Air Atlanta Icelandic

[yasamsbaba]

DOES ANY BODY HAVE ANY INFO ON AIR ATLANTA... INTERVIEW,SIM CHECK ETC..........THANX:confused:

[dusk2dawn]

1/ Please do not SHOUT.
2/ T+C in Air Atlanta has been discussed in several treads so please enjoy the PPRuNe search function.

[boostsnare]

Send your cv to mountain high ltd for airborn prsonnel ltd.

Good luck

[Atlanta-Driver]

Due to the extreme loss of pilots Air Atlanta has been accepting people through contract agencies for the last few months. This trend is likely to continue.

JAA ATPL or Commercial, speak english, dont ask too many questions and able to get to the airplane without a wheelchair should meet all the requirements :}

Moral has been very low and working conditions bad. Still for a pilot looking to build some jet time fast and then leave for greener pastures, (Mind you that sometimes the pastures really are greener on the other side of the fence) Air Atlanta provides an excellent opportunity to do just that.

Flying is world wide with some of the most demanding airports for a jet as large as the 747.

For the old chap who has retired and wants to work 6 months out of the year Air Atlanta is equally good. As they are so short of people one is in a position to dictate your own schedule.


For the one hellbent on joining, send an email to either or both of the following: [email protected] or [email protected]

Some of the old posts have old info regarding bases, contract and flying are somewhat out of date. Most of the material is still quite valid as you can see how things are done with the company.

Best of luck with the interviews and if lucky enough to get a job, best of luck with the training and flying.

AD

[JJflyer]

Air Atlanta Europe does not exist anymore. The whole shabang was taken over by Excel that the parent company of Air Atlanta Icelandic sold sometime back and is thus not part of the group anymore.

With JAA licence and a right to abode in Europe, no need to join anything even closely associated with Air Atlanta as there are plenty of good jobs around that pay well.

JJ

[Washed Out]

Hi,
Am a current freight pilot contemplating applying to AAI and was wondering if anyone had up to date information on rosters and pay?
I know there is info on ppjn but could anyone tell me what an FO could expect to take home per month?
Thanks in advance,
W.O.

[IGS13]

you will be based in jeddah. you will live in a substandard hotel. you will not have a roster. you will be on standby until you are called to fly 2 or 3 or 4 legs in one duty period. you may end your day at an outstation and then immediately fly as a passenger back to jeddah.

you will be very busy because there are not enough crew. the turnover is extremely high because of jeddah and because there is no chance for f/o to upgrade and because the company continues to lie about contract improvements.

the recruitment advertisement talks of many great bases........but not for you! ask at your interview to guarantee your base in writing.........you will be shown the door! you are being hired for jeddah....commuting not allowed.

[Atlanta-Driver]

Amen

IGS13 is absolutely correct in all accounts.

There is an exodus out of Air Atlanta. Rats leaving the sinking ship ???

[Lostinspace]

Hi Wased Out

AAI pay is around $185 plus $50 pd. Your rooster is not worth the paper it is written on and out of date before ink dries. Leave is unpaid and needs to be booked months in advance and when time comes AAI will tell you it is cancelled due to shortage of crews. Seniority is Icelandics only and not for the slaves.If you upset any Icelandic,be it cabin crew doing jobs not qualified for to chief mechanic with his own hit list, watch your back.

Just like to add there are some really good guys in the company who deserve better.

Take what Jerry Osullivan says with big pinch of salt.(Airbourne)

Hope this helps:ooh: .

[Washed Out]

Wow!

That bad huh? Thanks for the replies, maybe I'm better off where I am.

Cheers.

[Flight Detent]

Hi 'Washed Out'
I also warn you against flying for AAI, I spent some time there, and was very glad to leave!
CR2 doesn't like that statement. Unfair generalisation, they will tell you one thing and report to higher authority something completely different.
I got the company out of a jam a couple of times, saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars (and contract embarrassment!), but no thanks at all, and similarly got the boot when I upset the Icelandic maintenance chief because I didn't want to accept the shoddy maintenance documentation that had been going on.
I've got lots of stories about my time there, by maybe at some other time.
I did my professional part there, as well as I could under the circumstances, and ended up getting the sharp end of the stick once too often!
I should have left sooner!!
Cheers, but don't do it! FD :ugh:

[747flyby]

Air Atlanta is not for everyone.
Air Atlanta has been a jumping for many people to companies such as Virgin, Cargolux, SIA Cargo and Cathay.

It depends what you are looking for.
If you are looking for jet time and widebody experience it might be ok for some time to stay with AAI. When and if you leave do not burn any bridges and then you might be welcome back if they need you, like so many people have done.

If you are looking for a family life and stable lifestyle AAI is not for you.

Lots of people compare their pay and conditions to major carriers.
Like I said above AAI can be a jumping stone to better jobs.

Airborne personell is probably the worst in the industry and they do not look out for your rights and conditions

They don't care if you leave or stay because they do not pay for training new personell.

Actually the people running Airborne are not Icelandic but Brit's and Irish.

Do not expect any fairness from crewplanning. They are always firefighting and just want to get the job done wether its fair or not.
They themselfes are not working in perfect conditions.
They do not get the resources they need and are being treated unfairly themselfes. Also keep in mind that lots of them work for airborne.

However when sitting down in the crewrooms you hear very much about other people problems and then the ball gets rolling and you become a very unhappy person.

We have people who are retired from major carriers and are not used to AAI and some are always comparing to their old lifestyles and still stay.
(Note: some of them still keep benefits and fly home regularly between flights)

You will hear dont trust the Icelandics like in the above BIG STATEMENT. Anywhere you go there are people you cant trust and not trust.

Just join on you own terms and see for yourself. If you dont like you can always go somwhere else with your experience.

Unfortunately I cannot give you advise on interviews and checks since they are changing all the process at the moment.

Good Luck

[Whiskery]

You would be surprised how good life is at Air Atlanta if you stand up to the pr!cks and don't get pushed around.;)

[Gargleblaster]

You can't trust any Icelandic in any way ...

Wow, all 300 000 of them ? Thanks for the information.

[AAIGUY]

see here too
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3207216#post3207216

And like in my post, the Icelandics aren't the bad guys.. its the managment regardless of nationality. There are some very very good folks in Plannning and Rostering there..

[MaxBlow]

747flyby, reasonable post.
Whiskery, a valid point!
It's what you make of it. Fact is that FIA guys (the inhouse union) don't want to have anything to do with you. Understandable, why should they jeopardise their warm nest? They have one of the best deals in the industry
working six month a year getting paid 12 month.
If someone wants to join for whatever reason keep in mind that you'll have no security, no pension, no vacation, no medical insurance (eventhough JoS claims you have it), no benefits whatsoever.
If you go home to see the ones you like you'll be off pay - in fact you are unemployed whenever they buy you a ticket home. That's what Airborne calls vacation!
People are leaving in great numbers because there are other jobs now but JoS still manages to find replacements. If one day he can't find anyone anymore he'll offer excellt contract improvements like 4,75 $ more a day.:rolleyes:
So again, you're probably old enough to decide for yourself.
I suggest you collect as much info as you can before you join to avoid any illuminating discussions with the people in Crawley or up North.
My tip :=

[CR2]

Use it please.

CC salaries/schedules/bitching/praising has been covered on many occasions.

Post new stuff by all means, but those of you asking questions should please use the search function. It works. Guaranteed.

[Ganbare]

If you are single with no kids, have a desire for some of the more exotic destinations of the world, don't mind getting the high-hard one while you're not looking then by all means send in your CV. But don't complain when you don't get home for months (yes, months) at a time. Also par for the course at Air Atlanta is being told your base is changed and you have only a couple of days to tie up your affairs and pack your bags to move, not stopping at home on the way of course. Oh yes, since you've packed for months on the road you need to either pay for the extra baggage you'll be charged by whatever airline they buy tickets on or leave your stuff behind. Air Atlanta does not pay for extra baggage for it's crewmembers.

Unless you're hired as a Captain, forget about upgrading. They hold that over your head so you stick around. Some of the Captains who you'll fly with don't belong in the cockpit - period. It's a horrible place to work. In the world of Crew Leasing/Contract flying it is all the way at the bottom. Take the job at your own risk.

[18-Wheeler]

since you've packed for months on the road you need to either pay for the extra baggage you'll be charged by whatever airline they buy tickets on or leave your stuff behind. Air Atlanta does not pay for extra baggage for it's crewmembers.

My contract allows for up to 20kg excess baggage. Other contracts aren't the same though.



Unless you're hired as a Captain, forget about upgrading.

I was promoted from FO to Captain in 2005. This has slowed of late though, for sure.

[MaxBlow]

There'll be 20 upgrades this year. 100 (!) F/Os left within year, donno how many Capts. but might be quite a few as well. You would expect their management to start to think about the reason for all these departures - but they don't! That's why crews are moving on.

[Flight Detent]

Yeah, I totally agree Ganbare,

But just to put it in more of a reality situation,

I recall enjoying a day off in Paris, at the airport hotel, when I got a phone call to catch a flight to Manchester, a change of basing, but I didn't quite have enough time to take a shower and be able to make the departure time!

Changes in basing were something that could occur at any time, without much notice at all.

Thats what it was like, all the time! :ugh:

[INSIDEVIEW]

Good Morning Gentleman
Would be interesting to get details what happens during the interview.Please
Thank you very much
Have a nice Day

[Utrinque]

The interview is a chat - "tell me about yourself". If you can breathe and are happy with the contract they will take you!

My driving test was 10 times more difficult than the sim - these guys are desperate.

Saw the Ts and Cs and realised I had wasted my time.

[MD12]

Do you guys mind sharing a little bit of your background in order to let us know what the actual requirements are?

Thank u.

[Formally Known As]

Utrinque

Yes they are desperate.

AAI's logic is to cut the salaries to the bone, piss everybody off with lies and half truths etc., etc.. However they have forgotten one thing. They must train the people going coming in the front door to replace the personal that have been screwed going out the back door.

I wander when they will actually wake up and look after the people they already have, then the training costs would be halved (a conservative estimate) and the money saved could be passed on to improve terms and conditions.

[Atlanta-Driver]

They are awake, but just dont care or the information what is going on at the outstations and on the line never reaches the shareholders or the very senior management of the parent company. Or information is twisted to suit those in place to lose most if the show implodes. Probably a bit of both.

AD

[Cruiseclimb]

i was just at a job seminar in Miami, they were hiring guys who would sponsor their own type rating.... If you met the mins and would pay for the type... you got the job.

[Formally Known As]

Oh yes almost forgot

AAI are abusing the hell out of the validation "agreement" of the JAA's. They are issuing validations year after year to persons who are too lazy or incapable of obtaining the JAA license, to fly JAA register A/C, namely Icelandic.

I was of the understanding a 12 month validation was issued on a one off basis by a JAA member state if that person was in the process of obtaining a JAA license by attending a recognised school.

It seems to me the Icelandic CAA are in the pocket of AAI on this issue also.

[Flight Detent]

When I was flying for AAI over a number of years, the entire time was via a validation, renewed each and every year, based on my Australian B747 licence, which was significantly more difficult to get!
As a result of several enquiries, I was finally informed that it was not possible for me to even apply for an Icelandic licence, a validation was all I was ever going to get!
The reason, at least then, was that AAI didn't have to pay me the better salary (whatever that means), when I didn't have the 'real' licence.
The AAI 'management' would never admit as much, I found that out via a connection.

I left them in Jan03.

Cheers, FD :bored:

[rsull]

Are the crews bonded as well as having to pay for their ratings??

[MaxBlow]

Fairly soon there´ll be nobody left to fly the ships. Maybe enough locals to operate their set of -400s.
Still tryin' to figure out if management is blind, ignorant or just doesn't give a thing.

Who am I to have an opinion? :ugh:

No bond as far as I know except for some -400 crews.

[tagdenmedro]

Just to clear things up: I currently fly as F/O for a regional carrier on a TP. have about 800 hours. Would I have a chance at AAI?

[INSIDEVIEW]

when u invited?
i go there may...

[tagdenmedro]

no I am not there yet, but I since I want to get in to long haul I thought it would be a good approach. What sort of experience are they looking for? Ill keep banging on their doors till they hire me anyway

[Mr HF]

Air Atlanta is currently heading in wrong direction,instead of being service minded,and low bidder for contracts,they have a tendency to upset their customers by
means of many factors,and treat the pilots like sh*t,for them U aren´t worth a dime,and Everybody are easy replaced,They are loosing a lot of contracts and soon only one major base will be left,just as it once started.If U don´t like it,nobody is forcing U to work,just quit,after 2,5,10,15 years...they don´t care.
For U, i guess 800tt,and a chest filled with aspiration of flying the ""Jumbo" could be word a chance,but BE AWARE! Pilots are leaving the company and most of them aren´t leaving for a better ship or better pay...they just leaving because they need a social life,desent roster,not a 6on 2 off,but maybe for a 3on,2off.If U have a girlfriend/wife and if u have kids? forget AAI! It would never work,U see,acc to JAR u suposed to have min 7 daysoff at home base,so 3weeks,work 1 week off? Why not 3weeks ON,2weeks off 3 On etc?If U tell Mr Sullivan this,U will practically be permant based in JED.Anyway,keep on calling,sooner or later u will piss them off and they will hire U,and one or two,linecaptains will quit,because they had enough!Good Luck!

[MaxBlow]

A fast sinking ship!

[Formally Known As]

Yes and when it does sink, that wessel in Crawley will ride off into the sunset with half your money.

[Mr HF]

yeah, that´s the name of the game,of course it is writting clearly on the contract."If we don´t get the bucks,you won´t either" in other words if airboneeses don´t get pay by atlantis,they have no obligation to pay the contractor,but airborne is 100%controlleed by AAI,
Funny,just how they protect them self!

[v1r8]

What is the background (total time) of the most recent new hires?
Would they consider Turboprop captains with 2000TT / 1000 ME turb PIC ?

[MaxBlow]

In the past couple of years people have been installed on the the right seat with not even a M/E rating. The 747 rating was their first experience on a m/e airplane. So I guess you'll be ok considering their high demand these days.
Oh, but only if you are willing to pay Jerry'O for the endorsment.

[Whiskery]

With 2000 PIC you will have no problems securing a F/O position with Air Atlanta, but as Max says, you'll need a 747 rating which is for your own cost.

[PicMas]

So next logical question:
How much for the rating? Written job guarantee? Fly max. allowed hrs/year?
Since I have both FAA and JAA licenses, would it be sufficient to get the rating on the FAA??

[Formally Known As]

It used to be that if you had a JAA license they would pay the type rating. If you have no JAA then you pay for the type rating.

[411A]

Seems to me that the poison dwarf should open his own flight school to keep AAI staffed in the RHS.

Perhaps I'm being a tad unfair.
While the dwarf was at Direct, he was quite OK, as I recall.
Clearly downhill after that.

[MaxBlow]

411A,

unfair? Not at all!

PicMas,

written job guarantee?:p :p :p

You know how to read, do ya' ?

[PicMas]

The reason I ask is that it would be a helluva lot cheaper to get the rating on my FAA rather than on the JAA. It would still be without IOE, but the first sectors with a suitably equipped gentleman in the RHS would take care of that - An appendix H rating...

Would like to hear about common experience level for F/O position.

[Maris Otter]

I understand that there is a new head of flight ops in AAI, and that his intention is to do something with the problem of pilots leaving.
Does any of of you guys working there care to comment whether this could give hope for improved t/c?
Maris

[Atlanta-Driver]

Looks like a lot will be done to make it work. More time off with increased salary. No details yet, but I have heard 20 on 10 off type of deal being mentioned, but again these are all AAI rumours and sometimes those are just made up by people wanting to see how fast it takes to the rumour to travel through all bases. Wait a few weeks and something should come out.

AD

[Formally Known As]

If the management learnt to tell the truth it, would be a big step in the right direction.

[Lostinspace]

The new head of ops is an old head of ops who was moved side ways a few years ago. He is the same as Jerry O Springer and lies out of habit. Only there because of family connections.

[Formally Known As]

So what you are telling us is this. AAI have acknowledged that fact that the crews have been ripped off in the past, so to try and stop the mass exodus they have decided not to rip the crews off as much.

[MaxBlow]

yes they have been ripped off big times over the years and now they'll have to pay for it.

The new deal that has been offered must have been a joke.
28 days on / 10 days off - makes you work 6 weeks in two month :D

More are leaving this month and I hear quite a few in June as well.
But no sweat as our american cousins are filling these seats quite happily with a cheap rating from WALmart and fake hours to earn 'big bugs'. :mad:

[Cruiseclimb]

But no sweat as our american cousins are filling these seats quite happily with a cheap rating from WALmart and fake hours to earn 'big bugs'. :mad:

Max.. Where do you get this information? What "Fake hours" are you talking about?

[Flight Detent]

With regard to B747 Classic aircrew at AAI, we never hear anything about the numbers and quality, rates of starters and leavers, for the Flight Engineers.

I've only heard one even mentioned just recently, in that Medina low fuel arrival, but that's the first for quite some time, and that was only a quick comment!

I understand 'big john' is still there, smiling to your face all the time, but how are the numbers going, and with it the experience levels, that remain.
By remain, I mean they stay for at least two cycles.

Cheers...FD...:\

[MaxBlow]

crs clb,
airborne and/or aai never conduct any br-chks nor will they ask for references of any kind.
they started doing it but than stopped again.
we all remember the faa licenced pilot who said he had been capt. on serveral types. he was involved in a tailstrike and podstrike and it turned out that he had been fired from all his previous positions. many trng. capts complained but he stayed on (fake hrs).
of course it's not all of them (sorry for that) but quite a few that cheat on their ttl time to get a jet job in europe and quick command, not only at aai.
but that's probably a different topic already.
HitList,
if you speak up you'll be on a long vacation the very next day!
safe flying!:ok:

[AAI_Operations]

I think it would be like shooting one self in the leg, or even the head, to admit to the fact that I work at AAI Headquarters in Iceland. I have a few comments on what has been said here, it will be interesting to see where this will take us.

First of all I want to comment on pilots resignations. They are a fact, but not to the extent described here. I don't have any numbers available, but I know they are far from being such that they will put the company on the spot. The discussion here on pprune might be what is causing the flood of applications, I'm told that the human resources department had to allocate one person to go through the pile. Having said that I admit that the majority of the applications is from pilots with less than 1000 hrs total time and no jet experience. That is not what AAI is looking for and those pilots need not apply.

Secondly I want to comment on the working conditions. The first thing a pilot has to realize when working for AAI is that AAI is not a scheduled airline. Rosters change, even every day! This is due to the fact that the airlines buying flight hrs from AAI change what they require AAI to fly for them. If for example a customer gets a cancellation on a big load that he planned to move on his aircraft, he will right away cancel a flight with AAI and allocate his fleet to move what AAI was meant to move. Then the customer lands another deal to move something, first thing he does is to call AAI and tell them that he will require their aircraft to move the load. AAI is working with the "over flow" from other companies, therefore it is impossible for the company it issue rosters and have them stick for the 15 or 30 days they are issued for. If pilots, who are on base, find this unacceptable, they are not working for the right company. I know that many times the operations department is having problem with pilots that don't want to accept a roster change. When they finally do so they call it a favor to the company. Is flying airplanes when you are a pilot, and you are getting paid for it, a favor for the company you work for or is it called doing ones job?

Third issue. Many times over there has been talk about the Icelandic pilots and their salary here on pprune. I'm not going to comment on any figures but would like to point out that Icelandic pilots have to pay between 30 and 40% tax of what they earn. Other pilots usually don't pay tax as Jerry and co pay through some off shore accounts. In total the Icelandic pilots take less home per month, but they also work less. Net income per flown hour is about the same, might be in favor of the Icelanders, but not to the extent that it should be the problem it is.

Forth. Limited resources to the flight operations department is a big problem. The company has for many years believed that too few pilots is a good thing. Who can agree on that?? We hope that the new VP of Flight Operations will change that. I've heard that he is planing to hire a bunch of new pilots, lets hope he does, it will ease the pressure on pilots and ops staff.

Number five. I saw someone comment on the proposed on/off system and called it a joke! The new VP of Flight Operations is trying to change the environment pilots work in. The first thing he does is to have pilots work 4 weeks and off for 10 days (please note that this is still just a proposal, nothing has been confirmed yet). It used to be that the pilots worked when the company was in high season, then they went home and came back when the business bloomed again. Now the company isn't experiencing as much of low and high seasons as it did, so many pilots find themselves being stuck on base for months and months before being able to go home to their loved ones. So what is wrong with this proposal? Keep an open mind to things that might be good for you, if you are not happy make sure you criticism is constructive. A positive voice is rather heard than I negative one.

Although I'm more on the positive side in this post than negative I should mention that I, as so many other, have negative comments about the company I (we) work for. But we are all hoping what things are getting better with new management, therefore I don't want to focus on the bad things, except when trying to fix them.

I could go on for quite some time, but I think that this is enough for now. I hope I get some comments from you guys, but please note that i will not answer rude or unfair comments or remarks. If you want comments from me be polite please.

Edited: Paragraph spacing.

[mutt]

AAI_operations,
Are AAI IOSA certified?
Mutt

[AAI_Operations]

I'm sorry, I have no idea. I can see on the internet that this is an IATA thing, but AAI is not an IATA airline.

[mutt]

So that means that if you are operating for an IOSA certified airline, that airline is responsible for ensuring IOSA compliance?

Mutt

[AAI_Operations]

I would not know. You know that AAI is mainly flying cargo aircraft?

[mutt]

You know that AAI is mainly flying cargo aircraft?

Not in our case, you are flying humans.....plus i think 1 cargo aircraft...



Mutt

[AAI_Operations]

Then you are talking about Saudia. I don't know enough about the contract made between AAI and Saudia to comment on this, nor do I know enough about this approval.

[mutt]

OK so let us look at Saudia Flt 2250, it finally landed at its destination with 3600 kgs of fuel.(B747 TF-AMJ).

What procedures do you have in place to:
1: Record that the flight landed with below minimum fuel.
2: Discovered why this happened?
3: Advise the lessee why this happened.
4: Implement corrective active active to avoid recurrence.

Mutt

[AAI_Operations]

I guess that answers to these questions will be given by my boss to your boss, not from me to you here on pprune.

[mutt]

Ha ha, good answer.......

Yes the answers will be supplied outside of Pprune....


Mutt

[Atlanta-Driver]

IATA Operational Safety Audit for those in ops, nice to know you see. Or if one does not know something, using an internet search engine can do wonders.

[MaxBlow]

AAI ops,
read your post and have a few comments.
Resignations
Wouldn't it be easier to improve T&C's to prevent crews from leaving and spend enormous amounts of money rather than to train new crews over and over again that will also just stay for short periods ?
AAI is not a scheduled Airline
Very true! But this doesn't mean that crews have give up their lives to be available. Day to day rostering has it that even off days disapear and people can't plan anything. Everybody has a private life and it is of course a favour to the company if a crew member goes to work on a rostered off day! In fact this day should be paid extra as well (just like it is for permanent crews).
Icelandic taxes
Fact is that everybody who lives in Europe has to pay taxes somewhere in the range between 20% and 45%.
Keep in mind that contractors have no benefits at all and are paid in U$D with no compensation whatsoever.
Limited resources
Get the required resources - hire professionals, pay their price, fairly simple.
I wish the new management luck quite some work ahead. Maybe things improve for all contractors but management has to wake up now!

[AAI_Operations]

Thank you for your post MaxBlow, I feel that you are very factual and I'm happy to see that.

I'll go through your reply and answer every comment you made.


Resignations
Wouldn't it be easier to improve T&C's to prevent crews from leaving and spend enormous amounts of money rather than to train new crews over and over again that will also just stay for short periods ?

T&C's are being improved with the new the rostering system: 4 weeks on / 10 days off. I hope that will help, but I think that a part of the problem (why crews are leaving) is that the moral is not good enough. Management could help fix that and hopefully they will, but first they have to see the problem and I don't know if they do.

In regards to conditions alone I think that if you compare pay between AAI and other operators in the same field, AAI is not as unfair as some users here on pprune say they are. By browsing through www.ppjn.com you can see that, but I think that AAI could improve in that field, and hopefully the will. Everything happens in small steps, but sometimes they are too few and too small...


AAI is not a scheduled Airline
Very true! But this doesn't mean that crews have give up their lives to be available. Day to day rostering has it that even off days disappear and people can't plan anything. Everybody has a private life and it is of course a favor to the company if a crew member goes to work on a rostered off day! In fact this day should be paid extra as well (just like it is for permanent crews).

Crewing tries to keep changes on rosters to a minimum. Off days should never disappear from your roster, you get a minimum of 7 days per month, if you don't, talk to the Manager of Crew resources. There are rules about this and everyone should adhere to them, if somebody is trying cheat on you he will assist you.

Rostering is not done on a day to day bases, except in Jeddah. SV is constantly changing our schedule so there is just no way that a roster can be issued for 15 days and kept. I think that Rostering has been issuing these rosters with stand-by days and days off. You should only be asked to fly when on stand-by, not on off days.

Favors have been done by crew members, of course! But a roster change is not a favor. If crew members can not accept that their roster will change they are not working for the correct airline. I'm not encouraging anyone to resign, I'm just pointing out a simple fact.


Icelandic taxes
Fact is that everybody who lives in Europe has to pay taxes somewhere in the range between 20% and 45%.
Keep in mind that contractors have no benefits at all and are paid in U$D with no compensation whatsoever.

True and not true. As said in my earlier post payments are made to an off shore accounts (or where you ask for it) and because you spend more than half the year away from home you don't pay taxes at home (EU rule I believe). I remember a few Danish guys that left the company because they couldn't go home every 4 weeks to claim their benefits, I don't think they were paying any Danish taxes.

In regards to the benefits; I know that AAI crew members don't get any benefits, but why don't the contractors form a union and demand them? Last year some guys tried to unionize contractors within AAI, but their first action was to strike! How stupid was that? Fist make a union, have everybody join it and then do something. Don't have crew members say if they are in our out by forcing them to strike on the first day if they want to be in. Needless to say only a handful of guys participated in the strike.


Limited resources
Get the required resources - hire professionals, pay their price, fairly simple.
I wish the new management luck quite some work ahead. Maybe things improve for all contractors but management has to wake up now!

Yes, it is fairly simple. But lets put it up like this: You are the Manager of Crew resources and you say to your VP of flight operations: I need 50 pilots for this job, that is the absolute minimum! Then the VP of Flight Ops says: well, then you only get 30! This has been one of the biggest problems within AAI. Hopefully this will be better with new VP of Flight Operations and a new Chief Pilot. They have already started hiring more pilots and hopefully that will help.

And yes, agreed, the management has to wake up! It might be too late tomorrow!


Having said all that I would like you AAI guys who read this pass a message on to your colleagues: If you are unhappy don't bitch about it for the 8, 10 or 12 hrs you are flying. If you are unhappy just write a polite e-mail to HQ in Iceland and say why you are unhappy. If you don't get a reply send it again and again and again until you get a response. Send it to Human Resources, send it to Manager of Crewing, send it to VP of Flight Operations, send it to the Chief Pilot and send it to the CEO! Too often guys go on without saying anything, except to each other or at the most the poor their s**t over some poor ops staff which don't deserve it and can't do anything about it.

I'll let this do for now, I hope you got your answers MaxBlow :)

[Lostinspace]

A flight deck commitee would be a good start with members elected by line flight crew. They would represent the flight crew on all matters.

Also an end to the laying off of well qualified crew because someone in engineering or operations does not like them. If the company has a professional problem with someone the crew member must have a chance to defend themselves. This would mean the Chief Pilot and Chief flight engineer would need to be involved to help the crew not yes men for the company.

All bases should be shared fairly no matter where you are from including Iceland. If you do a term in Jeddah then you should have chance of a base elsewhere.

It all boils down to management in Iceland respecting ALL crew members.

Good luck to all.

[Formally Known As]

AAI_Operations

Lostinspace could not have made it clearer than that. I suggest you take heed.

[AAI_Operations]

Thank you for your post Lostinspace, here are my answers for you. Don't hesitate to shoot back if you feel my answers aren't adequate.

A flight deck commitee would be a good start with members elected by line flight crew. They would represent the flight crew on all matters.

That is a good idea!

Also an end to the laying off of well qualified crew because someone in engineering or operations does not like them. If the company has a professional problem with someone the crew member must have a chance to defend themselves. This would mean the Chief Pilot and Chief flight engineer would need to be involved to help the crew not yes men for the company.

Well... They had something that they called "a Forced Vacation" 6 months back. That was due to low demand of flights and unfortunately necessary so the company would survive. But I don't think you are talking about that. When I think back over all the years I have been with AAI, I can only think of two lay-offs where I thought the company was unfair. I guess you guys know of one F/E who got sacked recently, he is one of the unfair ones. Too often pilots have been allowed to go too far before getting laid off. In all cases except in those two I can think of they were well passed their expiration date.

I would have to admit that I would sack 10 or 12 immediately if I held a position to do so. The vast majority of you guys are great, but there are always some that do not belong...

All bases should be shared fairly no matter where you are from including Iceland. If you do a term in Jeddah then you should have chance of a base elsewhere.

True, but some of you guys are so f***ing pushy, threaten to quit, not take a flight and so on... of course they get what they want... and the nice quiet guys don't get what they request. Some might understand this as a hint that they should behave like the others, but it is not. Please don't! I'm not quite sure, but aren't all Icelanders just based in Iceland?

It all boils down to management in Iceland respecting ALL crew members.

True, but do you feel they don't? If you are going to say that they like the Icelanders more you are wrong. It is just that the Icelanders have a union.


I would also like to thank Formally Known As for his post.

Lostinspace could not have made it clearer than that. I suggest you take heed.

I would if I could, but I only fly a desk equipped with a dual monitored computer and an IP phone. The pioneer in a pilots union must be a pilot.


That is all for now :)


p.s. a closed forum for AAI employees might be a good idea, that might be the beginning...

[Formally Known As]

Fair enough, at least you are taking it in.

I think I know who you are...oh yes i dooooo... You're Jerry O'Springer!! Oh yes you are.

How was that for a guess?

[AAI_Operations]

I think I know who you are...oh yes i dooooo... You're Jerry O'Springer!! Oh yes you are.

How was that for a guess?


hahaha... that is a good one :) but far from being correct :)

[rsull]

Firstly I do not work for AAI but I may have a few suggestions that could help.

At the company I work for we do not have a union. We used to have a pilot body that was elected to negotiate with the company on behalf of all crews on issues that effected the pilot body and individuals. That didn’t work so well as when the group didn’t get what the other pilots thought was fair the negotiators were sometimes very harshly criticised and a few even left the company. This created a division and extreme stress in some of the crews for a small gain in T & C’s.

What we do now is pay an Industrial relations lawyer to work on our behalf. Captains pay about $600 and FO’s about $400 per year and that get us a year of his service. We only have a small pilot group and as the company grows and hires more and they join then the costs per member goes down. He has achieved lots more and we have more than covered our costs with increased benefits and conditions. There is no stress to the pilot group, and we have professional legal advice an all matters. He has negotiated our contracts and recently added productivity bonuses.This works really well for us and from what I have read I think it will work well for AAI crews.
We also setup a group forum. The only ones with access are our Lawyer and our pilots.

This is easy to setup and once it is setup then the work required from the pilots is minimum.

Good Luck

[paddy in the east]

I have a few friends who worked there a few years ago, late 2004-2005. I have to say, if what they say was true, AAI has to be the worst place in the world to work.

Spoke with someone who just went for an interview in LGW and met the new Chief Pilot. Not very impressive. Job was offered, and job was turned down. No ability to commit to any base or days off. Doesn't seem like things have changed at all.

[Jerry O Springer]

Hoi all my little cash cows! Oim joost back from anodder o me leetl vaccations to d'Beloovid Emerald Isle. Da BIG difference is lads dat Oi'm gettin a joocy sloice of all yer wages all d'while. Dats whoy I Loove you all so much and put so many years in settin oop all these creative contracts. Clever words and lots of rewards for the boys! Its You Oi'm thinkin of Lads, aal d whoile, You!
Now, since last toime I set all yer restless moinds to rest and terminated the few spoitful leetl sinners causing civil oonrest der, it seems dat inexplicably, some trecherous agents of d Devil have got into Riverdeep, airbourne rats Mountainhigh upyerdrainpoipe and back on the books of this perfect agency agency of moine.
Now as you can imagine dis causes me throat to toighten wit a loomp of emotional sorrow for meself (And you good lads who assume d position wit no protests) Dats the esteemed position of an AAI contractor wid the special place in heaven reserved for ye.
Rest assured lads Oi'm gonna clean out the agitators and restore d loovin peace dat AAI is famous for.
ITS YOU OI'M TINKIN OF LADS...ONLY YOO!!!!!!!!!

[acmi48]

as an aaic acmi user .. have not had any negative feed back from the pilot community flying on our contracts

[Atlanta-Driver]

Y dont moan about internal company problems to the customer. That would do no good as the customer is hardly responsible for the actions or conditions the ACMI operator or their crewing company choose to impose.

[Yobbo]

4weeks on - 10 days off Typical of AAI, good idea but not quite right! How about 4 weeks on - 2 weeks off?

[AAI_Operations]

rsull said:
What we do now is pay an Industrial relations lawyer to work on our behalf. Captains pay about $600 and FO’s about $400 per year and that get us a year of his service. We only have a small pilot group and as the company grows and hires more and they join then the costs per member goes down. He has achieved lots more and we have more than covered our costs with increased benefits and conditions. There is no stress to the pilot group, and we have professional legal advice an all matters. He has negotiated our contracts and recently added productivity bonuses.This works really well for us and from what I have read I think it will work well for AAI crews.
We also setup a group forum. The only ones with access are our Lawyer and our pilots.

Good idea. This is something that AAI pilots might want to look into, I'm not going to encourage it :)


paddy in the east said:
I have a few friends who worked there a few years ago...

I think the key is to share what YOU have experienced, not pass on hear-say.


acmi48 said:
as an aaic acmi user .. have not had any negative feed back from the pilot community flying on our contracts

A pilot that was talking negatively to the customer about the company he works for should be fired! It is as simple as that...


Yobbo said:
4weeks on - 10 days off Typical of AAI, good idea but not quite right! How about 4 weeks on - 2 weeks off?

Now what is wrong with this? If I can count with my 10 fingers it seems to me that they are offering 10 more days then pilots had before!! What is wrong with that?

[MaxBlow]

Just got back from a trip and heard that more guys sent in their resignations.
Capts. & F/Os

As I am counting the days (35 to go) as well I'd love to see some improvements for my future ex collegues.

AAIops said,

'Now what is wrong with this? If I can count with my 10 fingers it seems to me that they are offering 10 more days then pilots had before!! What is wrong with that?'

This is still 11 off days less than others and still 7 days more work for less money. Nobody ever asked for a FFF or FIA contract but this offer is simply not reasonable.

As for the 6 month out of the home country (the EU rule you mentioned), already history for a number of years now (used to be 189 days).

People are drawing a line because nothing is changing - nothing!

oops - only 34 to go:)

[v1r8]

AAI operations -

Thank you for coming to this board. I appreciate your input.

AAI drivers -

Do you guys live at base (ie: LUX/Jeddah/FRA etc etc) or do you guys airline
from your hometown to your base (LUX/FRA/Jeddah) on day 1 and airline back on the last day of your tour?

Also, how much deadheading do you guys do?

Do you have any ZED fares/ ID75/ ID90 deal with some airlines to get to your homeland/hometown on your days off if you live on base?

Appreciate any input.

Regards,
V1.

[AAI_Operations]

Here are answers to my good friend MaxBlow.


Just got back from a trip and heard that more guys sent in their resignations.
Capts. & F/Os

That is news to me. Have you got any names?


This is still 11 off days less than others and still 7 days more work for less money. Nobody ever asked for a FFF or FIA contract but this offer is simply not reasonable.

Well... as I said good things are happening. Did you expect that new management would change the contract deal to an FFF deal over night? You guys can't stick together (union thing), because of that you will have to except what the management hands you...


As for the 6 month out of the home country (the EU rule you mentioned), already history for a number of years now (used to be 189 days).

I would like to ask you to show us some numbers. What is an Icelandic FFF F/O and CPT getting total and net in comparison to a contractor?


People are drawing a line because nothing is changing - nothing!

Now how can you say that? You know that things are happening!


Thank you for your comment v1r8!

[18-Wheeler]

AAIO - would you be interested in hearing some of the real-world stuff that goes on?
I'll PM them, I would not air them in public.

[AAI_Operations]

Yes please.

[MaxBlow]

AAIops,

if you're ops 'only' (as we're contractors 'only') how comes you know everything better?

Why should everything that you write be actual fact and all we know is rumours only ?

In my years of service for AP and there single client operator AAI I figured
that you guys (up north) actually really believe that your pooh doesn't stink.

A bit funny though.

I believe that you're just hiding behind this nick name and you're either a guy high up, one of the agency guys or the guy that just recently resigned from his position 'cause it was getting too much to handle and as a reward for this he placed himself on the -400s ?!?!

Whatever it is, fact is the guys are leaving for many good reasons, no input, suggestion or letters are answered or appreciated and that is why you've to constantly hire (and fire).

That's it for me, pm me if you want to say something- I'm happily serving my notice period.:)

Period!

[Ganbare]

This from AAI Ops dude...

"Well... as I said good things are happening. Did you expect that new management would change the contract deal to an FFF deal over night? You guys can't stick together (union thing), because of that you will have to except what the management hands you..."


Funny, I heard the same thing except that was 3 years ago. "New management" and "...things are happening..." are phrases you guys keep on using to keep the suckers at their posts long enough to get some more cash out of Saudia and Garuda and the like. I am so glad I realized AAI's line of bullcrap in time to move on, although I still kick myself for sticking around for the 1 1/2 years I did. You're speaking the same old lies all over again. Don't anyone believe this guy.

[AAI_Operations]

Dear MaxBlow,

I belive we've covered our topics, if we continue we'll start repeting ourselfs. :)

Have a nice day :)

[Earl]

Hello AAI Operations
Are you for real or just trying to get information as to who people are posting the problems here concerning AAI?
A few years ago crews tried to do something about this and stand together in KUL remember that?
We trusted one Captain to present our side, he threatned industrial action, none of us knew about this until after the fact.
So everyone involved was punished in one way or another.
What about all the crew members that refused to operate against the MEL"s and FDT that complained and nothing ever happened.
Some worked there for many years and helped build the company, when they had enough they left.
Now they are the bad guys.
AAI needs a whole managment change, from the chief pilot on down.
Lots of good dedicated people have left because of this comply or goodbye type thinking.
Every single one of us would have done anything for this company, but when we did break the rules it set a new standard, before long we had no standards at all, it became anything goes as long as they can cover it up.
So what has changed?

[jack red]

but when we did break the rules

You're a brave man owning up to that statement on a public forum Earl.:suspect:

[Flying Guy]

A lot of old grips about the company are coming out here and I don't blame you guys. However, don't lay those hard feelings at the personal doorstep of the AAI operations person who seems to be trying to have honest dialogue with us. Who knows, he may not have even worked here three years ago, Earl.

If we shoot this messenger he will go away and we have lost an opportunity to get valuable information from him, and to have POSITIVE input to the guys in AAI operations in this informal forum.
I personally have seen some improvements here in the last few months. For instance, I am now called and asked if I will work on a day off rather than just getting notice of the trip shoved under my door. Conversely, we don't get any overtime pay for working on that day off.

THAT needs to change!

The pay here is pretty decent, but you have to be willing to spend long periods away from home. If you have a family, this isn't the place for you unless you get a fixed base contract.

I intend to write more later in this forum but there are some things to like about working for Air Atlanta as long you understand the deal. The checks always come on time and there are a lot of good guys here with tons of experience. We tend to be bashed by outsiders who don't have a clue about the quality of our cockpits. We do some of the hardest flying in the world at Air Atlanta. We go EVERYWHERE, with all the attendant problems of borders, politics, fly-over permits, hotels good bad and ugly. Half the controllers we talk to barely speech English. But we do it and we do it well, in my opinion.

More later, just don't shoot the messenger, okay?

[VS1711]

You can't be too hard on the AAI ops guy, if he's up in Iceland there's every chance he's doing his best under tough circumstances and he doesn't know any better anyway. I'm more interested in this "Strategic Review".....they're up for sale?

I guess from Eimskip's perspective it makes good sense since Atlanta represents a lot of potential risk with all those contractors around the world working for the mysterious Airborne Personnel. Who owns them again? :}

[Mr HF]

another money laundry icelandic bubble company or Cathay Cargo,and they will automatically integrate all contractors below 60,into their seniority list,and of course all commanders get direct leftseat.....

chi,chaye,I dont think so....

-most prob. another icelandic money laundry company......

[AAI_Operations]

Earl said:
Are you for real or just trying to get information as to who people are posting the problems here concerning AAI?

I don't know how to prove who I am with out giving my name


A few years ago crews tried to do something about this and stand together in KUL remember that?

No, sorry :(


We trusted one Captain to present our side, he threatned industrial action, none of us knew about this until after the fact.
So everyone involved was punished in one way or another.
What about all the crew members that refused to operate against the MEL"s and FDT that complained and nothing ever happened.
Some worked there for many years and helped build the company, when they had enough they left.
Now they are the bad guys.
AAI needs a whole managment change, from the chief pilot on down.
Lots of good dedicated people have left because of this comply or goodbye type thinking.
Every single one of us would have done anything for this company, but when we did break the rules it set a new standard, before long we had no standards at all, it became anything goes as long as they can cover it up.
So what has changed?

We will have to hope that things are changing as they are promising...


Thank you for your input Flying Guy, it is much appreciated.


VS1711 said:
You can't be too hard on the AAI ops guy, if he's up in Iceland there's every chance he's doing his best under tough circumstances and he doesn't know any better anyway. I'm more interested in this "Strategic Review".....they're up for sale?

I guess from Eimskip's perspective it makes good sense since Atlanta represents a lot of potential risk with all those contractors around the world working for the mysterious Airborne Personnel. Who owns them again?

My theory is that the company has already been sold. In yesterdays paper Icelandair says that they might be interested. If Icelandair will buy in the next couple of weeks they were just announcing this to comply with rules of the Icelandic stock market. Lets see how this will go :)+

p.s. Ask the correct questions VS1711 and you will get the answers you look for.

[VS1711]

Thanks for the input AAI Ops. Interesting to think Icelandair might be the buyers although there's some logic in them seeking to consolidate. Another rumour is that Atlas are interested.

So what's the right question in your view?

[Atlanta-Driver]

Ok. Now anyone with money to invest and in their right mind would not touch AAI with a 12 foot pole. The company is in abysmal condition and chances that it can be fixed without huge layoffs and house cleaning with a firehouse in Iceland are slim to nil.
You want names AAI OPS. News for you here: Many of the people that have jobs elsewhere have not resigned yet or have not told the company. Yes I could give you names, but let's rather play a game. Leaving the F/E's alone that do not really have options, everyone with EU passport and JAA licence with experience that is employable in Europe is looking for or found another job. AAI is and will be a home for people that are inexperienced or on the Icelandic contract or otherwise unemployable.
How many guys and gals left AAI between January 1st and end of February. 3Captains that had all been with the company for 4 years or more and several First Officers. (Not counting the F/E's)
Flying Guy: Your posts have started to annoy me to an extent. A good salary. As your initials it is a total load of BS. Take the rose coloured glasses off and have a look. The salary from AAI with the USD/EUR exchange rate is CRAP, garbage really not even worth entering a discussion about. But then again over 60 guys dont really have an option where to work with a non JAA license.
Personally I took a 35% paycut since joining AAI. Not a pretty picture.

[Double Wasp]

Thanks for the information folks it all helps.
AAI Ops, a page or two ago you mentioned that you were getting flooded with CV's from guys that did not have sufficient time. Could please indicate what the minimum time requirements are. I have the stuff off of the website but what is the company actually looking for with respect to times. Does command on a Turbo-prop over 20000kgs count for anything or is jet time required. If it does count how much is necessary. Any info in regards to time requirements for both Captain and FO would be great.
With regards to pay there was a note at the start of this topic of 185 plus 50 perdiems. Is this Captain's or FO's salary. Which ever it is could the other be given here as well.
Thanks DW

[AAI_Operations]

Thank you for your questions Double Wasp.

According to FOM minimum requirements are 500 hrs. but I know they want to see guys with AT LEAST 1000 hrs., turbine experience is a must.

Please refer to www.ppjn.com for pay.

You seem to have what they are looking for, have you applied?

[Double Wasp]

AAI Ops thanks for the response.
The website you gave has some good info but it is dated 2004. Is it still the same pay or has it changed at all?
No I have not applied yet. I am still on a bond for a few more months and I don't want to break my word if I can help it. There is a couple of other possibilities that I want to explore where I don't have to pay for the rating first. I am not saying that these guys are the last resort but if I can get away without having to pay why not.
I do have one more question with regards to obtaining the rating. Do they provide this there and you give them the money for it, or do you have to go get it yourself somewhere else? And what is the going rate for a 747 type endorsement these days anyway?
Thanks for all your help.
DW

[AAI_Operations]

Yes, I think this is still the going rate.

Regarding the rating: they will provide it for your free of charge. I don't know the going rate of the rating, but I can't imagen that it is cheep. :)

[Double Wasp]

Thanks for the replies. Do you recommend applying direct or through an agency?
Is there a website for Airborne or is it just send an email and hope for the best.
I will be looking for something else once my comitment is done and I thank everyone for the information given both positive and negative. It all helps.
DW

[AAI_Operations]

They prefer the applications to be sent on line: http://www.airatlanta.com/index.aspx?groupid=72

Good luck :)

[Atlanta-Driver]

Any applications sent to AAI will be fwd to Airborne to Jerry O'Sullivan for screening so you might as well sent it to him direct. AAI does not hire directly nor do they offer direct employment for pilots except the 75 to 80 some that are on the FFF/FIA contract.

To get in touch with Jerry and for employment opportnities with AAI, try [email protected] or [email protected]

AAI is still looking for people and will be in the considerable future.

[Formally Known As]

The above mentioned jobsworth is not quailified to do anything, least of all screening aircrew. God help you all.

Why would anyone want to board a sinking ship????

[AAI_Operations]

Thank you for your input Atlanta-Driver. Please note that Jerry does not do crew selection for AAI, we do it ourselves. The contractors are not employed by AAI, that is true.

Formally Known As - thank you for your input, you've made your point. Why these sour comments? Did you get laid off?

:)

[Formally Known As]

AAI Operations.

"Why these sour comments? Did you get laid off?"


No I laid AAI off as I could afford to. Saw the writing on the wall very quickly as I wasn't wearing rose tinted glasses.


If the sour comments make just one potential applicant think twice about joining AAI my work has been worthwhile.


My complaints are not about the money so much as I signed a contract with my eyes open. The contract did not state I had to put up with lies however. Lies?? Yes and I have the correspondence to prove it.

Do you like being lied to? No I don't either.:=

[Ganbare]

I agree with "Formally Known As". AAI has a lot coming to them, if "what goes around comes around" is valid they have a whole lot of negative energy pointed right at them.

[AAI_Operations]

I don't think there is any actual bases for your comments, my suspicion is that you are ex-employees that were terminated for some reason. I will therefore not honor your comments with further replys. Best of luck to the two of you.

[MaxBlow]

AAIops,

seems to be a common problem in HQ that nobody can take and handle criticism.
It is very important though to take every input very seriously whatever direction it comes from. This is the only way for you guys to improve in the future.

It has been said in here many times (even you did) that there's plenty of room for improvement. As hard as it may sound at times - a company can only
be as good as the management that runs it!

No hard feelings - but even guys that still work there are not very happy.
Now how about the employee survey in Iceland only (!) why not include the contractors (remember how many we are).

Would be a good way to get some ideas for improvement.

[BadApple747]

I'm not sure how useful it is to say that AAI Ops have a lot coming to them since a lot of the management have changed since the worst abuses took place. Having said that, the crewing is still fundamentally unfair when you have a small proportion of pilots working on much more favourable terms than the majority and this is probably the biggest reason that AAI leaves so many of it's crew with a bad taste in their mouths when they leave. To add to MaxBlow's point, listening to the contractors instead of branding them whingers would help people understand this a lot better.

[mutt]

I will therefore not honor your comments with further replys.

What an incredible attitude :) AAI started operating for us about 14 years ago, attended many enjoyable evenings in Rose Village, heard too many stories about the inner workings within AAI to disregard!

Mutt

[Atlanta-Driver]

"I will therefore not honor your comments with further replys"

The arrogance of the few and privileged is unreal. It shines through with just about everything. They actually really think they are better than the rest of the world. Reminds me of a certain European nation from the 30's

[Formally Known As]

AAI Operations

".....ex-employees that were terminated for some reason......."

Although your grasp of the English written word is quiet good I think you are getting confused between terminated and TERMINAL DECLINE which is the case at AAI. You have just demonstrated, albeit unwittingly, one of the reasons why.

[Dread at de controls]

It appears the Peter Principle is still well entrenched at AAI (or should I say Petersson). "Les abrutis n'ont rien compris".

[AAI_Operations]

Constructive criticism is a good thing, but a comment like "AAI has a lot coming to them" or "Reminds me of a certain European nation from the 30's" can hardly be regarded as such. I don't want to put the effort into answering posts that are mainly innuendos towards AAI, from people I don't even know if they have ever worked there, I have better things to do with my time. But if there are people out here that want to have mature discussions, I will particiate, no problem.

Atlanta-Driver
Formally Knows As
Ganbare
MaxBlow
2bad2sad (I name him because I saw a reply from him this morning which has now been deleted)
18-Wheeler
Earl
Flying Guy

For those of you that work, or have worked for AAI, I have the follwoing project, I hope you will participte:

List 10 things that you think will improve Air Atlanta. Also name 5 things that are good and you are happy with or were happy with.

Others, former or current employees of AAI, are also welcome to participate.

This will be interesting :)

[Formally Known As]

AAi Operations

Fair enough I'll tee off.

I was employed by AAI, for a short period between 2000 and now. I am not going to be more specific than that.

On the positive side I thought the training and checking was done in a relaxed and fair manner by the instructors I was rostered with. As has been said before there are some fine and clever personal employed by this company both permanent and contractors, people that worked hard and tried to improve things for all of us.

The rot in the "management", in my opinion, was deep seated from the chief pilot(s) on up right through to the VPFO. I included the CP's as they were company "men" and they should not have been. Also in this wide swipe was at least one person at mountain high, which was then, and probably still is AAI and HR. During my brief incarceration at AAI I witnessed some of the most accomplished lying, blatant examples nepotism and abuses of power as I have ever seen. This cancer was at the top and filtered through and the only cure IMHO was to axe the lot of them and start again with a complete lot of new management. The crews had no person to go to regarding grievances except management and this was wrong!! The CP'S should be balleted. Also as has been pointed out before, having a 2 tare pay structure for doing the same job is the quickest way to destroy moral amongst the troops I can think of. It has never worked and never will sustain a happy work force. Not referring to yearly increments etc. but to T & C's between the "elite" and the contractors. Maybe this was part of the plan to destroy moral.

It is the old story if you don't like it and it can't be fixed then leave and that is exactly what I did. Would I go back in the most unlikely event I was asked? NEVER!

[MaxBlow]

Include the contractors in the employee satisfaction survey and you'll get
800+ ideas to make things better!
If I would go back again once fnished? No, thank you.

[Flying Guy]

You asked for suggested improvements.

At present, we receive our monthly roster just two or three days ahead of the month and then are only "guaranteed" the next 15 days. That doesn't allow us to plan practically anything! This is particularly hard for fixed base contractors with families who want to schedule family events.

I would like to see us receive our roster by the 20th of the preceding month and the roster be "good" for the month, not just 15 days.

Now then. the most important thing in the roster is the scheduled days off. They should be set in concrete. I frankly don't care if scheduling changes my trips to different destinations at different times during my working days. I fully appreciate that the scheduling in ACMI requires constant re adjustment due to ever changing customer requests. But make it a mission to give us our days off WHEN THEY ARE SCHEDULED so we can plan our social life.

To do this I assume will require more crews to be available, a problem right now with all the events in progress at Air Atlanta. But you asked so there is my suggestion. Better quality of life and more security will result in better crew retention. :-)

Since there has been no much negative input over the last few pages let me add that I like working here. There are a lot of good guys here (gals too) that fly and maintain these airplanes who give their professional best. And when Miller time comes around we have some really good times.

[Flying Mechanic]

I see you are Dubai based, how easy is it to join AAI and get a Dubai base?
cheers FM

[2Bad2Sad]

Lets see, pens with no ink for log book descrepencies, willing to look the other way for technical issues, perhaps a law degree twisting the MEL/DDPG.
Could be you mate, have what it takes?

[Ganbare]

AAI Ops: I too was former Air Atlanta and ended up quitting, not fired. I didn't quit for another flying job but rather a non-flying job, a testament to how much I didn't want to be there. I too tried to change things for the better in the hopes I could keep flying there, at least until I was recalled at my airline. After 18 months of things not only not changing for the better at AAI but actually getting worse I declined yet another base move at your behest and opted to pursue another line of work. I won't give my name in open forum here but you can contact your friend Jerry O' Sullivan, he knows my handle and real name. He confronted me after I posted a negative remark on the forum accusing him of lying, I answered him with my real name.

5 Good Things:

1) Breakfast is paid for by Air Atlanta when staying in a hotel

2) Training and PCs are straightforward with no BS. I realize this is a double edge sword however and some pilots who otherwise would not pass the training end up getting through. But overall the training is fine.

3) I'm still in contact with some of the friends I made while at Air Atlanta, good friends. We were all in the same sinking boat together which made the friendships that much tighter.

4) Air Atlanta paid for travel between base and home. Granted it was like pulling teeth getting the "vacation" in the first place, but once the decision was made to grant vacation Air Atlanta took care of the expenses.

5) At the time it was very difficult and I didn't want to be there but flying with Air Atlanta allowed me to see areas of the world I would never have otherwise been able to go to. Now keep in mind I kept my head pretty low in some of these places as most of the natives wanted to kill Westerners but nevertheless it was good flying experience. The Excell flying out of the UK to the Caribbean was especially rewarding.

10 Bad Things:

1) AAI needs to instruct it's contact company Mountain High...or Direct Personel...or whatever it's called these days to tell the truth when hiring pilots. I originally took the job with certain things in mind and would NEVER have taken the jobs had I known certain things were the actuallity (see items 2-10 below). If you guys were truthful from the get-go you would almost certainly have fewer takers but the pilots who did sign a contact would go in with their eyes open rather than being blindsided by some of the shenanigans taking place. In other words, Stop Lying To Prospective Pilots About The Realities Of The Job!!

2) The time away from home is quite simply too long. Even the worst companies in the US keep their crews on the road only up to a month or so. Before I left AAI I managed to get a new contract stating I would be guaranteed 2 weeks off in a row at home for every 6 weeks I was on the road. But this was after a year of never really knowing when I would get home. The only way to get time at home was to simply say, "I'm going home". Every request for "vacation" was turned down. Requests didn't work, only statements of what I was going to do.

3) Stop calling it "Vacation". It's time at home not vacation. When you don't pay for the time it's not vacation. Reference item #2, whenever I had too much and said I was going home it was off salary. The end result was I couldn't go home but once every 2 months or so or the salary I did receive wasn't enough to pay the bills. It's hard thing to have to choose between seeing your family or staying in some dirty smelly nasty place in the world to pay for said family.

4) In general you guys have to realize that the pilots are in fact human beings who have lives and families. The minute you realize that, things instantly improve for the pilots who remain at Air Atlanta. If you cared as much about the real people working for you as you do the cash you recieve from your clients the moral would improve and pilots would stay certainly longer and maybe for good. Even if you as a human being don't actually mean it, if your policies indicated you cared about us we would stay there. Stop treating pilots like one of the airplanes and start treating them as real people with lives and families!!

5) The contract companies who hire for you need to be under tighter control. They need accountability for their actions. When the office screws up your pay and then shrugs and says, "There's nothing I can do" how about some accountability? My pay was massively messed up on at least 3 occasions. Each time Air Atlanta pointed the finger at JO's office. Each time JO's office practicaly laughed in my face at my plight. Don't you dare shrug your shoulders and say it's their fault. You know as well as I do that that company is AAI's company.

6) When ordering a pilot to change bases, how about paying for his excess baggage? You know we are packed for months on the road, when you then buy us a ticket on the cheapest carrier to move us to the new base we are often hit with big charges for our bags. If the base move is at your behest it's only fair to pay for our stuff as it's you who mandate being on the road for such a long time in the first place.

7) A greater ratio of time home/time at work. Again reference item #4, unless you want to pay for our entire families to come to where we are in the world there needs to be more time at home. This item might be better in the #1 position as it was always of prime import to myself. I'd have been much much more willing to go to these places for AAI had I had recent time with the family. The recently submitted post by you of a proposal by the company for more time at home is still a joke. Why can't you get it through your head that only 1 week at home after 6 weeks on the road is simply not enough? It's not enough, it's not enough, it's not enough! As soon as you realize that fact WILL NOT CHANGE, then and only then can AAI start bringing realistic proposals to the pilots. So you have to pay more (paying for "vacation" time for example"? You'll be more inline with other companies out there.

8) Your contract company needs to be a little more selective about who it hires. Certainly I flew with some top-notch pilots, but at the same time I flew with some guys who had no business whatsoever being in the cockpit. If you actually hire some of these 1,000 hour pilots that have been sniffing around this message board (Oh God, have you already?) you are setting yourself up for big problems. I was hired via an email, no interview, no sim check, just an email with travel arrangements to LHR. You can't tell me that's the way to hire quality pilots.

9) Rosters are not worth the paper they are printed on. I realize ACMI is a business where it helps to be ready for the changes. But again referencing item #4 we needed at least a minimum of stability. If you want us to work on hard days off you need to realize a need for premium pay to compensate for the disruption. And you need to ask, not order a change when a day off is involved. You would be surprised at how far a little niceness goes.

10) Upgrades should not be held above an FO's head to get him to stick around. A command is a great thing and many of your pilots are sticking around because they were promised an upgrade. It's very transparent how AAI states command will be on such-and-such a date and then recinds it or delays it time and time again in order to keep someone around.

Overall I would say that AAI doesn't have a chance of staying in business unless it drastically and quickly changes it's ways. I stick by my statement of "AAI has a lot coming to it". AAI needs to own up to it's past and change it's ways if it has even a small chance of continuing in business. Please don't take this as a threat, I don't have a dog in this hunt anymore. It's a simple observation from personal experience. Don't go storming off all mad with a shrug and thoughts of yet another disgruntled pilot. Had I not had good intentions I would continue to warn pilots away from AAI and not try to give you an honest appraisal of the situation that is apparent to all the pilots but up till now not to the management of AAI. It's a tough thing for someone to tell you to your face that you've been bad and you need to change. Be adults about this, take this in the spirit it was given.

Regards,

[VS1711]

Ok here’s my five good and five bad. I’ll start with the good;


A lot of good low-time guys got their start with AAI. To echo Ganbare’s point the company isn’t sufficiently discriminating about who they hire but there are guys who’ve deservedly benefited from that and grown into accomplished airmen (as well as quite a few scary people who have been and continue to be a major liability). Where it works well you see a new guy spending a lot of time in the company of a seasoned pro who’s paid their dues and when it falls down you’ll see a new guy sitting next to a guy who’s washed out of every respectable company that’s ever let him through the door or is only in the seat because of his nationality. Neither of them really know what they’re doing in that instance and it’s a miracle the company hasn’t had worse incidents.
In times when the industry was stagnant and pilots were out of work, AAI was hiring. Unfortunately much of the HR department lives in Iceland and pay very little attention to the hiring market so they still act like the entire profession is on the breadline and should be grateful for the work. In fact it's largely greenhorns and the unemployable who take work on that basis now.
If you can take the working conditions (uncertainty, time away from home, low pay) working at AAI can still be a great experience. You wouldn’t want to do it for too long though unless you’re willing to basically live out of a suitcase all year round.
The conditions of work are such that you build great friendships working at AAI (with your peers, the management prefer not to mix with the working stiffs and the quickest way to stall your career in AAI Ops to be perceived as being “too close to the crew”, which points to the underlying issues).
To a large degree the management has changed. Unfortunately the insular nature of Icelandic management is such that I get a sense the new Icelanders are only listening to the old Icelanders and no-one’s asking the difficult questions like “Why do we have such massive churn in our crew?”, “Why are our training costs so high?”, “Have we looked at the cost (expressed as churn and training costs) versus the benefits (evaded tax and lower crew costs) of treating our crew this way?”. Let’s not forget AAI loses money. Ok now the bad. I don’t need five points here.

The company has a two-tier system for employing pilots. Airborne crew are on significantly worse terms than the others. These irony is that these are the guys who are the most flexible and keep the whole shebang running.

Calling employees “contractors” was reasonable when the company started because contracts were short term and the company virtually shut down between them. The ACE way of working allowed the company to be flexible about hiring crew and it allowed the crew to maximise their earnings from uncertain work. Continuing to work that way and worse yet to impose these rules on “unfavoured crew” based largely on nationality when the company has long-term contracts is unfair, anti-competitive and could be seen as large-scale tax evasion.


Leaving Airborne out of it for now; if you pay for people’s training, give them credit for tenure and promise them advancement based on experience gained within the firm (thus creating implicit pressure to conform to practices that they perceive put their licenses at risk and compromise their independence), hire them contiguously for long periods without explicitly breaking and re-signing the contracts, pay their travel to and from your bases and communicate directly with them on matters such as the transfer from ACE to Airborne you employ those people.

Coming to the matter of Airborne, by forcing your employees to work through a shady intermediary to evade corporate responsibilities you marginalise those crewmembers. All crew should have the option of being on the firm’s books as employees or choosing to remain contractors and enjoy the tax efficiencies. Yes your personnel costs would go up (although hiring professionals to manage the process might give you options you didn’t know you had to offset cost) but you might find your training costs stabilise, you retain the people you want to retain and while there will always be guys who think their lives would improve if they didn’t pay tax, you’d have the option of deploying them to tax-efficient bases. You’ll also start to offset the risk that a tax or AML authority somewhere will look for and find the rumoured link in beneficial ownership between Airborne and AAI (past or present) which could lead to very severe repercussions for everyone connected.

So there’s my suggestion. Bite the bullet and acknowledge that your most valued asset, a lot of dedicated people who go the extra mile, are a true asset. If you’re losing money year on year anyway you need to mix things up a bit.

[Formally Known As]

:D:D:D to the above. Well put.


The fact that AAI's problems are being discussed in this manner, at all and in public, points to enormous communication problems between management and staff. If this thread doesn't not get through to them, they either have big b*lls, are extremely stupid or thick. If the management had any pride and decency whatsoever they would resign.


I sent them a letter of complaint before I finally decided to kicked them into touch. Guess what? you guessed it, no response. Oh they received it alright don't worry about that.

[BadApple747]

Nice thoughts VS1711, but have you considered that if there are salaried people in AAI with vested interests in Airborne then they will actively seek to drive as much revenue through Airborne as possible even if they know there's a risk to the firm as a whole?

This is particularly true if AAI is, as many say it is, in decline. If I were in that position with a near monopoly position on a client in terminal decline, and with no other clients or real prospects of getting any, I'd milk that cash cow for all it was worth while I could. It's a bit of a conspiracy theory, but not implausible is it?:eek:

[Mr HF]

But,as the fishhead says...what are u thinking about????
(he may be german,but acts like a icelandic to me...)

anyway,guys and girls
The boat is def.sinking.I will eat my dirty 7hrs (k.l-dxb) socks if they manage to progress.
A lot of promix and visions,but how could u run a company when key mec.are quitting one by one?
We could ventilate and ventilate....
Any news on the 4/2?
Se U !

[MaxBlow]

did you see the Euro08 group match yesterday ?

SWE - ISL
5 - 0

uuhhh these beers tasted really good!:}

[Atlanta-Driver]

Yes I watched the game. It was beautiful. But the again Swedish players could have been blind amputee grandmothers with a speach disorder and still win. It was pure slaughter. :}

[BadApple747]

AAI Ops has gone a bit quiet. I hope he didn't march into the CEO's office with a mission statement based on our suggestions. He'll be on a plane to an outstation by now:E

[MaxBlow]

...He'll be on a plane to an outstation by now...

I think AAIops probably got a new roster full of VACs (or should I call it 'temporarely unemployed until they decide that they maybe might want to use you again but only if you're really nice').

AAI has to face facts and deal with their various problems. Whatever AAIops is trying to say, I know of more people who're leaving - they just don't tell them. And right they are!

[canadair]

I was going to write a wordy tome on my take on the pro`s and con`s of AAI,
then I realised,

no one cares,
most of all, me

[GlueBall]

Hello boys 'n girls. Interesting thread, but don't feel isolated with YOUR management woes. The condescending managers at CX have a more sinister attitude, as evidenced in a recent posting in a Fragrant Harbour thread

"...If I remember correctly you had many more pilots in the club in 2001 and again if I remember correctly you voted over 90% in favor of industrial action. Less than 10% carried it out and we terminated 5% of them. The pilots now have less club members after many hundreds of pilots joined the company. Yes much has changed since 2001.

"If the HKAOA announces a “work to rule” campaign, we will select a few pilots that step out of line. We will run a D&G and will find those pilots not acting in the best interest of The Cathay Pacific Group and will be terminated immediately.

"At that time, all of the pilots will be running to save their own self as in the past. Do you actually think you can get the pilots to report sick or on a so called strike until those pilots get their jobs back. I think we been through this before and the pilots lost and WE won. In that context, nothing has changed or will ever change.

"We have all pilots living in fear of losing their job. In most cases we put a letter on a pilots P-file and that is usually enough. If not, these pilots are called in to speak to a Manager about the situation i.e. not flying the freighter, not reducing rest, not using discretion, not answering the phone, sickness management, etc. The pilots at the Cathay Pacific Group are very intimidated and that is what the 49ers situation has created.

"Do you expect The Management of The Cathay Pacific Group to believe there will be a rebellion of the pilots?

"We have some bad apples still in the pilot group and you seem to be one. Most pilots now work in favour of The Cathay Pacific Group through intimidation of course. We still have many pilots willing to help out OUR Company in whatever way Crew Control/Managers will ask of them. Our Flying Pilot Managers are only too happy to intimidate the crew, it can be very subtle, call to the office, or very harsh, with the threat of a D&G procedure. That is what we pay them for.

"We have read all the literature before about “union that they deserve”. It does not work here.

"We must admit, in 2001 we thought we may have another 1999 on our hands but by firing the 51 pilots that effectively ended that sort of behavior in the pilot group. Many pilots still flew even though we threatened them with a sign or be fired. Many signed the critical mass list within the first few hours. We know the character of the pilots and that will not change.

"If you would like to leave for any of those companies that you have mentioned, leave. The Cathay Pacific Group is still the best career job, if not the only career job, in Asia and most other parts of the world. Yes we will lose some to the UPS’s and Fed Ex's but that is only a token few. There are always pilots that cannot get hired with these companies or are too old to return to their home country to start over. We have most pilots where we want them, obedient and poor.

"We have a list of all owner occupiers and most have expenses in their home countries We know most pilots are over extended in the financial situation and cannot afford to lose their jobs. If one cannot afford to lose ones job, then one will follow in the best interest of the company i.e. as mentioned above. How many can do without housing allowance for a month?"

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[Flight Detent]

GlueBall...

That really reminds me of the management style when CX took control of Air Hong Kong, though AHK had a couple of CX "managers" in place before the actual takeover.

Needless to say I left shortly after, about a year, CX took control!

What an ugly reminder that was!!!

FD...:mad:

[Formally Known As]

GlueBall


That letter from CX "management" made ugly reading. This will continue of course as crews will never stick together. Employers and management know it.

[MaxBlow]

Where are you? You asked for inputs and got plenty. The least you could do is to say 'thank you guys for your suggestions' - that's so typical.
Just ignore if a dicussion touches your comfy zone.:D

15 and counting!

[AAI_Operations]

Hello guys,

Sorry for my late reply. There has been talk at the office about this thread so I could not let them see me browse pprune. Then when ready to answer the first posts I had to go abroad for the company. Sorry again guys.

I've read the inputs from A to Z. The most interesting thing in my mind is that I asked for "10 things that you think will improve Air Atlanta" (and the 5 good things of course) but the replies were generally "10 bad things". I think this says more about the attitude of those who answer (towards the company) then what they say in their answers. It makes me sad.

I'm sorry I will not be able to answer all these comments, but I will take them to the operations department, and if I can I will use them as an input into our work. I know this will help, it will just take some time.

For now this will be my last post. My inputs has not proven to be the positive influence I was hoping for. I even think that I have done more bad than good, opposite to my intentions.

Best of luck to you all and happy flying :)

[MaxBlow]

Good to see that the survey is being sent to everybody by now.
I hope that everybody participates to give HQ ideas on how to improve worklife with/for AAI.:D
A little to late for me though...:ok:

[747flyby]

Unfortunately few years back present management in AAI was replaced by Islandsflug management with the merger. They had plans to make life more bearable for everyone in AAI before being able to see their plans through.

Now they are back.

Among cost cutting measures to save the company they will do their outmost to make life better for all of us.

As we all know the company has been for sale for a while and Eimskip the owner with a major shareholder onboard are not interested in keeping it afloat any more. Its like they have lost interest in aviation since their plans did not work out.

It is sad to see companies who have been built up on a dream gets taken over by sharks where they take all the valuable assets and sell them and leave the business as leftovers on the plate.

There is a big group in Iceland with a branch in London called FL group.
Their money came from breaking Icelandair into sections like the Hotels, Bus company etc and sell everything. Iclendair had lots of reserves in their funds and they took that as well. Then they sold the airline.

This is unfortunately happening all over the world in all busines sectors.

Then the biggest owner buys himself a business jet and lets his lossmaking company pay for the fuel.

God help us all.

[BelArgUSA]

Why such criticism of AAI - Nobody has valid points.
I have many good points for them...
xxx
(1) I was hired as captain in the first group of AAI 747 crews and arrived in JED with the two 747-257Bs they operated from APR 1993. We all were current 747 and most of us had flown previously for Saudia ACMI contracts. AAI never had operated 747s, so far they had operated L-1011s and 737s... I stayed with them until JUN 1994, at that time I got a furlough notice, but they were fast to recommend me for a captain position with Cargolux for a 6 month captain contract on their 747-271Cs. A good point for AAI. :D
xxx
(2) The salary, during the contract in JED 1993/1994, for captains was, give or take a few dollars, exactly the same as the pay for a new contract when I got rehired by AAI in Crawley (by Airborne) in JUN 2004. AAI did not reduce the pay for 747 crews despite the increase charges and reduced revenues. Indeed another good point for AAI. :*
xxx
(3) To my surprise, AAI date of hire on my new ID card was still showing APR 1993, and even gave me my original "very senior" ID number (not that it matter at all to be senior or not with AAI). Good point, AAI, thank you. :bored:
xxx
(4) I had passed my 60th birthday a few months prior to rehire, and did appreciate to be told that they valued my experience, and that the age limit did not apply on some contracts, and that anyway, a limit of age 65 was soon to be observed by ICAO. Thank you again, AAI... ;)
xxx
(5) I have to admit that the recurrent and base training was outstanding and well done by AAI instructors, yet only one other captain was current and qualified on 747 as I was, in the class of some 20 hew hires. Since I was current, I was selected to be the first to take the base simulator check, after a brief training, all completed early JUL 2004. Well done, AAI... :ok:
xxx
Well, the storm was coming. Little of the above had anything to do with Airborne, and Airborne's coordination with AAI offices in Iceland...
xxx
We had wet ditching training in a swimming pool near Gatwick, and I helped a flight engineer who could not swim, to board a raft, and hurt myself. I was not aware I had sustained a hernia. The hernia was diagnosed at the JAR medical and my JAR first class was denied until hernia surgery completed. :(
xxx
The end/JUL early/AUG period was spent to try to obtain Airborne and AAI authorization for surgery. But everyone was vacationing, nobody could be reached. Finally, authorization was obtained from Iceland in late AUG and was performed in Brussels hospital. Again, good point nº 6 for AAI, they recognized their responsibility for my injury in wet ditching training, and advised the hospital that they would pay for surgery. Good point AAI... :sad:
xxx
After surgery (3 days in hospital) I waited in a Brussels hotel, my surgeon had cleared me to report for work by mid/SEP. Also got same OK by the FAA medical examiner, and new FAA 1st class medical. I waited in the Brussels hotel until mid/NOV to be called for line training. There was a total break of coordination between Airborne and AAI, and who is to pay what and how much, as I was running out of funds in Brussels. At the end, as per contract, I was owed US$24,400 for medical incapacity. :{
xxx
My line training got awful, no briefings whatsoever, the check captain telling me "big airplane, do you know" - "No, this is not the way to taxi" - For God sake, I had nearly 5,000 PIC hrs in 747s and numerous Atlantic crossings - He informed me "how great BA is" - Should I have mentioned that ex-PanAm pilots did not always agree to BA's opinion or procedural styles...? I recall some 20 negative remarks by that pedantic clown, from push-back to line-up on the LGW runway on the very first sector. There were 6 sectors performed in these conditions... I should have demanded another check-captain upon return after the second sector. :eek:
xxx
Sure, FAA and JAR/CAA standards might be slightly different at times, but through my career, I always refered to FAA rules and procedures, and never failed to satify check captains, no matter what airline or country, FAA or not.
xxx
By mid/DEC 2004, Airborne notified me of suspension of my training. There is no doubt that the US$24,400 owed was one of the grounds, which they never paid. Their official excuse was, that during my medical incapacity, I did not hold a JAR licence/medical as required for the contract to be valid... :\
xxx
The outcome would have been completely different, if all had been under direct control of Iceland, and not being pointed to another person or office in charge of my case, from my injury time, until training completion. I had suffered nearly 6 months of inactivity, hotel rooms, numerous phone calls, and email messages (150 pages) during that period of time...
xxx
So AAI/Airborne or whoever, thank you for wasting 8 months of my life. :mad:
One day it was "no, Iceland has to take care of this"...
The next day, it was "no, you are Airborne employee, deal with them"...
xxx
Besides all that, AAI has excellent points, I recommend them to all of you, and problems equal to the ones I had...
And I did prefer the Kandahar, Rose Village or Al Bilad, to Crawley...
xxx
:)
Happy contrails

[MaxBlow]

As the saying goes - no news is good news.

Lots of changes in the pipeline according to some ex-collegues.
JED is the main base for everybody joining these days with a -400 leased to Saudia as well.

The outcome of that company survey showed how disapointed crews where and gave management alot to think about.

Best of luck to them all from a much greener side!

:ok:

[punkalouver]

So what is going on these days at AAI?

[BeforeStart]

I too would be interested in knowing what´s going on at Air Atlanta?

What kind of roster patterns do they currently offer? Is there any hiring going on?

[Earl]

Sorry things have changed there ,I worked there L-1011 and 747 from 1998-2004.
But we had good ones in command.
People like Olie Smith and such made the wheels roll everyone was happy.
But they were a small company back then.
Any problems were handled like freinds not like a business and the company made money.
We flew had a good time,,was paid on time every time.
Jobs like that are hard to find now.

[Earl]

I flew with them on FAA and with Icelandic validation.
Not sure what they require now.

[breakadjuster]

I flew for this company some 5 years ago, their standards leave a lot to be desired, my lasting impression was as a 747 Flight Engineer when the f/o was being converted to a Capt.
If you think you control speed in the climb with the thrust levers is OK, and ignore decision heights during a ADF approach, using large amounts of bank during the final phase of approach , unstable speed in the last 200 feet OK. and losing control of the aircraft during a 3 engine shut down is OK then,.............. having nothing said by the instructor who then signed his paperwork for the conversion to the Left hand seat this is the outfit for you!!
I advised my operations department that I would refuse to fly with him if rostered,
He was pushed out to the Cargo division of the company

[JammedStab]

Can you fly for AAI if you do not have a JAA license?

[Willit Run]

Hey TT,

"It always amazed me that more 747 freighters aren't demolished amongst the third tier operators (not just AAI) - the most incompetent aviators I have come across have been on Jumbo freighters, but no-one seems to care... "


Maybe you're making the job harder than it has to be. If it truely was that difficult, wouldn't you see more accidents than you do ?
Were you one of those "incompetants" on the Jumbo freighters??? Just askin????

[NSC]

end of discussion: Aviation Safety Network > ASN Aviation Safety Database > Year > 2010 air safety profile (http://aviation-safety.net/database/year.php?year=2010&nature)

how many pax planes are underway per year and how many cargo? me thinks percentagewise the cargo part of flying has the higher BB/K

[Tommy Tilt]

Recruitment for Air Atlanta continues to be exclusively via Airborne Personnel in the UK. You are only paid on the days you fly or are available to fly. You must also accept that you can be paid anytime up to the third week of the following month. There are numerous clauses in their contract which allow deductions from final pay. Read each word of their contract before signing. Airborne Personnel certainly do not have a reputation as one of the better agencies. This may be due to the fact that from the same office they trade under no less than three names;- Airborne Personnel, Mountain High and First2Resource.

[homerj]

Hi , has anyone info on the recruitment process and the sim check these days with air atlanta?
Thanks

[ErikJohansson]

I dont understand the Air atlanta roster. Some says 4 week on / 2w off, other says 6 weeks on/ 2 weeks off and I also heard 3 weeks on 3 weeks off? Any one how knows?

[Wireless]

Likewise to , I'd be grateful of any info re interview/sim etc.

Thanks

[ADY]

Has anybody got an invitation for assessment recently?

[TRIKLOP]

I had, it was fun but still haven't got a clue if I'm in or not.:ugh:

[jumbojet]

Me too!!!!!!!!!

[Wireless]

Anyone heard anything??

[jumbojet]

All on hold. dont know why? Something must have changed. Anybody heard yes/no?

[TRIKLOP]

some of guys got no, I received app under consideration but no data when,what or will it be. Well that's just the way they work, they were talking about ground s. apr,15 and somewhere in may...maybe they just lost their section in april and still havent got a new one in may........just maybe :rolleyes:

[Chicken Arrows]

ANYBODY RECEIVED AN INVITATION FOR THE ASSESMENT FOR THE A330 CAPTAIN POSITION ? My application is still 'under consideration'...........

[blue_thunder]

Helloo
I am trying to find out more fresh info about that company ,assessment , terms and conditions and also do U know if JED is the only real base ?
I ll appreciate any information or a clue to follow
Thank you in advance

[TRIKLOP]

Still under consideration ...

[TRIKLOP]

B747-400 Type Rating Course (TRTO) with Airborne Personnel Ltd | 473427 (http://www.aviationjobsearch.com/job/473427/b747-400-type-rating-course-trto-/?utm_source=jbe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2013-03-13&ProcessedTrackID=319973)

Experienced B747-400 Captains and First Officers with Airborne Personnel Ltd | 473426 (http://www.aviationjobsearch.com/job/473426/experienced-b747-400-captains-and-first-officers/)

A330 Pilots with Airborne Personnel Ltd | 472752 (http://www.aviationjobsearch.com/job/472752/a330-pilots/)

Btw as much as I know jeddah is the only base (beside paris( a340))

[EW73]

Terrible, absolutely terrible place, btw are those camel statues still standing at the roundabout on the way to Rose Village from the airport?
(Though I'm not really sure I should be using upper case letters when referring to rose village!)

Very, very glad I'll never ever see that place ever again, ever!

[jack red]

Had some very enjoyable times at Rose Village. The restaurant was great and having the library next door it was a very civilised transition for some after dinner relaxation. Pity about the Hungry Jacks near the yacht club!

The swimming pool area was excellent and some wonderful friendships made with the nordic dolls of Air Atlanta.

BBQs with a bit of home made red wine and tasty steaks from the supermarket.

Paradise !

[matkat]

Indeed also enjoyed my time in Rose village, don't recall having any red wine mind:ok:

[TRIKLOP]

Hope I will enjoy it too, just starting course on monday :)

[flaps22]

Rose village ?? There hasn't been a rose village in 8 years, y'all going over to Azzam. Where's that ? hope you enjoy it. :{

[matkat]

Flaps was aware of that, I was there in 1995:)

[flaps22]

They were still talking about Rose village when I left last year, must have been pretty good there. Mind you, I spent a lot of time at the Al bilad, by the sea. My second home for many years :ugh:

[ADY]

Triklop have you got the confirmation for the groun school on May 14?

[ADY]

TRIKLOP check your PM

[goran75]

B747-400 Type Rating Course (TRTO) with Airborne Personnel Ltd | 473427 (http://www.aviationjobsearch.com/job/473427/b747-400-type-rating-course-trto-/?utm_source=jbe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2013-03-13&ProcessedTrackID=319973)
Did anybody get a call for this assessment?

[Chicken Arrows]

Does anybody know when are the next 330's supposed to come if any ??

Thks

[grounded27]

Air Atlanta flight attendants saved my bored butt during Hajj. I was stuck in a hotel they were on a compound on a golf course.

[Scott_T]

Hi All,

I am considering applying for this position via the agency confair, could anyone let me know what the actualt roster is like i have seem lots of different examples, also roughly how much money you get at the end of each month and on average how much time you get at home each month???

any help greatly appreciated

[Earl]

Back many years ago when Olie Smith run the show AAI was the best.
Rose village has been closed for many years.
AAI was always good back then.
Problems I seen progressing was the flight attendant managers they slowly installed into crew management positions.
Trolley dolly would try and force you do what they were never qualified to do, such as flight plans duty days etc.
Doubt there wlll ever be another Ollie.
Best manager they ever had.

[Concernemployee]

Air atlanta kets you work like slaves. No benefits whatsoever. No job security as they enforce the so called forced vacation. Off base and you have no pay. Not for a career guy with a family to feed. Looking also that they pass the IOSA but they they are not keen on the human factors issues. E.g. Fatigue, overwork, straight duty for crew and ground staff. All precursors of a big accident. So goodluck if you join this wretched airline,. Airborne and mountain high sucks too.mworst agency ever

[alby2000]

Just few personal thoughts on the subject. Air Atlanta is one of the largest ACMI operators with basically one only big customer in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

They have been in business for more than two decades and one of the reasons is their capability to adapt to a very harsh environment with constantly changing priorities. Their secret recipe is a bit of Icelandic "can do" attitude, their stamina, all mixed with the contractors' flexibility.

The permanent staff are on a different contract and they need that to support the operations in times of low season. When things pick up, they call the mercenaries back, which allow the company to inflate and deflate as quickly as the Customer requires. It is not really their fault, it's really the nature of the operation they run.

Sure I agree the company lacks a bit of human touch, but on the contrary you know from day 0 that you are only a contractor and what you see on the contract is what you get with no surprises. In more than 2 years with AAI, I never had to chase them once for money.
On the contrary and in no particular order, Training, destinations, manuals, ground staff, accommodation, IT they are excellent and all go in the plus side for me.

The only reason why I left was job stability as I needed a more steady cash flow and could not afford the ups and downs of the contracting job, but I have only good memories of my time there with still lots of friends also among the Vikings.
Just my two cents on the topic.
Alby

[Sop_Monkey]

Surly AAI have a Chief pilot who has the t:mad:s to stand up to bulling management. A chief pilot that is doing his job and standing up for the interests of all the pilots. From your post, it appears not. Maybe the so called "Chief pilot" is just another management puppet, masquerading as a chief pilot. In my day a chief pilot was just that, looking after the interests of the pilots and protecting them from a lot of the BS you have described. If he couldn't then he resigned the "post".

[valKilmer3481]

Gents,

am in contact with AirAtlanta, they don´t say much but it might come a "chance" to get hired in Jeddah - i got a few questions:

-is the crew on a 4weeks on and 2 off or is it 6/4
-is it true that there is no payment during the off period
-for transition from A 320 to A 330 is it payed by the Crewmember himself or is there a bond, for how much is that, or how long is the bond
-Do they upgrade the FO´s?
-do they just work on Wet Lease and are they all the year over based in Jeddah
-is the crew based in a hotel or do they have to look for their own appartement
-how many flight hours can you expect to fly during one year?
-is the flight from and to work payed
-how much can the FO expect salarywice
-finally, how is the interview, where and what is asked

I read there are some other posts from AAI, but some of them are outdated or i can´t find them, if my questions are answered somewhere please PM me where to find.

I didn´t go threw the agencies, i know somebody in Jeddah, but he is not working for AAI

[lexxie747]

i am so glad to see level 6 worked wonders for the pilot group

[mutt]

-for transition from A 320 to A 330 Since when did Air Atlanta start operating these two aircraft types in Jeddah?

[Anilv]

Air Atlanta does have one A330, TF-EAA

Air Atlanta Icelandic A330-223 (http://www.atlanta.is/index.aspx?GroupId=61)

Probably ValK was talking about moving up from a 320.

Anil

[sunny11410]

@mutt
TF-EAA A330 since July 2013

[mutt]

Thanks, it was the 320 that confused me.... :)

[valKilmer3481]

yes moving up from A 320 to A 330

got post yesterday, will definitely get an interview, they wrote they will give my name also to the agency they work close with......by the way who is this agency?

got some good feedback from guys who flew for AA but:

-what is the salary per day as contractor?
-how is the interview, any actual questions or SIM profiles?

am expecting to get invited soon, any PM appreciated also about general experience to fly for AA (RoutNetWork out of Jeddah, Upgrade posibility and so on)

Rgds

[valKilmer3481]

Gents, can anybody give me a good idea what to expect on my interview, it will be in December?

-What will be asked
-what is the sim about
-usually after interview, what time they expect to start to work for them?
-Got a few answers but nobody said how much exactly is the pay?
-Most probably i´ll fly the A 330 - how many flight hours i can expect a year: will it be cargo or pax or both?
-for A 330, will i be solely based in Jeddah, which hotel?
-do i have to pay the CCQ myself from 320 and how much will that be?

would be great to get some answers, thanks, or maybe somebody else is attending the interview?

greets

[To2]

AAI only has 1 A330 and it is flying for Saudia like all other AAI aircrafts Exept the A340 that is flying for Air Madagascar, you will be based in Jeddah and the hotel is Crowne plaza

[eaglesnest1972]

hello folks,

330 FO here.

Can anyone give some info on the position with AAI?

Thanks in advance.

[dontpressthat]

The Contract only allows you to chose your time on/off if you opt for the Worldwide option which carries a lower daily fee than the fixed four weeks on and two off and generally has a minimum time on base of 3 weeks.
On the 4/2 there is a yearly holiday allowance of 30 days (unpaid) and is by request.
The only exception is those who have a FIA contract (Icelandic pilots union), mainly Icelandic nationals and they operate 21/21.

All Accommodation, travel and transport costs are covered and arranged by AAI.

[Learjet-60-XR]

Hey Guys,

does anyone know how the chances are to get an assessment date? I applied via Mountainhigh last month but haven't heard anything except the application has been forwarded. Is there any need for pilots right now?

Thanks,
Learjet-60-XR

[Earl]

I worked for AAI 6 years.
L-1011 and 747.
Was the best job I ever had looking back over 30 years now including the military
We flew to places that most never see, even the bad places like Nigeria contracts after 911 we all managed to have a good time flying.
They paid well on time every time,
Unless something changed dramatically this is a good company and will always be in my retirement days as the best I ever flew for.
Thanks AAI for the good times the flying and the salary, but most important thanks for treating all crew members like family.
Many charter airlines could learn from you.




Best job i ever had.

[Dan_Brown]

Earl

Good for you, that you were treated so well. I am in a position to inform you, others were not treated so well. The cancerous nepotism among some of the "management" was something to behold. I am not referring to the Icelandic's as I type this.

[bcgallacher]

Earl - you must know me. AAI was good to work for when Arngrimur ran it - after he sold it the rot set in and it became a very unpleasant place to work. Money wise there were problems with salary cuts, when I was off sick it took months to get sick pay.did not enjoy the last few years I spent with them. Nigeria certainly sorted out the men from the boys. Only place I ever needed bodyguards to get to work!

[EW73]

Hear, hear, that goes for me too, exusaf.
I was there for a while, at Rose Village, in Paris, Manchester, KL and the Lagos experience......

[Private jet]

The Icelandics took all the decent flights at will from your roster and the company treated the non-Icelandic crew with total indifference.

What did you expect? It's an Icelandic airline with I presume predominantly Icelandic management. You were there as hired help because they had positions to fill & you took it. Nobody forced you to sign up now did they?

[ShotOne]

Ah, so overt racism is totally fine by you then. Pj?

at least we have pprune these days; in times past one only discovered unpleasant facts like that when it was too late!

[Private jet]

Ah, so overt racism is totally fine by you then. Pj?

No, not at all. How dare you imply I am racist. Where does race come into this exactly? Are the Icelandics a "race"? Er NO.
It's their airline and they employ who they want on the different T&C's individuals accept. Good for them. Nobody forces any "outsiders" to sign up, so, as the saying goes perhaps people should either "shut up or F off...."

[mikehammer]

That's not racism. It is nationalism.

[Private jet]

Exactly.
(& +++ to 10 characters....................................)

[bcgallacher]

PJ - you keep referring to AAI as an airline - it is not,it is an ACMI leasing company which rarely operates an aircraft out of Iceland.

[Dan_Brown]

PJ

I chose the latter and was very happy to do so.

[ShotOne]

Frankly pj, in my opinion you're splitting hairs claiming to be outraged at the word racism while happily condoning selective redundancy by nationality. Yes, nationality can be an issue to live/work in a particular country but even this doesn't apply since their aircraft are rarely based in Iceland.

[Private jet]

All I'm saying is that if an individual signs up to work for them they are willingly accepting the T's & C's in the contract. They have zero grounds for complaint. Whether the aircraft are based in or fly from Iceland or not has nothing to do with it. Its an Icelandic company and they employ who they want on whatever contracts individual employees accept (Icelandic or otherwise) I'm not surprised the natives have a better deal. What did you expect? and why should it be any different? I suspect if you were Icelandic your opinion might be different.

[Learjet-60-XR]

Hello guys,

I have just been invited to the assessment in LGW on April 13th. Does anyone know what they're going to do at the assessment. Is anyone here going as well?

Thanks for your input,

Learjet-60-XR

[ADY]

Learjet-60XR have you applied for A330 or B747-400?

[Earl]

Racism well some small ones but never from the Icelandics.
Was on the ground in DXB flying for Nigeria Air.
Seems the Icelandic Captain was banging the Tunisan senior.
She told him to get down stairs as he was not in control here and to fly only.
This I thought was bad , very bad.
Heard her in the hotel in Lagos saying all was Ice niggers.
Back in my time trolley Dolley's did not run the company there, but was starting before my departure.
We had Olllie Smith and Rowan Good as ops ones.
We made good money, had good times and rarely any problems.
Yes if we made mistakes Rowan or Olie would call you into the office, not to fire you, but help you understand why they did things this way.
The Chief F/E and myself butted head s a few times name was George Williams I think, he was good also very well respected and experienced.
But all issues settled over a beer in the bar, or pint they call it.
How I wish all airlines could operate this way as they did then.
Sim checks was a learning time not used to fail ones,to bust a check there you had to really step on your dick to fail.
But that was long ago and now flying is all about money.
Never mind that happy crews made you a lot of money than you probably see now.
But thanks again for the good times,

[bcgallacher]

Earl - when Ollie died AAI ops changed completely - I worked in maintenance on the Nigerian contract and lost a good friend as well as a very competent colleague. I worked for AAI from 1994 until 2010 - for about 12 years I loved it - hard work in some very odd places but good fun and great people in the cockpit and on the ground. It went downhill very rapidly.

[Earl]

We probably know each other,
Remember the Nigerien contract in JFK many toilets was MEL?
Then you guys found all the torn up Nigerian passports clogging the system arriving in Lagos?
Seems the Nigerians tore them up as to have no identity on arrival in the USA.
That was a bad contract, armed security to and from hotel, they even shot up the baggage trailer towed behind the crew van with armed security on board with UZIS,
Those was the days.
We never complained AAI payed and treated us well.
Remember they bought us dinner in Lagos during the holidays and all open bar, what a mistake that was, we probably bankrupted the company ha ha.
I left AAI before Olie died in KUL, the news was sad.
He was a good friend and manger.
Many airlines could learn a lot from this one as how they operated in the past and made excellent money.
Its all about keeping everyone happy, you cant cut workers salary just because your sales department tells you to do this,this is not toothbrush sales like the marketers think.

[bcgallacher]

Earl - that operation certainly sorted out the sheep from the goats but it was a lot of fun. In spite of the good service we gave to the Nigerians they never paid - AA were stiffed for about 9 million dollars. It left me with a fund of stories of good times and some not so good mainly involving men with guns. I was the last man out of Lagos as I stayed behind to handle the Virgin contract and to get stuff out of the country.

[Dan_Brown]

So AAI got screwed dealing with these people. Well these is a surprise! In fact I just don't believe it? Nigerians breaking a contract? You cannot be serious!!:}

[bcgallacher]

Yep- hard to believe.

[Earl]

Yes remember that last flight out of Lagos was operating it.
V/A 747 went tech there.
They used AAI airplane our flight deck crew and V/A cabin crew to LHR.
Nigerians promised payment in LHR, never happened.
Remember the night fighters at the hotel pool bar?
Worse than malaria infected mosquitoes ha ha.
Water in the shower was browner than the soil outside and 5 star hotel there they claimed.
Operated 1 flight to JFK seen dead one near the highway, 3 day layover in JFK same dead one in the middle of the road returning to Lagos smell was stronger.
Yes separated the men from the boys, can laugh at this now. smile to others as you have not seen it all until you do Lagos.
Always good times there.
Too bad all changed.
Good stories for our grand kids though.

[EW73]

Got woken up by hookers knocking on the door in the Lagos hotel several times, just another ättraction" of staying there!
As long as they were doin'all their knockin'on the outside of the door, I was reasonably happy!

[Sop_Monkey]

Seen the tee shirts. "Happiness is wheels up out of Lagos"

[valKilmer3481]

-Gents what is the present waiting time for FO with 6000 hours in TT to get upgrade in AA - i heard it is a bit faster coz captains are leaving?

-what can an FO ask for initial salary? they offered something like 210 +50 per diem, i mean that can just be for a Beginner isn´t it?

-any latest news regarding the interview itself: Numbers to fly the 757, techn. questions and so on

thanks for info please PM me

[Southpole]

Hi guys,

Is AAI already calling for A330?

[Gregi1977]

Hi,

Any information about the assessment?

Interview questions

Sim check

Best regards

[Peter Talalla]

Well Chaps, I have a bloody whale of a time at AAI. Parked the last classics, switched off the lights and went home.

Fantastic memories and people.

Olafur Smith was a true champion and I still think of him fondly. (And he was a Loafer LOL)

[lexxie747]

geeeeez pete, why would you wanna fondle ollie smith, is there room for anything constructive in your head?

[Peter Talalla]

Hey Lexxie you old reprobate. Bloody spell checkers. Olafur (Not Loafer) Oops. and Fondly means fond of not fondle you silly sausage.

Oli was a true mate and I sincerely miss the bugger as I do with my old buddy Jon who sadly took a permanent solution to a temporary situation.

Anyway I will enjoy the 737NG but must admit the B747 Classic is and was the best gig I ever had.

Safe flying and keep smiling.

Pete.

[NSC]

reprobate...... had to google it shat bricks when i saw it!!! :D

[Gregi1977]

Hi,

Is somebody here flying on the worldwide flexible roster?
How does it work?
How many dutydays you have per year?
Is it possible to live from that money?
When is high season and when is low season?

Thanks!

[Peter Talalla]

I used to be on the WWD Roster.

1) It works as a pattern you decide upon.

2) As many duty days as you nominate to fly. They won't fly you home weekly. Realistically probably 3 to 4 weeks on min. Off your call.

3) Look at the daily rate and figure yourself if you can live on the money. The more days you work the more money you make.

4) High season is usually Hajj (The fun part) Low season is when they don't need you.

Take the fixed patterns e.g. 6/2 - 4/2 or whatever they are giving out these days. Then you can plan your life accordingly. If people weren't making money they wouldn't be there.

Cheers,

Pete.

[pacificdream]

Anybody knows if they hire non-type rated?

Cheers.

[thunderstorm1]

Yes, you can always buy a type rating, apply via airborne/ mountain high

Mountain High Consultants Ltd - Applications Form (http://mountainhigh.vpweb.co.uk/Applications-Form.html)

[Southpole]

So, what's new with the Airbus recruitment?

[Earl]

Seen 2 years ago the last classic in Marana, was doing some part time A&P work there.
Was sad I used to fly this one as F/E, now was replacing landing gear seals prepping for storage.
We sure had a good time there.
Thanks for the memories.

[Gregi1977]

Are the A 330's already crewed?

[To2]

still just 1 A330 which is fully crewed, 2 more A330's are supposedly on the way though.

[Southpole]

Received today an email from the agency saying that AAI "..is still battling with the unions to get those A330..." Offering then other contracts elsewhere...

What's the real story?

[valKilmer3481]

anybody invited thosed days for A 330 interview in Gatwick, would need infor for questions and screening?
do they really get more A 330 in the near future, they are talking about it since 2 years now, does anybody has insider info?

[Southpole]

I am going but I have no news aside those useless received by the broker:
1 theoretical written exam
2 psychometric written exams
1 face to face interview
1 sim

See you

[Gregi1977]

Any news about the A-330? Are the positions filled?

[bcgallacher]

Received the unpleasant news that Arngrimur Johannsson founder and ex CEO of Air Atlanta has suffered serious burn injuries after a crash involving a Beaver on a ferry flight. The Canadian co-pilot did not survive the accident.

[matkat]

Brian, thats really bad news as one of the good guy's.

[bcgallacher]

The latest I have is that he is expected to recover. Burns take time and much suffering to recover from.He was indeed one of the good guys - the company changed for the worse when he sold out. Instead of being run by a professional it was run by amateur accountants.

[cp35]

Who was the co pilot

[bcgallacher]

He was Canadian - his name is given on Icelandic news media.

[Southpole]

Could hire pilots soon, rumors about new aircrafts before end of the year...

[JS32]

Hi Guys...

I applied today for a F/O posiition opening in their website, I have ICAO license not FAA not JAR, they still giving the training bond or I have to pay for type rating?... My resumen is abou 1600TT and 600 in the maddog

Thanks Guys.

[Vc10Tail]

Do they accept ICAO /FAA license and 744 rating or strictly EASA license only?

Can you apply directly to AAI or strictly via Mountain High?

Do they support with visa application for the interview if travelling from outside EU? Assist with Accommodation during interview process? Confirm it is one day process?

Cheers

[Vc10Tail]

Can we apply directly to AAI or have to do it via Mountain High?

Is there a current link for this?

If called to interview and a non EU citizen is resident outside EU is visa support provided fir the inferview? Accommodation assistance?

Thanks


They prefer the applications to be sent on line: Air Atlanta Icelandic AccessDenied (http://www.airatlanta.com/index.aspx?groupid=72)

Good luck :)

[lee_apromise]

I'm curious about this gig too. Do they take FAA non-rated as well? Their website doesn't explicitly states one must have EASA/JAA licenses.

[PropDude]

I think you can apply only via the agency.

If anyone know about the type rating it would be nice to know. But sounds to good to be true just to be bonded and not to pay. :rolleyes:

[highflyboy]

I just applied also. I have 1900+ hours I don't have a JAA License or JAA Medical;however I do have a European passport, an ICAO and FAA license though. I hope i get a call would be an great opportunity for me if I get the chance.

[lee_apromise]

Hi all, applications are through contract agency only, all licenses must be converted to an Icelandic EASA license and the price for the 744 rating is 20.000 dollars and it is deducted from the salary.

Regards, MAWEA

Validations are no longer issued?

[highflyboy]

Is there a time period that they give to convert the license or do you require it prior to interview? Any estimate on the conversion cost?

[lee_apromise]

I'm not sure how long the process is to convert to an Icelandic license but I guess you can find allot about converting from FAA/ICAO to EASA here on Pprune, AAI says the minimum requirements for an FO is a frozen EASA ATPL license and minimum hours for ZFTT training, and yes they have stopped giving validations :)

Regards, MAWEA

Good to know. Applied for it anyway though not expecting much. Thanks MAWEA.

[highflyboy]

Waw, well I'm not expecting much then. Their website didn't even specify a license restriction. Finding a job is becoming more and more difficult. Even at Cathay and Emirates people are giving negative reviews

[highflyboy]

@kashoa

Yes on pilotcareercenter it says EASA license and medical required but here on the recruitement site it does not.


https://airatlanta.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hltb#id_candidate_first_name?source=AviationJobs.Me