is the CAAC check. This seems in some cases to be more structured than others but again it is a superhuman check and not really something that always makes sense.
Reporting
This happens in Haikou. Then you sit for long periods of time waiting for elearning and ground school. elearning is a ton of work aimed at beginners and ground school is all in Chinese in Sanya and consists of the typical emergency training, slides, swimming pool things. Most costs are carried by the company.
After this you wait a couple of months for your residence permit, background check and other documents like medical.
You also complete the ATP test which can be in any city.The ATP test is a matter of learning the database and cheating as you must as most questions make very little sense in English. In many cases it is a matter of recognizing and choosing.Painful.
Reporting to the fleet
After about 1 year that the process starts with some taking 2 years,you report to the foreign fleet in Beijing. This is where the fun starts.
Most live in sanqui hotel which is a no star old soviet style military accomodation.Your first tasks are elearning and preparation once again.If all goes well you will receive your CAAC license and medical and then start by going to Shanghai, Sanya or other to do a requalification simulator meaning 4 sessions of 4 hours of which the last session is an opc.Found this to be ok but some have had horror stories.
An American pilot was reported to have been shouted at and then to have been struck in the simulator.He opposed this and it appears he had a shouting match with the instructor and left the smulator.He was fired and nothing happened to the instructor. Chinese first officers say it is normal for their instructors to shout and to strike them not only during training but also in flying.Many say it is improving especially when embarrassments like the one with the American pilot happen.
If you pass the opc you then do a captain check.Your captain check is not like the ones the chinese do but a ridiculous senseless attempt at showing you who is in charge excused as being a high standard.This includes multiple failure no flight director manual flying single engine max crosswind approaches down to rvr of 550 and worse.Do not be surprised if you fly more than 3 or 5 such approaches after each other. It looks aimed at literally forcing you to not cope but you do what you can and sometimes you pass. The story on the ground is that they must fail you once to keep you in line.One guy was failed I heard for adjusting his seat on downwind and he was not the flying pilot.
Once you pass the capatin check, you go online and start with observation flights. Now you are at 70 or 80% of basic plus allowances depending on your contract.You will do no less than 4 observer flights but some have done up to 18 before touching an aircraft themselves. When you start your training sectors, normally anything between 30 hours and 12 sectors to 80 hours and 40 sectors with little logic seemingly used, you can fly right or left. Right seaters in Hainan do not normally fly the aircraft and only drop the gear and flaps.
If you survive this then you go for another simulator check,same as previous capatain check. This you must pass again.If you pass it then you go back online to do a line check of 4 sectors.
If you pass the line check then you will fly 100 further hours with a Captain in the right seat after which they will meet to decide if you can finally be released as a line captain.
This process has taken 6 months for 2 very lucky people but most take between 1 to 2 years to be released and this is on all fleets. During this time you are at reduced salary which is felt and if you work it out you actually lose money in comparison to other companies. Most companies take 3 months to have you on line but Hainan it is between 1 and 3 years from start.
After this
Your job seems to always be threatened here.Pilots are murdered in the simulator in batches. Recently an A330 pilot was failed in the simulator for a small bounce on landing during a low visibility, single engine, flapless approach.No matter he stopped safe and without major issues but the result is that he must now fly right seat ,no actual flying only dropping gear and flaps for 200 hours then get retrained and rechecked. That is Hainan.
You can be on a good run which you never know when it will end but you can also be the target.I do not know of any except 2 pilots who are not always saying that they have made a bad choice.
Local pilots do not want foreigners here and do everything to block them at training level.This is an opinion based on constant talks.It is not professional.
My suggestion?
There are many other jobs in China.If one can chose I would chose the others from what we hear all the time. This was not a good choice.If you are happy to collect money for doing nothing and just being messed around, you can probably survive your contract but be prepared to sit left, right, fly not fly, fail, be a highly qualified observer and more.Then collect your money go home and enjoy home and you will add to the bank but the secret is getting signed out as soon as possible which also requires much ass kissing.
If instead you are looking at a structured professional contract where your experience and skills are appreciated and where things make sense or where you get treated like an adult.Then go somewhere else. The other companies get you online in 3 months and then let you do your thing.
Food for thought that no agent tells you and very very important:
When you start at one company in China you belong to them. Understand this very well.Like if you start at HNA group and you resign they will not release your paperwork to other airlines including your CAAC license and medical records for anything from 6 months to 2 years to prevent you working for the competition. Most do this but HNA seems the worst.One guy recently finished his contract and went to Air China Cargo.He had to wait more than 6 months before being released and earned nothing in that period.He seems to have been lucky.
This means you must choose well in China and expect that you must finish your contract at least or you might as well leave China.
During HNA recruitment you will become non-current as per FAA, ICAO and EASA rules as you will spend much time not touching an aircraft.
Maybe this helps you, personally unless there were massive changes I would have made very different choices.