Qantas: how long as second officer ?

[ST1975]

Hi guys just a quick question. How long would a direct entry pilot remain as second officer if they were to join Qantas ?:confused:

ie a person with only high performance turboprop experience. No jet experience :}. and Approximately 3000 hours ?

Thank you

[WynSock]

Depends on when they join, depends on what happens from here with QF. Depends on the price of fish, or more importantly, fish oil.

It just depends.

[Capt Kremin]

Your previous experience means nothing once you have the job. Cadet, GA, RAAF... doesn't enter into the equation.

Your progression depends on expansion of the airline and to a small extent, retirements at the top. It can change in the space of a week.

Current joining SO's would have about three years as an SO on average. During a downturn that can lengthen dramatically, or shorten to around 18 months in an upswing. Just enjoy the job.

[VIRGA]

Somewhere between 7 and 12 years I would imagine.

Thinking about leaving the job you're in but scared you're not going to fly for a decade huh?

[Mr. Hat]

The question is - If its not within 5 years do you still want the job?

[maggot]

** experience does matter for early promotions, cadet s/o's lack the required "aeronautical experience" initially. I think the req'd figure for f/o training is 1500.
...it does depend though, but for syd based promo's it'll be at least 3 years, possibly 5.

[Howard Hughes]

As long as you want!;)

I understand some make this a 'lifestyle choice'...:ok:

[Jetsbest]

There are some S/Os who have been in the company for less than one year and will start their F/O training within the next year.

Conversely there are some who've been S/Os by choice for 10+ years (commuting from interstate, family complications, or dare I say it... lifestyle)

Despite the fact that seniority (ie from the day one joins) is a major factor, one's progression will be impacted by many other factors not limited to:
- the uncertainty of continued/projected expansion in the face of management's "crisis of choice" this week,
- the flexibility of future resource allocation between QF & JQ which may vary the fleet growth of either entity,
- one's willingness to relocate between bases (ie from joining in SYD to MEL,PER or BNE) for promotion,
- one's willingness to change aircraft types for promotion,
- one's preparedness to be 'junior' in the next-higher rank,
- one's assessment of the relative pay & lifestyle between types on different awards in different ranks,
- one's assessment of the urgency of seeking promotion (ego, challenge, economic, portability),
- one's marital/family status,
- the career priorities and/or willingness of one's significant other to compromise, and perhaps finally
- the choices about all these issues made by those senior to you.

In short, there are many choices and no option is a given right. QF is awash with stories of extremes;
- rapid promotion which cost marriages, to
- old joiners still with wife one who've promoted happily to be junior captains, to
- pilots who've happily deferred promotion for the sake of a young family or working wife's career.
What is nice is that the choice is yours; and that ain't all bad. :ok:

[Keg]

What is nice is that the choice is yours; and that ain't all bad.

Amen brother! :ok:

I got a PM from a youngling in the last couple of days that asked if I was troubled by the fact that I've only been with one airline for all of my career- it was a concern to him if he did the cadetship. My (summarised) response was this:

Actually, the opportunities at QF are such that if you get bored then you've probably only got yourself to blame.

Consider my career. I was a S/O for just on two years before F/O training. That was a great time of learning for me as I flogged to Europe and back gaining experience in airline ops. As a junior F/O (2-3 years) I was almost purely domestic getting lots of sectors. As a more senior F/O (3- 6 years) I got to fly around SE Asia all the time gaining a different level of experience and getting time off in Singapore, Jakarta, Manila, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, etc. At the 6-8 year mark as an F/O on the 767 I could then write my own roster pretty much and did a bit of everything whilst also getting some good times with the family.

After that I went to the 744 as a F/O for two years. Once again I was flying back and forward to Europe. Re-routing over Afghanisatan, sick passengers with resultant decisions to make and crew/medical personnel to consult, etc, etc.

Now I'm in the middle of command training and it'll be back to domestic ops and start the process all over again.

The choices about the type of flying that you do in QF are probably far more open than you may get in any other airline.

[HPSOV]

Quick answer... right now as of today-

F/O 767
Syd- 7yrs
Mel- 4yrs

F/O 737
Syd- 5yrs
Mel- 5yrs
Per- 1yr
Bne- 7yrs

Tomorrow? 6 months? 10 years? Taking known factors into account those times should be getting quicker (due to expansion). Throw in some unknown factors.... who knows?

Only other thing I'll say is that before getting into QF it was all about trying to make the next step as soon as possible, always rushing to take the next promotion, bigger a/c etc. Once you're 'in' many find the thinking changes a little. Lifestyle becomes an important factor, you work to live, not live to work.

[neville_nobody]

Keg as a cadet how did you get the Aeronautical Experience in two years to become a FO? As you are only logging 50% of the time I would have thought that would be almost impossible. Most cadets I've met are SO for years before getting the numbers to be a FO. Quick runs to FO are usually done by direct entry folk with command experience elsewhere.

[HPSOV]

Nev I was also a cadet from the days before industry experience.

I joined QF with about 250hrs. Minimum required for F/O training was 1250 aeronautical experience (not sure if that is still the case, no reason to think it has changed). So I had about 2000 hours of flying to do (as S/O hours are halved for aero exp). Took me around 3 years to do this. In that time I did miss an F/O slot during a time of rapid expansion when guys who'd been in the company 12 months were getting them.

These days with industry experience this would not be a problem for any cadets and they can take an f/o slot pretty much as soon as their seniority allows (which if they're willing to move to Perth would be pretty much straight away).

So long as you meet the minimum experience requirements then time to promotion is purely down to seniority, not previous experience.

[Keg]

Nev, not all cadets had zero hours when they got a cadetship. Some of us already had a PPL. Not all cadets did no flying in the two years off. Some of us did parachute dropping and other flying to get the hours. I joined QF with about 410 hours from memory...247 command. 1250 needed for promotion at that stage so I needed 850 aeronautical experience in QF to meet the requirements. They allowed fifty dual during your training so I was down to 800 needed. That means 1600 total which was pretty easy to do on the 744 in two years at that time. From there the ATPL wasn't far away also.

I made it by the skin of my teeth. A colleague who was about fifty numbers senior missed out on a slot that training year and he was 50 hours aeronautical experience behind me. His slot ended up about 18 months behind me. Sometimes you're just lucky! :cool: (The promotion cost me $20-30K per annum for the next three years compared to guys on my course who didn't have the hours for promotion and remained S/Os on the 744. I still wouldn't change the decision. My wife on the other hand..... :ok: )

HPSOV, don't forget that you need 'X' number of hours in QF before they'll give you an F/O slot so you do need to spend about 6-12 months online before promotion. However a few years back- and possibly again- it wasn't unusual for S/Os to know of their promotion slot well before they'd even done their probation sim after nine months on the line. :eek: