Expat China Airlines Request

[cloudchaser44]

Any information about salary, QOL, commutable schedules?, from any expat China Airlines (CI - the ones in Tawaiin - please keep all the mainland China issues off of this thread) - pilots would be most appreciated.

[cosmiccomet]

I had being flying B744 FO for CAL until Jan 2011 so I don't know the actual figures.

But my contract up to then was for U$D 5350- per month before tax (20%), 12 salaries per year plus a bonus which is almost one more salary.
Depending in how many days you were in Taiwan you can claim tax refund.
I was based in Taipei so I could get a yearly tax refund of around U$D 6,000-.
CAL doesn't provide any scholarship for your kids.

Perdiem was too low, only U$D 48 per day, hotels 4 stars at the best, in US usually Holiday Inn/La Quinta, etc, always near the airport far away from anything but close to Wall Mart and Chinese Restaurants...

Schedule, you have 8 consecutive days off per month and 24 annual leave days per year.
If you are based in TPE you can request back to back. Your days off start at your base...so I was based in TPE traveling all around the world to Buenos Aires, Argentina, using 2 days each way back home.

Bases at that time were Taipei, Vancouver, LAX, Frankfurt and Milan.

If you are based in TPE CAL would pay you housing allowances for around NT$ 32,000-. That figure is too low for living in a good apartment in Taipei City but you can rent a good one in Nankan near the Airport.
If you are based in any other base the company would not pay you housing but would provide you hotel accommodation at the Novotel Hotel
at the Taoyuan Airport just in front of the BOT.

I would give you only one advice don't plan for a long career in the Boeing B744 fleet, Airbus 333/343 and Boeing B738 fleets are much better.

When I had joined CAL in July 2007 we were more than 300 exptats...at Jan 2011 we were less than 40...