Has KAL got better or worse?
Has KAL got better or worse? You can judge for yourself. This information comes from very reliable sources I still keep in touch with.
KAL is still an attractive place for Expat pilots because of the commuting.
The company needs Expats badly but will not accept it, they are in total denial still trying to attract pilots with half true promises instead of paying experienced pilots what they are worth.
The local pilots dislike the expat pilots and have total unsupervised control of the line training and checking.
Mostly everything in their country is done so it "looks good" in paper and at the end it comes back to bite them in the rear
The Expat Pilot group has been in the 400 mark for the last 10 years or more after hiring an average of 12 pilots per month. They loose as many pilots as they hire.
The simulator screening is done by a very inexperienced and malicious group of local pilots, if your procedures are not similar to KAL's then you are not good (for them there is nothing beyond KAL) not long ago a group of wannabes were failed because "they entered a prohibited area" while purposely being radar vectored to it.
Training for TR Pilots is 4+ and for NTR 5+ months minimum without going home at all and on reduced pay (70%).
Pilots are still being sent home at the end of training (if they are not terminated before) when they don't pass the final check with Korean CAA, the trainee goes on the final flight with a local check pilot that is scare ****e of the Inspector and won't do anything for him during the flight because he thinks it will look like he is helping the trainee. Yeah CRM, What's that? Oh yes, something that "looks nice" in the manuals. Recently a very experienced ex KLM pilot got the boot after 5 months in training and not passing the line check.
Making it through training is not based on performance only, if they don't like how you stand up or walk, you are done. Many very experienced pilots have been sent home for very unfair reasons. A really waste of talent.
Once on the line all recurrent training, scheduled and unscheduled checks are spread through the year to keep you under pressure. The latest Korean CAA thing is to audit sim recurrent checks and request to include bizarre manoeuvers in the profile. You can imagine the results, more failures including local pilots.
Flight hours are factored and credited depending on the number of Pilots in the crew, 2/3 for 3 pilots and 1/2 for 4 pilots. Local pilots get 100% credit even if deadheading. You will be scheduled to max hours and not get any overtime.
What they advertise as contract conditions are not all true and some are half true. Here is the fine print.
5 year contract renewable until 65 for Captains,
The renewal notice is sent to you by the agency 2 months before of the end of the contract, there is no assurance that your contract will be renewed until then. There might be a report from an FO or anybody that just didn't like you for any reason. The reporting system is not transparent and they will never give you any details. Can you get a job in 2 months?
Starting recently the renewal after 60 is done selectively and on a one year contract until 65 at a reduced salary. KAL is not the place for anybody that plans to work past 60 and with the pay they offer, well you do you the math.
First class Hotels, in Seoul yes it is a nice Hotel.
Overseas, haha good one!
Generous travel benefits for employees and their family members, what they mean is travel ticket authorisations because there is no assurance you will travel. The tickets are suppose to be confirmed Y sublo C, not true you and your family can be bumped at any time. It happens a lot.
Days off, yeah the 9 plus 2 is what you can take. You can save the extra 2 days and take them later up to a max of 16 days in a row with no back to back. Normally it works fine and you get the days you want because of the factoring you can't be scheduled any more.
Upgrades for FOs, it will never happen. I can't believe they even showed this card. They are getting desperate.
Somebody mentioned in this forum that they have opened the DEC hiring for the A380, why would you like to risk to be unemployed with that type rating if you don't make it through the training and for the money they are offering.
The internal A380 transition course offered was massively rejected by their own expats because of the appalling conditions. The flight time factoring will have you working for half the credit as most of the flights are double crewed.
KAL has become a training facility for NTR pilots that get there and pay their dues to get the experience needed to move on. The sooner KAL accept this reality the sooner they will stop wasting money training people that will leave as soon as they can and failing experienced pilots for stupid reasons.
From a previous post in this thread
"The ME3 pay is lagging, Korean seems to run a lot of people through their company, Turkish and Ethiopian are hungry for pilots also, but don't pay well.
Something has to give. What and when are the million Euro questions, but I would not take a pay cut to take a Korean job.
I believe the companies who rely on expat pilots are going to forced to pay more very soon"
This assestment is bang on the money in my opinion. Hang on where you are, the current situation of these companies paying low salaries and poaching pilots among each other can not be sustainable for very long.
Do you feel like testing your luck and giving KAL a go? Your call.