Are you safe? On Final
I had to think of this to be sure it would be fair. Looking at the latest sim checks and what people are failed for I think as follows:
1.Your contract is at threat every 6 months.
2.If it is not your contract then your position is---a few captains have been demoted for 6 months to first officer with reduced pay because of strange and nonsensical issues in simulators.
3.The contract changes every year and is getting worse financially.That is correct, the latest contracts reduce the financial amount.
If you look at these three only then it makes sense that many pilots are looking for better jobs.
Latest simulator failures---
1.A330 captain- Etops failure after 8 years of operation.
2.A330 captain- given failed brakes on landing.Managed to stop safely and do evacuation on runway but does not know why it was unacceptable and failed.Moved to first officer position for 6 months and reduced pay.
3.B737 captain- argued with instructor for hitting him in simulator.Fired.According to the chief pilot, this did not happen. There were 2 foreigners in the simulator and cameras but if one Chinese says it is so then the view of anyone else does not exist.
4.B737 captain- failed for a not soft landing with flap 1 jam,single engine, 550rvr at heavy weight flying a no fd cat 1 min approach.Stopped safely but not acceptable.
5.B737 captain-entered wrong frequency on nav box before set up and brief.Failed. CRM-----what happened to threat and error management?
This is the type of failure you can expect. Of course there are always ones who make a valid mistake and get things wrong.The problem is it is like in Korean, inconsistent and a survival period with Chinese instructors showing no logic in exercises but only pushing as many buttons as they can to create as many multiple failures as they can.
There is also the known fact that the so called standard given to foreigners is much more complex than the one flown by the Chinese.This is very easy to see in flight and explains why many Asian airlines crash so much.
To finish. There is much more and the simulator practices are really scary and shocking with you thinking that these senior people have not seen much flying in many parts of the world.When you look closer you find out that this is 100% true. You will fly with first officers who have 6000 hours but only 20 landings. They log all time including observation time as flight experience.You fly with captains that have 15000 hours but when you look at how they get those hours it becomes very scary indeed.
My opinion and it is shared by people I worked with.
1.Your contract is never safe-----always have an escape plan
2.Your own safety is very doubtful-------all you need to do is look at how they propose to fly a Cat2 and it is very very scary.
3.It takes very long before you are on line even if you are in the Chinese system already.
Hopefully that helps.Again the good points are-----
1.You do meet some nice people
2.The money is good but except for your actual salary--the rest never seems guaranteed.
3.Commuting is quite easy.
4.Working patterns are quite easy and flexible.
I would say-------
1.For money it is possible but for everything else it is not worth it.You need to decide which one has priority.