THY Turkish Captains will fly w/out payment - or: why will THY never be attractive
 

Just think about:
You join an employer, you work there, show loyality, and when things turn bad, you try to move on, but you do not get, because you have been exactly with THIS employer.
UNBELIEVABLE!!!! but this is THY,
and it happened to all pilots, who wanted to go to China. Chinese to not accept Turkish nationals, nor Expats, who worked in Turkey, unless they had been working outside Turkey for mim 2 years.

On top the latest info, just received about an internal pilot discussion inside THY, a month ago.
The subject came up, when an expat pilot posted some ideas to make the job working for THY more attractive.
He mentioned a salary increase for compensating of worst ever dropping Turkish Lira to the 4.2 ration, and since it is affecting expats most, to compensate that for expats.
Remarkable is, that only 4 years ago, the value was 2.2, and just within the past month, the Turlish Lira overran the 4.5 mark.
Analyst saying, it is in a deadly spiral connecting economy numbers to currency and vice versa. They say, the 5 will come soon and no indication that it will stop.

I was told, that many Turkish do not write in English to avoid expat to read that.
This post was send to me, as an existing example. Therefore I used translater and then it becomes clear, why there are too much troubles working there and never ever will be an attractive working climate.

XXX ve YYY Kaptanlarımın yazdıklarına kesinlikle katılıyorum.Yabancıbir kaptanın Türk hava yollarında bir Türk kaptandan bir kuruş fazla maaş alması veya programlarındaki bir ayrıcalık asla kabul ed ilemez.
Biz gerekirse maaş almadan da uçarız, Saygılar

I strongly agree with the writings of XXX and YYY Captains.
A foreign captain's salary on a Turkish captain over a Turkish captain or a privilege in his programs is never acceptable.
We will fly without pay if necessary, Sincerely

Urrgghhh, poor situation for pilots there! No worries to go into trouble !

And for FOs, there is a looong, so looong queu, because there was no upgrades for a long time and those pilots who stayed, they were close for upgrade. Now they think to reduce mim experience time for upgrade, what means, that many Turkish staying longer inside THY will bypass the expats, who joined with high experience.

It is not only the expats who are running away. Also the Turkish pilots left and still more are going on interviews etc.

Even in that bad situation, the management is not giving back the salary increase for 2017, who was given by employers to safe their job.

Good luck

local point of view
 

I am a local FO at Turkish and unfortunately most of the stuff that's been written here is correct.

Currently, there is neither justice nor serenity at TK. Locals and expats have different contracts and inequality exists even between expats. Lack of professionalism and leave it if you don't like it mentality is causing a huge damage to this company.

As a result, so many expats, Turkish Fo's and captains resigning. As SurvivedJZR mentioned above if you have flown at Turkish or if you are Turkish you cant work in china. Moreover, the latest blow to pilots is coming from TK and Turkish dgca itself. In order to stop Turkish pilots escape to middle east they are not validating or delaying license validation.

In terms of conditions,
If you are local fo or captain= You don't get anything. You cant get block days off like expats for example.
Expat captains and fos who are on 330 and 777 are entitled to block days off.
IF on 320 or 737 you work like local fo or capt.
Housing or hotel allowance is given to expat 330 and 777 captains only. If you are on 320 or 737 as a cap or fo, you don't get the housing either.

In terms of pay, 320 and 737 captains start around 23500 tl an every 3 months you get around 10000tl bonus which bring your salary to around 27000tl. if on 330 or 777 you get 3000 lira wide body difference. so you are around 30000. this is your base salary for 70hrs. Anything above that is extra money. you get paid for flying on sunday also.

Patrick mentioned about $11k. This money includes base pay plus extra flying hours plus allowance at layovers plus fuel for commuting plus if you flew on sunday that money as well. I highly doubt he made that every month or maybe he did considering dollar rate at his time. But now its very rare u will hit those numbers. So now lets say you make 36000 lira it is equal to 35k dirham or 8k in euro. First officer salary in middle east.

Fos on the other hand make net around 16000tl for 70hrs. plus bonus every 3 month. so around 19 to 20k in tl monthly. If you become p3 on widebody there is 2k difference also.
Salary increase is at minimal this year %1.5 + %1.5 every 6 months. Inflation is highest this year since 2008 by %12. A Dollar last year in November was 3,08tl now 3,9 and soon will be more than 4.00tl

Layover allowance in most locations is 52$ per 24 hours of stay.

In terms of upgrades,
Min time 4500hr stick time= If you are expat with high school diploma its if i am not wrong 6500hr. Its my 8th year with more than 5000hrs and i am still waiting. Turkish dgca has just removed the minimum upgrade time. But company limits still exist. In the coming days we will see how it will effect the upgrades.

In terms of roster,

320 and 737 = no life. Expect around minimum 30 to 40 sectors with few stanby. 8 days off. I have seen 52 sectors on my friends roster this summer. Day in day out one day morning next day midnight flights. You figure out the rest i wont say more.

330 and 777 expat capt and fo: expect block of days for 330 between 8 to 10 and 777 9 to 12 days. Still the most relaxed roster at 777.

So, make your own choice :)

Is there any retirement plan for expat on the narrow body

Retirement plan? Consider yourself lucky if on a layover you dont kick the bucket in your hotel room 😐

first of all the political and economical situation in Turkey is getting worse day by day , the local guy's post is totally correct about the salaries. Aviation syndicate(union) of Turkey is totally controlled by THY so improvement for salaries is delayed every month. Even promised rise of 2017. Euro and USD are being expected to be 5 and 4.5 in 2018 by the economists. Also in 777 fleet they stopped giving 8 blockdays to everyone including expats. In narrow body you can begin two different duties on the same day after the new rules published and it is happening now! If you fail every assesment of any airlines around the World then you can consider to come THY but I would never recommend. Stay away as much as you can!

You confirm that B777 captains or first officers don't have their week off agreed in their contract anymore?

Then it means that THY is actually short of pilots and is demanding its flying personal to work regardless of the contract lines.:uhoh:

THY?

Stay away, there are many others. Have seen it, got the t-shirt......

F.CK O.F
 

Hey, there is no other airline being actulally more cruel to staff than THY!!!
- Lies from morning to evening
- No increase in salary although highly and urgently needed
- No any other signs of a single goddie, which would cost the company nothing, like duty or off request and other items
- Of course no other goodie which would cost something
- Vice Versa, they INCREASE RISKS FOR PILOTS / CABIN ATTENDANTS
- MORE RISKS DUE TO INCREASED LAYOVERS IN PAKISTAN AND OTHER CRITICAL AREAS several times a month
- HIGH RISK OF INFECTION MOVING LAYOVER INTO PEST-EPIDEMIC MADAGASCAR in order to safe some costs of layover in Mauritius
- INCREASED RASIST AGRESSIONS AGAINST EXPATS from pilots and management
- pilots leaving, although following the rules, do not get correct salary at all.
- Cut of operating pilots from 4 to 3, or 3 to 2 on many longhaul flights or double-rotation as example Kabul (14h+ nightduty and CAT C airport and weather problems, etc).
- Highly increased FATIGUE for all flying staff

Monthly 100+ pilots leaving (expats and Turkish).
So who will be there flying the A/Cs? They will keep more and more on ground and those pilots remaining there will work double/tripple for useless little money.

Landsafe...

You OBVIOUSLY have not worked at Emirates.. Slave Ship Int'l Airlines!!

The TK people are SOOOO much more nice than the pricks at EK

K

There might be serious internal problems at THY, however most other carriers have the same issue. Take Emirates for instance. SIGMA aviation offers an average of 35000TL (for wide body captains) and stil with the bad Lira (currently at 4.55) you will be able to have a very good life in Turkey. Turkey is stil very cheap compared to other countries. You will be able to save a lot of your incomes, more than in Dubai. The salary is not too competitive but you will save at least 5000€ if you dont live too luxurious... 777 rosters are good. How much does a captain saves in Emirates these days with a family?

Live lately an not to luxurious live, as you call it, 3 bedroom townhouse in desert part of town and kids in top tier non profit school. From my $20K EK package, have no probs saving @10K a month quite easily. Thats excluding bonus ( if we ever gonna see one).

Wife had to say good buy to the maid, spinneys and her 4x4, me to the Porsche and boat.
Now driving both european and shopping at Union Coop, that all it takes. Still do lots of holidays and skiing though!

100% correct, did not work there, but had been working in 4 other major companies.
At the end, it doesn`t matter who is worse.
I can talk only about THY and it is certainly not a place to go, don`t be foolish.

Today:
1EUR = 4,60 TL
1USD = 3,90 TL

average 35.000 TL = sure ???
How many TL in case you are sick ?
How many deductions when you are not avail on phone in your rest, or even when you fly home/back to IST?
Remember, it is a huge subject to be avail 24hrs as stated in working contract although it is neither possible at all nor that legality will be respected.
So, no chance to make 5.000 EUR a month for real life conditions.

What tha hell are you talking about man!? Be serious and dont post sh.. and lie to people. Another troll

You can save easily 5k!. I am not pro Turkish airlines but you either have gambling issues or to many girlfriends...

Wingman 82

Do not quite get your post? What part of my posting is it you don't understand?

To be honest most families in europe live with less then 2300 eur net per month, so I’d say it is definitely possible.
Now, to want to do that when you went through all the trouble of becoming an international airline captain is a totally different story..

Well.....Turkish has had a lot of incidents over the last few years. What happened to those flight crew. An important question for those interested in going over there.

Can someone answer please.

Who cares about Europe? They are building the new Istanbul airport which will have 90 million pax capacity starting by the end of next year. In Europe, take Berlin for instance, they can’t manage to build the airport for over 8 years now?

This is what really matters? A brand new airport? Geez...