Jetsgo working conditions?
 

I have an upcoming interview with Jetsgo and I was wondering what are they like to work for? Monthly hours? Wages? Moral?

I am a expat canuck looking to come back home. I'm also aware of the ramp pass situation. It would be for a DEC position.

Anyone with an answer (on the inside), should also comment on morale...

Have you tried posting on www.avcanada.ca under the heading for Jetsgo?...You might have better results.

All the best!

I don't work for Jetsgo but I have a couple of buddies who do.

One is f/o the other Capt..

You have to pay 30000 for the training and you are not paid until your line check (about 3 months). As an f/o you will make around 45000 and Capt 65000.

The base will probably be yyz and expect to fly around 20 days a month. The guys there are just passing through.....it's a third level carrier with jets.....If you are really desperate to come home I guess it's ok but remember you are stuck there 2 years or you will pay........
Hope this helps

Working for Jetsgo? Well, I was recently a pax on 2 Jetsgo flights.

Fl. 174 YYZ to YEG delayed 4 hours due to pressurisation problem.

FL. 173 YEG to YYZ delayed 4 hours due to a number of snags.

Enough said? But the crew were very pleasant!

The company who has the 'contract' for servicing(?) in YYC for Jetsgo was told their maintenance were allowed to have a flashlight, and a screwdriver... all other maint would be carried out in T.O.
(i don't recommend any of my family fly with them)
:uhoh:

and a knockometer?;)

A flashlight and a screwdriver huh? Hmmmmm I work at Jetsgo and have never seen anything like that. There is sooooo much misinformation about Jetsgo that you could write a book. The maintence is just fine. Yes if there is a snag at an outbase and it can be MEL'ed then it is. Only makes sense to do your work were it's the cheapest. That doesn't meant that aircraft are flying around unsafe.
The moral is just fine. There are a few people that grumble, but its been that way at every company I have ever worked at.
Jetsgo is one of the few places in Canada that is actually expanding. Yes the 30,000 sucks but its paid back with interest in the first two years.
The schedule is pretty good, mostly single day pairings which means you are home almost every night.
Good guys to work with. Management is easy to talk to.
All in all not a bad place to work.

Thanks for the help guys and gals. But after my interview it's not the kind of company I'd like to join. Before you guys start saying that I'm putting the company down because I didn't get through, just know that I was offered the position. The money and benefits just don't come close to what I make here in Europe. It would be less than half. I'd love to get back home but I just can't justify it.

Cheers and good luck

Passinggas.....smart move!

...you know I find it sickening that 'we' Canadian pilots have accepted the fact that "it is ok to pay to work". JetsGo's policy made possible by it's 'CEO' is a cancer to our industry within Canada. Just to get at a chance at the 'Big Iron' what we won't sell, huh?! Whatever.



:suspect: :hmm:

I am Brddog :

Unfortunately this process to pay for your job is current money here in europe... Take the Ryanair and Easy jet examples..... I know a few people in canada ready to pay 30000 can dol for a type rating (even turboprops.....) because the market is moving too slow.....:( and they want a big move in their careers...

Have a mate by jetsgo and he works the sock's off. He still happy because he is building up hours on a jet airplane!!!! and no more on a Emb 110...:rolleyes:

Nothing we can do exept a big hope that the market will re hire very soon....

:ok: pico

picobello,


Its very nice and well to pay to advance your career but let me tell you one thing that the Jetsgo's of the world and the pilots that agree to pay for training do to the piloting career: yes you will build jet time......for what .....to get to a better job i.e one of the majors where you can have a good career with good pay and good amount of days off right?

Well every time one of these guys accepts to work for one of these carriers you errode this..You will get your experience on a jet but will have nowhere good to go work because the other airlines have to lower their standards to Jetsgo's.

So maybe yor budy is on an MD88 instead of an emb110 and will save a couple of years on his career.But by the same token what he is doing will insure that the next 30 years of his career,wherever he ends up going will be under crappy Jetsgo-like conditions i.e pay for your ppc, get paid less than a bus driver and work like a dog.

Some pilots are desperate for a job I know but having been in the industry for a long time I am telling you that long term you are hurting yourself and the proffession.Have some self respect and go get a job where you dont degrade yourself.......there are quite a few jobs out there on turboprops or corporate that pay more and you dont pay to get there.
Get your career the real way...........earn it.Believe me when you will get to your interview at a major the pilots on the board of hiring think like this and will look negatively on you paying for your training,accepting not getting paid until you are released on line than they will look positively on your jet time .
Stop prostituting yourself and our proffession.

Very well said....there are far too many sluts in this industry (and I'm not talking about the FAs)

That last remark is actually taking away from the professionalism in our realm of the industry. It's uncalled for, disturbing and outright trash.

How can we possibly gain any respect within this industry when comments as such are made about our peers in such a derogatory manner?

If you choose to post such filth...kindly keep it out of the 'Canada' forum. This is not a representation of who we are as a country.

IABD

Bird Dog is right.
 

C150 Driver;

Careful with your choice of words. You could have used many other words to describe your opinion in an objective manner.
Use of the profane displays a limited vocabulary.

You also infer that all F/As are of this persuasion.
I'm sure you just failed to give your posting a sober second reading. Only the truly ignorant would believe such a statement.

Cheers;

McDoo

Just because you're not paranoid, doesn't mean no one is out to get you.

C150, you made me laugh. Some people on this forum have lost their sense of humour.

Yo le Chameau, drinking Rosé in Bahrain

Hey I remember that "Rose and the Camel" in Bahrain...yeah you and C150 made me laugh and laugh and laugh...*sigh* Good times. You guy's were hilarious. Nothing funnier than what you guy do for laughs.

http://www.10eastern.com/images/Foun.../photo-107.jpg

meaw :



"will save a couple of years on his career"

hmmmmm couple of years??????? If you have jet time in your log book you have better chance to find a job in a airline. Remember a lot of airlines request "jet" hours or turboprop +12500 kgs. So with a emb 110 12500 LBS:eek: What are your career perspectives ?????


"there are quite a few jobs out there on turboprops or corporate that pay more and you dont pay to get there."

2 or 3?
Examples please!:hmm: corporate : minimum days off, most of the time on stby, very few hours a year and well paid???? Examples in canada please!!!!!!!

Turboprops paying more than jets? Probably but again, examples please!!!:sad:

and last point : I personnaly work for a "major" and i will never "prostitute" myself entering in this kind of "pay to fly" but i have a lot of friends in canada who don't have my chance. If they want to pay for a jet rating . Nothing I can do.... But i understand after 6 years flying in the north of canada that they wanted to seat on a jet cockpit and land on runways longer than 800M:}


I am Birdog :

I like the camel! Where did you toke this picture?:ok:


C150 driver :

Have you flown in the north of canada????? with a C150 for example :E

Cheers!

Pico:hmm:

Hey guys d ont forget that at JetsGo they give u back the money after 2 years with interest

Anywhere in the world u do not get back your money

So in fact u d ont pay for it BUt it is a way for the Cie to be sure that you will stay there for 2 years

I have seen many pilots in the past joining a Cie to get the JET type then leave some where else a few months after

-Question. Did you work for TS back in the 90's? Based out of YYZ (Lived in Mississauga) but from PQ?

Anyway...thats a great plan if the company does not fold before your "2 years". However I believe the training bond is useless because in 2 years you won't get enough jet time to be properly marketable and the 'type rating' on a MD88 or F100 is worthless in the industry anyway.

Where else do you find an industry that you have to pay to work?! Pay to work!?! I think it's a sad state of affairs. I believe a hand shake is worth more than a piece of paper. However....I'm a dieing breed I guess.

pico
 

Pico bello


i am curious, you are french canadian or French? i know you are friend with Eric Pico, you work now for Air Inuit or Cree?



cheers dude

Any truth to the rumor that all the FO's have been asked to take a $5000 pay cut?

To Birdog

I totally agree with u No body should pay for the training. But in Europe , Australia and some Asian Cie it is popular and my point was that Jetgo is better than them because yes if the Cie survive they will get their money back

Been with AT only one year after closure of Nationair and left Canada since 1994
Working in Asia is 100 time better
and I never paid for training except my private and commercial IFR

There have been NO pay cuts at Jetsgo.

LindbergB767


I think we know each other my friend....NX then TS. Now I work for a 704-703 operation.

YYZ base or YMX?

OK, OK, perhaps I should have used the word "prostitutes" instead of "sluts"....most people get my point.
As for "professionalism" of Canadian pilots....I feel that showing up on your first day of work with a briefcase filled with $30000 damages our "professional" status. I have never seen another industry where people are so quick to bash each other, or step on one another's heads on the way up the ladder. If we stuck together as a group, $30000 training fees wouldn't exist. I understand why people do it...if flying is all you know and you are faced with no other way to feed your family I understand, but Jetsgo is filled with many young kids who's parents pay so they can get their "jet time". The whole thing hurts us all and I think it is too far gone to stop.

BTW, some of you assume too much...just because my handle is c150driver, doesn't mean that I fly one....maybe I fly a C172RG!

You know what, I work for Jetsgo, paid my 30K and let me tell you that it was never my plan to pay to get to exercise the pilot's profession. Also, as some have stated above, I am neither a prostitute nor a spoiled kid with rich parents, and I think that after having succesfully completed training in the military and spent 10 years in the Air Force I think I have earned some valuable experience as a pilot and under more normal conditions it is fair to say I could probably have , like a lot of my military friends, landed a job at Air Canada. It was the logical and realistic choice after a career in the Air Force (aka "Air Canada training plan"). But the fact and the matter is one september morning a few years back a couple of guys decided to ram airplanes into buildings and the whole picture changed. If that had not happened chances are I wouldn't be here writing this post.

However, with a family to look after, with a spouse that has a permanent (and non-transferable employment) in Quebec, the only viable option to me one year and a half ago (short of going back in the military) was Jetsgo, 'cause you know I tried everywhere else and somehow I could just not justified to my family going up north flying a twin because that was probaby the only job I could have found post 911, if that.

I would appreciate if the guys on this forum could widen their way of seeing this and not put everybody in the same boat. Have a bigger picture is what I'm trying to say. Sometimes you don't have many choices; it was my case. I am still bitter about it today because my professional pride took a hit the day I gave the money; I've been dedicating myself to aviation for 15 years now and always worked hard at maintaining a high standard; I never thought it would come to this.

I somehow try to see the positive sides of things, as little as they sometimes are. For example, many jobs out there today require a type rating that guys willingly pay, and that costs sometimes up to $30 000. Do you call these guys prostitutes-with-no-pride? Are they destroying our profession? I also was lucky enough to get it the left seat of a 160 pax jet after 6 months as an FO. Not many companies can offer that. 6 months from now I will have all my money back, with interest and roughly 2000 hrs of jet time (from which 1300 or so will be PIC) I didn't have leaving the Air Force (apparently one of the most important thing in an airline pilot resume as I understand since I started my civie- ilot life) So I totally disagree with the person who said an MD83 or Fokker rating is useless. It might not be as sought after as a 737 or Airbus, but certainly not useless. Again, an observation lacking perspective.

Don't think I'm saying Jetsgo is great; it has a long way to go before it can compare to, say, Wesjet. We are below industry average for pay and work conditions for example, but currently are negociating and seeing some improvement. What I'm saying is I will suffer from depression if I don't try and force myself to look at the bright side of things right now.

The pilot profession is in a sad state nowadays, and I somehow just cannot accept that Jetsgo pilots wear this burden of responsibility by having paid 30K. The pilot group did it to itself well before our days. The CEO of Jetsgo in the Royal days for example had guys freshly trained on the A310 leave for Air Canada. Do you think he feels bad today about making pilots pay money to get a position? Hell, even then at one point the company had a few hundred resumes on file. Do you think he has a great deal of respect for pilots now? Have we earned that respect?

Bottom line is Jetsgo is a product of years of pilots always seeking for the greener pastures, coupled with the crisis aviation is trying to emerge from since 911. The pilot group never stood together and I don't think it'll start anytime soon seeing how guys are back-stabbing each other in this forum for example. However, there is a price to pay for such a behavior, and for me that price was $30 000. In the meantime, I have kids to feed and a mortgage to pay, so I did the right thing under the circumstances.

well said!
;)

Quebecer....go back and look at my post...I sympathize with a guy who has to support a family...I have one too.

Quebecer,

I agree...well said!! The profession is in a pickle down here too. As for the previous comment about the value of MD80 time, you are correct that flight time is flight time and therefore has value. However, in a world where job postings require "...typed, current and XXXX hours in type...", MD80 time isn't nearly as "marketable" as 767/737/A320, etc. Look where the MD80 jobs are...Indonesia, Africa, maybe Taiwan...places you and the family might not want, or be able to go. And, these jobs aren't career positions from the look of them( a career position being everyone's first choice).

I've got 6,000 hours PIC in the MD80 and have been looking for long term employment for over a year....unsuccessfully. This has a bit to do with my ambivalence about overseas employment perhaps but after tracking job postings carefully, the world is, in fact, NOT crying out for MD80 pilots. The airplane is Third World...

johnnyD...why is it so difficult to believe that Jetsgo would quickly upgrade a military pilot with no Jet time...they routinely upgrade Air Georgian B1900 pilots quickly, and they have no jet time.

I certainly hope their training and checking program is set up to compensate for their obvious lack of experience. They better have a good group of hard nosed checkers who are willing to hold some folks back.

I can tell you that the MNTC guys on the line aren't happy with the low time Capt's or F/O's. An ex-colleague of mine in YYZ was telling me he has never done so many hard landing inspections in his career, and he worked on heavies for a while before he worked on SG. These were however on the MD-80, I havn't asked him how the F-100 guys are. Another tech in YUL openly said"it's just a matter of time, that's how they will learn",scary. I hope both these guys are overacting, competion aside I really hope that training and experience are taken into consideration and are carried with vigour. The last thing aviation in Canada needs now is a serious accident or incident.

While I understand ML's reluctance to train people without an enforceable bond, I think that the manner in which he does it to be completely unacceptable.

Any bank in the country will open an escrow account into which the prospective pilot could put the $ 30 000. The agreement would state the terms under which the money would be paid to Jetsgo. (Pilot leaves of own volition, prorated etc.)

This arrangement would give Jetsgo the protection they need, but with one big difference. If Jetsgo goes "Tango Uniform", the pilot goes to the bank, and picks up the money.

When I proposed this arrangement to them, they declined, saying "that's not the way ML wants to do it".
What are they so afraid of. Makes me think I should be afraid of losing my money.

I sincerely hope that a shortage of experienced pilots with $30000 dries up soon. Maybe they will come to their senses and at least explore the "escrow" option.

Iwould also add that I have a family too, and I think that gambling with $30 000 on a company about which I have NO financial information (private company) would be extremely irresponsible.

Pilots are supposed to exibit responsible behavior, and analyse risks.

Hey guys what are u talking about
When a pilot is ready to upgrade he has to prove it in the Sim and on the line check
I was upgrade myself as Captain on DC 8 with total jet time of 300 hrs as B737 FO and 300 hrs on DC8
My background was not military and at that time I had about 7000 hours
I really d ont see any problem if the training is done properly

Has anyone heard the rumours that Jet'sGO will announce flights to Europe this summer. If so I guess we'll see some Beech 1900 guys flying A-310's or 757's real soon. Over an Ocean no less. Scary!
No disrespect to Beech guys but that's one hell of a quick upgrade.

Quebecer-

Nice speech...but everyone hold on here a frigin' minute. I hate when people use the 'child' card. Guess what...a lot of us have children. A lot of us want to be good parents. A lot of us want to set our children with good examples in life. Also, I hope your excuse to pay 30K was NOT because you got bored with the military?

911 affected us all, my friend. You are no different. I have been displaced from family, friends, and my children...I refuse to pay to work, and where I do work I honour my contract.

When I return home, the values I instill in my children are ones of honour, integrity, loyalty, and the meaning of a promise.
I will not sell out. I will not devalue my principles. That is more important to me and my wife than a trip to McDonald's. Those are the examples we use to make our children better than what we are. Evolution of thought...evolution of people.

As far as M Leblanc being upset about having pilots leave after done their training at Royal...Well a company to pay for it's training of pilots, is the price of doing business!!! Tha excuse that all pilots leave to go to AC after a A310 PPC, yet the salary below anything resembling a third world poverty is shyte...do you wonder why anyone would stay at all?
Heck even you left the military for a reason or another. 15 years was it? You have a good pension my friend...you did not need to contribute to the polluted system that we find our selves in today. You could have waited for the dream job or picked up a turbo prop job in the meantime. Instead I think you went for the 'Big Iron'.

Want to set a good example for your children....don't put them in front of your argument of dire straights.

I am Birddog.

I wonder how much the 'big picture' will change if AC follows through on it's rumoured plans to blacklist Jetsgo pilots.

I hope not. I don't think that is right. Just as much as WestJet is rumoured to post pilot applicant resumes on a billboard for possible hire or blacklisting for one of the final phases of the process.