Air NZ Link
 

Good Morning Pilots Near & Far,

Does anyone happen to have any information on Air NZ Link conditions, i.e. salary for FO's ?

I have tried to find information online but it is all very old and nothing recent.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

You don't happen to work for Tiger do you? Looking to move onto a more professional outfit?

haha definitely no "Go Cat" here. Just looking to see if it's a financially viable move. Lifestyle is 100% better, still need to pay bills though !

Educated guess based on flight deck gossip would be mid $50's for a new FO at Nelson (Q300) and mid $60's at Mount Cook (ATR), base figures before any allowances.

Honestly, I've been away from the Link group for many years now, as have the guys I speak to but those figures should be in the ballpark.

As for working conditions, I believe the Link Pilots/Unions have been leaning on management to get better TOD pairings, reducing the amount of downtime and consecutive overnights. I gather they've had moderate success.

Thanks ElZilcho, I really appreciate your reply.

All I could find online was in the low $40K region but that seemed to be from a few years ago.

The Mid $50K and $60K estimates are they fairly recent estimates ?

Thanks again

Recent "ish". Generally speaking, the increments only go up 1-2% per year in the CEA unless there's a new type. Not sure if Cook got an increase for -600.

$40k sounds like it might have come from the now retired Eagle Air (B1900D) or perhaps a very old Air Nelson figure before things improved there.

-edit-

I believe newly hired FO's start on year 4 ish pay if they have an ATPL or passes in all ATPL subjects, so not sure if the above numbers are actually year "1".

Have Pm'd you.

Educated guess. Previous posts of yours say you're TR on the 73
Add 10k to ElZilcho's estimates...unless he was giving you figures in AUD

Yep that sound about right,mid 60ish for non ATPL mid 70k with ATPL for Cook. Bear in mind you’re on that salary until you reach the requisite years of service with an ATPL. Figures excluding allowances worth about 12-15k.

Hey guys/gals

Any figures on Mt Cook / Air Nelson pay for pilots?

Mt Cook and Air Nelson are gone. All Turboprop pilots on single collective agreement employed by Air Nz.

Year 1 FO $62559. If you have ATPLs done you start on Year 4 which is $73648. 8 Salary steps as FO
Year 1 Captain $104567 with 11 salary steps.
Allowances on top. Busy base youre looking at 17K, quiet base maybe around 10K.

Jets have started recalling Pilots with plenty of seat changes this year. We’re about 50 names into the recall list, but not everyone has accepted a start, instead opting to take LWOP for various reasons. I suspect many of them will already be penciled in for later courses.

Anyway, the biggest limiting factor is going to be Airframes. We’ve permanently retired 8x 772’s during COVID, and the 787’s set to replace them don’t start deliveries until late next year, assuming Boeing can sort their QC out! 773’s are slowly getting reactivated and the A320 fleet Is restoring its manpower levels so that’s driving this years courses and recalls. After that, I expect there to be a constant trickle for the next 3 years or so as the 787’s get delivered.

On one hand, this could be quite positive for regional pilots moving to the Jet fleet as the regionals should be able to cope with the demand meaning most hires would be internal.
On the other hand, it could take another 3 years to recall everyone post COVID if we’re short on frames waiting for deliveries.

I find it pretty sad that it will take us 2+ years to recall all the pilots and other airlines are now hiring brand new staff

Next minute Air NZ will be contracting hi fly again for wet leasing to solve their scheduling issues as they find themselves short on airframes and qualified crew to meet the demand for air travel

Are those before tax or after tax?

Anyone having the lastest info about their FO and PIC salaries (net)?

Go to https://www.paye.net.nz/ enter the figures above and your personal circumstances and you'll get the net figures.

To add to that, the latest numbers:

Year 1 FO 65,802
Year 4 FO 77,471
Year 1 CA 110,033

Thank you, appreciate it Massey.

What about Year 2 to 11 of CA?

Im looking at next 1-2 years to move to left seat in my current company. By any chance have you seen ATR expat direct capts hired by NZ? In the website, only turboprop FO recruitment is presented. If ever, the working conditions are good enough, I would consider flying as a FO again if left seat upgrade will happen in a reasonable time, lets say within 1 year.

Year 2 Capt (blended) - $114,599. Increased by approx 4.5k each year step until Year 11 - $155,703. These numbers will increase each year with CPI but capped at 4.25%.

Direct entry ATR captains are highly unlikely at this stage, you’ll go to the bottom of the seniority list. It does sound like the pool of ATR F/O’s with close to the hour requirements to take a command are starting to dwindle so you might be able to take one pretty quickly.

There will never be a guarantee of upgrade time, however, given the experience levels of new hires at the moment, they’ll be a long time in the RHS.

6-12 month commands in the regionals are not unheard of for those joining with experience, but only because they were “the most senior applicant with a valid bid”.

As the current Captains move onto Jet and the Senior FO’s replace them there will certainly be a shortage of FO’s meeting the experience requirements to upgrade thus commands will go below them.

Thanks KiwiAci! Transferring when FO seems better then.

Noted, if you know, may I please ask how's the typical roster pattern and daily flight duty? Like flying 4 or 6 legs a day. Any layover?

I guess Im still probationary status and unable to receive private message. Can you please send me to my email ; chalie sierra wiskey 2358 at gmail dot com

I left the Links a long time ago so no doubt someone else can answer that better than I can, however 4 Sector days are probably the norm, but you could do 6. Layovers would likely vary by base.

I guessed so. By looking at radar 24, it seems their average block is about 1.4 hours. How would you rate your job satisfaction in NZ link back then, roster, salary, etc.

Probably not a fair comparison if I’m being honest.

Back in my day there were 3 Link operators who were rather independent of one another and only partially owned by big brother.

There was no blended contract or joint seniority so moving between them meant resigning from one and joining the bottom of another, usually people only moved to join Cook if they were a local as they paid the best and only had a Christchurch base.

Pay varied from lousy to decent depending on which company you worked for, as did the rosters.
6 Sector days were common at Eagle while Cook was rather cruisy having a single base with longer sectors.

Much has improved over the years, especially with Eagle being retired.

Appreciate sharing your experience. Now I understand why it's called link. When researched about NZ and looking at the history, I guessed they were called link but now operate as one big company NZ. In your opinion, do you think ATR is the most suitable for those routes in NZ, or they might consider switching to Q400 or small jet like ERJ? in the future?

Q400 wouldn’t fit into several of the regional ports so the Q300 will likely keep operating until it falls apart.
ATR is incredibly efficient at what it does so I believe it’ll be around for a long time.

Can’t see us ever operating RJ’s because of the average Sector (and runway length), I’m sure it’s been looked at but could only work on few routes thus wouldn’t be cost effective introducing a new type. At best, we’ll see the A320’s into some of the larger ports like Hamilton or Palmy if they want to boost capacity.