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Old 5th May 2015, 04:22
  #11 (permalink)  
gatorman330
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: somewhere inbetween
Age: 59
Posts: 38
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BCA

i am with bca in sanya, on the whole, everything is good, we have a good chinese manager who understands that the foreign pilots do have different attitudes to the chinese culture of do as you are told. The Base thing... carrot? not really, you usually get based where you want but will end up touring to other bases for a week to 10 days as they are short of pilots in xian guilin and hangzhou for international flights and haikou and sanya for internal flights so if you want to be based at any of these, come on in the water is fine. In sanya they have just started to send us to do international flying to bangkok etc and yes they are deep night flights, red eyes mofo trips, most internal flights are finished by 0100.

The hotels range from average to flea pits, haikou and xian are the worst, we are going there for 4 to 6 days at the moment which is making me rethink the situation!. if you have kids, make that your priority and don't choose sanya, beijing and guangzhou are great for international schools but they come at a hefty price, there is an international school in sanya but lots of complaints as its been hijacked by the rich chinese parents who are demanding changes more akin to chinese schools but you will have to talk to the guys with kids for that info'. My wife is a qualified uk diploma holder to teach kids up to 6 so that might be an avenue to take for the wifey at some stage
The money speaks for itself, BCA couldn't attract pilots and we are expanding very quickly so now they have upped the anty and its paying off as we have quite a few guys joining now and in the coming months, 22 first officers attempted command upgrade last month..2 passed!!!!!
Flying here is frustrating, FL226 on a 2;45 hour sector is not what i am used to.
I took 9 months to get online its a lot quicker these days,that was 3 years ago, probably 4 months now, there was always something wrong with visas licences security checks etc when i was assimilated
Life in sanya is generally good and the guys here are great, a real mixed bunch of pilots and we like to mix with the expats that are here too, they are a good bunch. cricket is played usually once a month(for the yanks thats baseball for men), we had 56 people turned up last week, BBQ beers etc which is a good time to meet lots of the expats
Health care.... hmmm, brand new hospital in haiting bay just down the road but seems to be the same bunch of medical guys using it so hong kong or guangzhou/beijing if you get hurt, once again, if you are worried about health care, don't choose sanya
Sanya is what it is, we like it but we don't have kids and we haven't had health problems... yet!
The sim for selection is a bitch
The medical check is ridiculous
The bureaucracy is... well you will find out
see you all soon
gatorman330 is offline