China Airlines third time lucky [Archive]

uno cheater

9th Aug 2004, 10:53

Hi

For the third time could we please see some serious discussion regarding interviews with China Airlines.

Please feel free to outline in detail what can be expected in the interview and in the flight check

I would like to see if this topic could survive without being ruined by a few disgruntled employees who enjoy dashing the dreams and aspirations of others.

Please give this one a chance E.P.

Thanks for helping if you dare.

sky330

10th Aug 2004, 09:44

Ok, I will try to be as fair as possible,

Airline is run by locals for locals (What else would you expect as contracted pilot??)

By that I means they are very quick to ask your opinion or advise but nearly never listen to the answer.

When in flight the majority of people is nice to work with on personal level. As a rule taiwanese are very friendly people.
But the majority of locals and some expat (!!) are way below the level required.
Two things interrested the chinese crew and ops, 'money' and "how to avoid being cornerned into taking a decision'.

Promotion is indeed and according a note received a few weeks ago will remained based on "quality". Quality the note states quite clearly is accepting to make work in the fleet office after your hours for free.
Lip service goes a long way.....

Some have had the following career path, start as very junior F/o on long haul, after a few years, upgrade as captain long haul, having 3000-4000 hours TOTAL time with half of it sleeping in the bunk on multi-pilot crew making one landing a month. So flying skill is nil and experience very poor for long-haul captains

The main problem is not that there is no will to improve the airline, but most management guys simply does not know HOW!
The few talented locals have a very hard time fighting the rest of the group.

So as a resume, a nice company to work for on personnal level (pay is quite correct, scheduling as well, altough it tends to change recently with the understaff situation, life in TPE in enjoyable, and people are very friendly) but sometimes a nightmare on professional level (lot of discussion to make ground crew accept the obvious, language barrier with the cabin and ground crew, less so with cockpit crew, but still present, F/O, or local captain switching in 'frozen' mode is you suggest anything that not written exactly 'black on white' in the book ).

Like a CRM facilitator (chinese) said to me, "we will rather loose an airplane than loose face". :{

For the interview, don't worry, if you are an experienced pilot, you really should have no problem. Sim ride is standard, one visual circuit, one ILS,..
Technical knowledge test is very easy.
Medical is VERY complete and quite a lot of people have problem there.