Rossair

[Crack]

Well rumor rumor rumor,has it , that some of the pilots have not been paid, and some engineer's have not been paid what owing to them,
Pilots on salaries , working in the same place doing the same job on salaries for expats at $ 5k USd's, and Sth African pilots on under half that.
When they get paid of course.

What do you think.:mad:

[ipanema]

What, not Rossair again?

Last I heard, they had a new Charlie Papa... I wrote and received an email from him asking me to wait for a useful response until he had settled in. Well, it's been much more than six months since then - by now his bum must be in fairly deep into the cushion, and I'm still waiting!!

My first experience with Rossair was when a Rossair Ops Manager emailed me asking for more details about my pilot licences and experience. I wrote back several times with no response at all and finally sent a fax to the MD. He turned out to be away from the office for an extended period, so it appeared the lobotomised mouse was just playing with the cheese.

So far I am yet to have any satisfactory correspondence with Rossair - neither MD, CP, brain dead Ops Manager nor the secretary - and I think I can safely tell you that many others have had the same experience. If the staff are going without pay now, then perhaps it was a good thing, too!

As a 13,000 hour ATPL with Islander, Twin Otter and Dash-8 experience I still have no useful replies from anyone in Africa.

Good luck...

[Gunship]

Rossair again .... oh no ... just thought it was getting a bit quite on the forum regarding SA companies paying their employees on time. Oh and well enough as well. :rolleyes:

Ipanema, with respect, 13 000 or 2 000 ALTP - consider it as a "bit more experience" my friend. Rather show - up in Africa and you will stand a much better (100% better) chance of getting a job. Look at previous comments and previous positive results. (the jobseekers made the journey to Africa m8)

Cheers and good luck,

[Gunship]

Here you can find it ... (http://www.saflyermag.co.za/2002_sep_rossair.htm) :cool:

[maxrated]

So, salary disparities, no S @ T, sounds like all ops normal in the company then.

All those who want "sgray" as chief pilot say yea !:p

[ipanema]

In the last year I had two bad experiences - interviews completed, jobs definitely promised, and then screwed on or shortly after arrival - to the tune of nearly US$10,000 out of my own pocket in expenses.

I hasten to add that neither one was due to myself - I did nothing to cause the separations (the second one I actually terminated myself after 10 days due to very obviously being unable to afford to work for them).

So if anyone thinks I am going to shell out another US$5,000 or so just to turn up on a doorstep in far-away Africa because a job "might be there" you can count on my NOT taking the risk.

I'm fed up with fly-by-nights and unprofessionals in this business. Pilots are expected to achieve high standards, get the right licences and maintain proficiency while looking for jobs and/or working under irresponsible and sometimes dangerous conditions.

If an employer is serious about employing a pilot and has a professional approach they will do the right thing - advertise the position, sift through the resumes, do initial phone interviews, research the references, qualifications and experience claims, and then pay for (at least) the trip to come to an interview.

Personally, I don't intend to leave civilisation unless I am convinced I am dealing with someone who is serious. As a matter of record I speak the truth, and I don't frankly give a rats ass what anyone else thinks when I give an account of my experiences.

My contact with Rossair was a total p*ss-up. The Ops Manager - who initially contacted me - was a total a**hole and waste of time. The contact with the new Chief Pilot was civilised enough, but he broke his promise to email me when he had settled in.

I am not a newbie, but a well-qualified and experienced airline/charter pilot. The treatment I received from Rossair did not reflect that of a professional or reliable organisation, and regardless of its past reputation I would warn my colleagues to stay away from that company.

What does my warning achieve? Collected with comments from other people with like experiences it tends to change Rossair's reputation and therefore robs that airline of the quality of employee they could have attracted and taints the contracts they could have negotiated.

In the longer term this means more damage, more crashes, more expenses in terms of maintenance and repairs due to inexperienced or careless pilots, and ultimately it means closure of the company.

This and other similar forums are places where we can exchange such information and tell each other about our experiences. If you have a bad experience and say nothing, you are doing your colleagues a disservice and perpetuating the proliferation of dangerous working situations and conditions for your fellow pilots.

If an operation cannot get pilots - or cannot alternatively afford the insurance premiums of bad or inexperienced pilots - they will go out of business. Ops Managers and Chief Pilots cannot fly all of the airplanes in the sky.

Just my own personal opinions, of course...

[Gunship]

iapanema I feel for you man ... what a sad story ...

It is this type of sh*t that should also be published in the SA Flyer magazine - not only the rose garden stuff. (Obviously after ferrifying your comments). It is really a shame what is happening and remember we are only a few on the forum.

After speaking to a few friends and ex-collueges I am seriously considering my son's future as a newby PPL pilot at year end. We had it easy through a REAL Air Force. But you guys coming through the "ranks" and meeting dicey employers along the way - GOOD LUCK !

All the best 2 u.

[Rudeman]

Dear Ipanema,
Not sure what you are smoking but it must be good, please send some down to SA since you refuse to come yourself.
Strange how every story has two sides, maybe three.Yours,the other side and the truth.
In the first mail you claim to have no replies, but in the second posting the as^**&le Ops man did in fact reply but not to your satisfaction, WHICH IS IT.Please do not fail to forget that you were told that you will have to come to SA and do the validation thing required to be able to fly for Rossair, you were send a mail to explain that it will include a Airlaw exam and a flight test to be able to get an SA validation.
IT WAS YOU IN FACT THAT DECIDED NOT TO TAKE THE CHANCE NOT ROSSAIR AND YOU SAID SO YOURSELF HOW YOU BEEN SCREWED BY OTHER COMPANIES.
:D

[4granted]

Its a dogs life..
You want a job go get a degree and go become some smart *ss Law-er..This piloting thing..mate its not easy....I can write a book about returned phone calls/emails/you name it.....you want a job get your arsseover there and do the THANG!!!!!
Rudeman, hey about my application..hahahah you're right brew..
When the going gets tough the tough get AIRBORNE...are you...ipanema??
my opinion of course
hb4g
soon to be ZS4g of course....hahahaha

[captain69]

Surely you guys in SA have modern industrial relation laws that can protect (if only limited) the interests of workers. In OZ we have the AFAP(OZZIE Federation of air pilots). Pay 10% of your salary and they will go in and bat for ya.Sometimes good for the pilot other times not so good, depends on which side of the fence you sit on.

[maxrated]

Contrary to some of the impressions on previous postings on this thread, Rossair has to have one of the most foreigner friendly employment policies out of all the SA companies.

One only has to pass through one of their contract bases to meet the mini-united nations that makes up their pilot pool.

Aussies, Kiwi's, American, Pommie, French, Swiss, East & West African, all of whome seem to have had little difficulty in getting employed by Rossair, providing that they held the right quailifications.

Alot of the time, like anything else, it also helps to be in the right place at the right time and in almost all cases one had to get ones arse physically down to SA to meet them. No one else in the world is going to give you a job for merely submitting your CV from the other side of the planet, without actually meeting you first.

Now about those late S& T's....................

[tickler]

a chief pilot would be a start, oh thats right we have one, or at least thats what hes titled.........

[Gunship]

... and I (maybe we) hoped Rossair will not come to the top of the Thread again ... REAL trouble this time or just rumours again ?

I hope for the latter as I have just heard good the last few months .. but then I am not "in the field" with the boys these days .... :uhoh:

[Douglas Racer]

Oscar Wilde: " I'm sorry, I could not resist it. I can resist everything but temptation!"

Douglas Racer: " Same sh1t, different sunrise.....I'm sorry, I'm so effing sorry, but I just could not resist it, I had to submit this again.........(ad naseum???).......



This is also for all those aspirant wannabes who keep wanting to know what life in Rossair is all about...................

(apologies to Rudyard Kipling)

IF
If you can smile while knowing that your colleaugues on your level are earning more than you despite the recent introduction of pay scales.....

If you can take having your Moermeter peak in the purple arc at least twice a day due to third world frustrations......

If you can serve two bosses at the same time, one in RSA and one in Europe, and suffer the comms gap between the two.....

If you can put up with third world traffic manners.....

If you can put up with being taken hostage occasionally by some freaked out Somalian/Sudanese warlord.......

If you can put up with getting your arse shot at/off because your aircraft has nice big red target crosses on it (Burundi etc)......

If you can put up with getting bombed (repeatedly) by a Sudanese airforce Antonov in South Sudan......

If you can put up with having to carry out engineering and maintenance miracles with only a leatherman and locking wire, while not receiving the spares you ordered two months ago, and not receiving the pay accorded a miracle producing prophet......

If you can accept being told you have a bad attitude when you point out problem areas to management.......

If you don't get that real lonely feeling when all around you are carrying Kalashnikovs and you are only armed with a Bic..........

If you can put up with substandard crew accomodation........

If you can put up with the ****ty cooking of your co-pilot (shame..his cooking allowance is less than yours)....

If you can put up with rabid crew-biting dogs in Pakistan and equally vicious flight nurses in Sudan........

If you can remain married (to the same wife) during your proposed full tenure with the company.....

If you can accept having to sign a training bond for every conversion or engineering upgrade you do.......

If you can accept that your two month tour is possibly always in danger of becoming at least two weeks longer because there are no crew to replace you......

If you can put up with clients who continuously try to overload your aircraft and make you stretch fuel reserves to the limits.....

If you can put up with having your baggage lost almost every time you go off on contract...

If you think you can put up with having to resort to the old vaseline and oranges treatment while being interrogated by the spy-police in the Congo......

If you can put up with reverse racism in the countries you visit on contract, and accept that you will have to bribe somebody, somehere, sometime, if you want them to co-operate.......

If you can put up with winter in Afghanistan, summer in the Sahara and the daily weather in West Africa.....

If you can put up with clients who don't pay.....

If you can put up with being a financial and administrative executive while being a pilot or engineer........

If you can put up with the teething problems of a new toothless contract.......

If you can do this and much more, my son, you can become a Rossair contract pilot/engineer!!!!!!!

Still love the place though!
:}

[yambat]

Nice one DR, a well written piece. Mid contract blues now, west africa, but you summed up contract work there, made me wonder why so many of us return( know the market is not great out there) but we still return and deal with the sh*t and actually enjoy it. You made us smile a bit there.
On Rossair, I also heard good things recently,( know guys and girls there who doing well) hope their troubles end, we surely dont need to loose them from the SA aviation market.

[chomp]

heard things are going better at rossair on the payment front again?

from what i heard the show is run by one man only... the owner. the rest of the people there dont have much say. if thats true i can understand that some of the management is unable to do their jobs properly. also heard that a lot of the management is very unhappy and looking for jobs? anyone in the company that can comment?

[NdekePilot]

It was a couple of years ago now, granted, but I flew a couple of contracts for Rossair up in Ivory Coast and Gabon and had a good time.
Of course there were problems but that was part of the fun, the challenge of getting the job done, and when you consider what Rossair actually does, the scale and diversity of their ops, and the countries and conditions that they operate in, it is hardly surprising that these problems occur.
Nevertheless, insofar as was possible, the company did the best it could and as far as I was concerned at least, treated me very fairly. The people they had working for them, pilots, engineers etc were great and they could work...and play....very hard!! They didn't even scream when it was my turn to fly......
The grass is always greener on the other side, and I'm not saying they are perfect, but you could do a lot worse than fly for Rossair. Oh, and for the record, Rudi was a great guy and always got the things sorted out.
Wish them all the best in their present contracts.
NP.:ok: :ok: :ok: