Best agency is CREW and, no, PARC don't pay $1000 more. I expect the number you're looking at is the salary without the pension (sort of)/savings plan money deducted, whereas the CREW numbers include the 401K. The basic wage is the same, the increments, the experience pay, the accommodation and the per diem. The differences are (1)the medical cover (2)loss of licence and (3)the support.
The CREW medical cover is VASTLY superior to PARC. CREW covers your whole family and with none of the stupid excess payments that PARC has. PARC use BUPA which you would think would be okay but there are plenty of issues in certain countries, including Australia, where a good number of their employees come from. If you want to cover your family with PARC then it is very expensive and really not worth it.
PARC provide LOL, whereas CREW do not. However, CREW now offer an option to purchase LOL and it is a good deal. You are far better off going with CREW and purchasing their LOL. The money you would save over purchasing medical cover for a family would be significant.
None of the agencies is ever going to provide the support you really want because they don't want to get in the bad books of the contracting company and risk losing the deal. However, the PARC guy has got no balls and it showed recently when our scheduling committee guys were looking for support over fatigue issues. CREW were absolute in their commitment to their pilots and sent out a clear, unambiguous email, saying that they would be looked after if they were too fatigued to fly. PARC were asked for the same commitment but decided that people might 'take advantage' and so, once again, did absolutely nothing.
Both agencies seem to pay on time and I haven't heard of any issues like those experienced by some of the Chinese airline agencies.
Once I would have recommended PARC for European and Australian pilots and CREW for the US. Nowadays I would only recommend CREW.....until PARC get their act together and sort out their health cover and support. Seeing as they're getting the same money from AJX per pilot, PARC must be coining it in with the savings they're making on health cover premiums
