just wondering, if you have to get out of your contract at anytime prior to its completion how does that work.
There is no bond, which is nice in today's airline industry, but there is a contract completion bonus. If you decide to throw the towel in before completion of your contract then, obviously, you forfeit that bonus entirely. There is no pro rata. Also, if you leave before contract completion then you will not be able to come back. There are those who have left AJX in the past at the end of a contract and they have been able to return but this will definitely not be offered to someone who leaves early. Apart from that, you give the three months notice required of your contract and then go elsewhere.
alternatively, is it possible to bring the family with and get residents visa's for them? i read a couple pages back that there are some guys who have done this by setting up a business. do you know of any pilots on this contract living in narita area with families? is it possible?
Do not rely on rumours, hearsay and what a mate told you down the pub. This is a commuting contract and neither you, nor your family, get any sort of visa once you've completed training. During training you will have a student-type visa and this gets handed in as soon as you're checked out. You will enter and leave Japan on a shore pass, which restricts how far you can travel from your port of entry and how long you can stay in Japan (usually 7 days). I do not know of anyone in AJX who has a business in Japan, far less getting a visa as a result. The only people that I know of who have residential visas are married to Japanese girls or work for someone else, such as SkyMark.
It is possible to rent a large apartment and have your family enter Japan on a tourist visa, however, these have variable time limits (normally max of 6 months) and a mate told me down the pub that the Japanese immigration people are not likely to keep issuing consecutive tourist visas, so expect at least a 6 month gap between visas now and again. Note: a mate told me this, so I can't guarantee it but it does sound pretty typical of Japan. AND.....a tourist visa allows you to visit temples, travel around the place and eat sushi; it does not allow your kids to attend public schools etc. How a private school would view the situation I have no idea but with the big apartment you'd be renting for a family, plus private school fees AND a wife that is not allowed to work because she's on a tourist visa you'd be severely restricted in the Yen you've got left to buy squid for the kids' lunch boxes.
In summary; this is a commuting contract so, after training, you have to assume that your family will only see you when you are on your days off and if they occasionally visit you in Japan (but you'll be working most of the time when they're stuck in your apartment/the hotel). Any other hope or plan is delusional, so
only make your decision to apply for AJX based on the fact that you'll have 10 days off per month, plus 2 commuting days and accrue 2 vacation days per month (that you can 'spend' when you like) and an ability to back-to-back your days off.
While I'm at the keyboard and discussing the points to be decided when applying for AJX, allow me to quell some of enthusiasm in a couple of the 'pluses' being spouted by the employment agencies. The first is command times. True, in the past it has taken as little as 3.5 years to get to the left seat but then we had fewer than 150 pilots in total, a need to attract people because the rest of the planet was doing well financially and an expanding fleet and destination database. Now we have over 250 pilots and an alleged plan to get to 400 (from a bloke who heard a rumour from a guy down the pub), people lining up to apply because the conditions elsewhere are not so good, a stable fleet number and only a mild increase in places to fly.
My prediction is that command times will increase and I further predict that a command will only be offered in a second contract. It is more than likely that I'll be proved wrong, again, but please don't pay too much heed when the agencies 'guarantee' an upgrade after only 3.5 years or so or you may well end up very disappointed. The second point is aircraft types. I know the agencies have been quite vocal in their 'hints' that you'll only be on the 767 a few minutes and then it's off to the 787 and it is very convenient for them that ANA is reducing the 767 fleet and increasing the 787. I do believe we will, eventually, get the 787 but (a)it is not going to be any time soon (think 2018 timeframe) and (b)when it goes get here then none of us and I mean that most sincerely,
none of us knows how they are going to decide who goes on which fleet, what's going to happen to the cargo flying, what happens to new joiners/those who are coming up for retirement etc etc etc. There are just too many variable and if the AJX management don't really know what is going to happen (and they don't) then please don't base your decision to join on the agencies promising you the snake water that guarantees a 787 in the near future.
I am more than happy to be made to eat my words on both subjects but I would advise caution if you're relying on either as a reason to join.