Joe Ninety
9th Aug 2000, 15:16
I tried to jot down as much as I could while our expansive American host tried to sell us the company. We all felt he had to be pushed into giving us the details of the package, almost as if they think that you should be so keen to work for Netjets that you should be prepared to do so at any price. Anyway, here's what they told us eventually:
Duty: 6 days on, 5 off. However, if you're in the middle of a trip for a client and you're downroute somewhere at the end of your six days on, they will often ask you to extend. I can't recall if he said you got paid for that but he did say that if you did more than 19 days a month you earned a "compensatory day" - although one of the NJ pilots who sits in on the interview did chip in that nobody has yet had the chance to take their compensatory day since they're all so busy.
Vacation: fifteen (repeat fifteen) days off a year when you start.
Salary: 36000 to 80000 US Dollars or Euros, your choice of currency, depending on seat position and experience. When pressed on what sort of experience level would earn the top salary, response was 6500 hours and time on one of the types in the Netjets Europe fleet.
Per diem: 60 Euros per day, and by the look of the expense claim form, you have to claim it through expenses (although I am open to correction on this).
Benefits: (I have to apologise here: he was rattling on rather fast and I was trying to write down quickly so the notes get a bit squiggly here. I tried to get him to expand on some but to be honest he wasn't that forthcoming) Accidental death, supplementary medical, life insurance, travel accident. (Yeah I know at least two of those sound like the same thing - go ask him yourself...!) There is also access to the "International Flight Crew Savings Scheme", which "will produce benefits substantially in excess of what you could expect from your own state retirement provision". In this scheme, they apparently match what you put in, up to a point. Deadhead travel within Europe is economy, transatlantic is business class, all training FlightSafety.
Duty hours: Portuguese, which essentially means a max 14 hour duty day, minimum 11 hours rest.
They say they're in Europe to stay and will throw money at it until it succeeds. They are not making money on it at the moment (12 million dollars loss this year) but are in it for the long term. They were VERY sensitive about the Portuguese connection (you may recall the comment in the Farnborough Special of Flight International from a competitor who said that basing it in Portugal was like basing Netjets USA in Mexico!! - an inflammatory remark anyway, but our host was very keen to give us a brief lecture on the extensive history of the Portuguese legal and political systems!)
Future expansion: The customers are asking for a larger cabin aircraft, Falcon 900 and Gulfstream 4 SP are on the shortlist. Other fleets-wise, the Citation IISPs are to be replaced with Bravos and Excels, more Falcon 2000s on order, but the aeroplane you will most likely fly is the Hawker 800 cause they've got more of them than anything else.
I would love to tell you the details of the sim ride and the interview questions, but I am told they have said they'll change them if the details are published on Pprune. Suffice it to say that you should know your way around Jeppesen charts, a few practices with IQ tests wouldn't go amiss, and when they tell you "no tricks" before the sim ride, they speak with forked tongue! (Don't be surprised if they spring something on you at an awkward moment, either - my engine problem happened just before the end of the outbound leg in the hold).
Before you go, make sure you've done a very detailed logbook summary; you'll have a number of forms to fill in on the day in which you'll have to give your flying hours in gory detail, so it's best to be prepared with breakdowns of instrument hours, night hours, hours by type, that sort of thing. Strangely, though, at no time did anybody ask to see a logbook or a licence!
I personally will not be joining Netjets Europe - I felt the day had gone reasonably well, but they disagreed! In any event I'm not sure I could have afforded it, since it would have been a fairly substantial pay cut.
Anyway to those of you who are going soon or are interested in applying, I wish you the best of luck!
Joe Ninety
Duty: 6 days on, 5 off. However, if you're in the middle of a trip for a client and you're downroute somewhere at the end of your six days on, they will often ask you to extend. I can't recall if he said you got paid for that but he did say that if you did more than 19 days a month you earned a "compensatory day" - although one of the NJ pilots who sits in on the interview did chip in that nobody has yet had the chance to take their compensatory day since they're all so busy.
Vacation: fifteen (repeat fifteen) days off a year when you start.
Salary: 36000 to 80000 US Dollars or Euros, your choice of currency, depending on seat position and experience. When pressed on what sort of experience level would earn the top salary, response was 6500 hours and time on one of the types in the Netjets Europe fleet.
Per diem: 60 Euros per day, and by the look of the expense claim form, you have to claim it through expenses (although I am open to correction on this).
Benefits: (I have to apologise here: he was rattling on rather fast and I was trying to write down quickly so the notes get a bit squiggly here. I tried to get him to expand on some but to be honest he wasn't that forthcoming) Accidental death, supplementary medical, life insurance, travel accident. (Yeah I know at least two of those sound like the same thing - go ask him yourself...!) There is also access to the "International Flight Crew Savings Scheme", which "will produce benefits substantially in excess of what you could expect from your own state retirement provision". In this scheme, they apparently match what you put in, up to a point. Deadhead travel within Europe is economy, transatlantic is business class, all training FlightSafety.
Duty hours: Portuguese, which essentially means a max 14 hour duty day, minimum 11 hours rest.
They say they're in Europe to stay and will throw money at it until it succeeds. They are not making money on it at the moment (12 million dollars loss this year) but are in it for the long term. They were VERY sensitive about the Portuguese connection (you may recall the comment in the Farnborough Special of Flight International from a competitor who said that basing it in Portugal was like basing Netjets USA in Mexico!! - an inflammatory remark anyway, but our host was very keen to give us a brief lecture on the extensive history of the Portuguese legal and political systems!)
Future expansion: The customers are asking for a larger cabin aircraft, Falcon 900 and Gulfstream 4 SP are on the shortlist. Other fleets-wise, the Citation IISPs are to be replaced with Bravos and Excels, more Falcon 2000s on order, but the aeroplane you will most likely fly is the Hawker 800 cause they've got more of them than anything else.
I would love to tell you the details of the sim ride and the interview questions, but I am told they have said they'll change them if the details are published on Pprune. Suffice it to say that you should know your way around Jeppesen charts, a few practices with IQ tests wouldn't go amiss, and when they tell you "no tricks" before the sim ride, they speak with forked tongue! (Don't be surprised if they spring something on you at an awkward moment, either - my engine problem happened just before the end of the outbound leg in the hold).
Before you go, make sure you've done a very detailed logbook summary; you'll have a number of forms to fill in on the day in which you'll have to give your flying hours in gory detail, so it's best to be prepared with breakdowns of instrument hours, night hours, hours by type, that sort of thing. Strangely, though, at no time did anybody ask to see a logbook or a licence!
I personally will not be joining Netjets Europe - I felt the day had gone reasonably well, but they disagreed! In any event I'm not sure I could have afforded it, since it would have been a fairly substantial pay cut.
Anyway to those of you who are going soon or are interested in applying, I wish you the best of luck!
Joe Ninety