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Air Japan (AJX) B767

Old 12th Mar 2020, 08:25
  #3381 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Range73
Hi guys, also doing DEC assessment shortly, thanks for all the info.

Just a short question, if admitted are there a lot of people send away during training like in China, or are you accepted and helped pass the training? Just trying to assess the risk of ending up empty handed and jobless after 6-8 months.

Cheers
It isn't a difficult training. Just long. If you get with your classmates and talk with the people on course in front of you, you will do fine. You have to study but it isn't that bad. The instructors will not help you. They will answer questions you have but you will learn it on your own. That is why you need to get together with your classmates.
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Old 12th Mar 2020, 20:14
  #3382 (permalink)  
 
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DEC Seniority

Offered a DEC position at AJX and was about to hand in my resignation. Then Corona struck and I became uneasy leaving a secure job and joining at the bottom of the seniority list on a contract with a company heavily invested in SE Asia routes.
With further investigation, my suspicions were confirmed. B767 flying severely cut back. AJX is overstaffed with B767 Captain’s. DEC’s join in seniority.....below FO’s who joined ahead of them. Any retrenchments or unpaid leave is a serious risk for a DEC.
Suddenly the sandpit is not looking so bad after all.
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Old 12th Mar 2020, 21:14
  #3383 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Range73
Hi guys, also doing DEC assessment shortly, thanks for all the info.

Just a short question, if admitted are there a lot of people send away during training like in China, or are you accepted and helped pass the training? Just trying to assess the risk of ending up empty handed and jobless after 6-8 months.

Cheers
That topic has been addressed over the years, there is a risk that exactly that could happen, failure rates vary on experience and attitude but mostly your ability to learn their pedantic ways will determine your success. Historically 20% failure rates on initials for F/O's and DEC's.

The last couple of classes have been pretty successful but that is due to the fact that there were guys coming back to AJX after they left for a few years, there were guys that already had the JCAB license, all those facts are on favor of a high pass rate. Outside of that 20% failures seems to be pretty standard.
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Old 13th Mar 2020, 22:22
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They are overstaffed today, yes, mainly because many flights to China, Hong Kong and so on were axed. But you have to bear in mind that if you join today you'll be "available" for them in 8- 10 months which will probably be enough to overcome this Corona Hell crisis.
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Old 14th Mar 2020, 15:32
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Just came back from TYO. I’d like to thank every AJX pilot actively participating here as what It’s been said in this thread is very important from the very beginning to the very end. Lots of different scenarios and tips have been mentioned here and everything counts. The interview and the sim ain’t easy although it’s pretty straight forward. You know what you’re going to be asked so they want to see a lot of preparation prior to go. It makes sense.

About the process in Japan, arrived late evening and had 2 days of sim. Really important here is to have the profiles very clear prior to arrival. Most of us arrive from other aircraft and its indeed different to fly. My advices here would be:

- Don’t follow the FD, just point at were you want to turn and at the rate you want to turn and let the flight director catch you. If you don’t do it like this you will end up making violent moves as the flight director moves (in the sim) aren’t smooth.

- Always use the descend to drag the aircraft. Ask for flaps any time you push V/S.

- Arm yourself the Autobrake and order the Parking Brake.

- Train your speech. Japanese like it straight to the point and loud. Even if they are hiring you as an FO (my case), they are looking for future captains. Weak or soft voice is considered insecurity or weakness.

- I would strongly recommend to have a look at how the sim and the facilities are left after the Japanese had their go. They always take care of the seatbelts, pedal and seat position, doors or even chairs and tables. Play their game, learn how they behave in their culture. They want to see that you can adapt, if you really want the job, you must show them.

Try to learn all the pitch and power settings in the sim, although in the end, you’ll always have to fly the aircraft. These settings are just a reference.



After the 2 days sim I had a day OFF. Spent it reviewing the ATP and the sim profile. There’s a lot of stuff to remember so give yourself a good amount of days or weeks.

About the interview day, you’re escorted from the hotel to the training center. Now the interviews are held at the new TC of ANA. Massive facilities and beautiful to see and visit. So you can imagine how big it is, there’s 20 sims there and cabin crew are trained (and that’s only in the first floor).

You will start greeting the HR people (in my case I was told that captains and every person involved that they in the assessment had been checked the day before and were free of the virus for my safety). Your will fill some papers and give consent to the process. Make sure you bring all the paperwork with you. They will check everything. It’s a good idea to bring the logbook too. I was asked If I had it with me to take some pictures.

You have 25 minutes to do 20 questions of ATP. Straight forward and it looks they are completely random. Some are easy some are crazy.

About 15 minutes later you go to the interview room and are told about the profile. 3 captains, 2 HR and one person in charge of the computer and projector. Everyone is very nice, warm welcome, shaked hands and bowed. Alll of them are smiling the hole time, I suggest you do the same. They explain exactly how they want the profile. What you have to ask for and repeat 1000 times that even if you’re a FO they want you to be the captain. They wont do anything unless you ask for it. It takes about an hour and one of the captains will be going through the hole profile until you agree that you understood everything. Any questions you have, ask them. They will lovely answer any weird question you have, but they will be clear. Ask your PM to do anything you want. Use common sense with this, you cant order your PM to report something in the next leg or something like that. Just give him the orders.

Then you have free time (about an hour) and you start with your personality test. 567 questions exactly.

An hour later you go to the interview. Exactly the same place as before with the same people. HR will start asking about the company and how do you feel there, if your travel was pleasant and if you trained in the SIM. If so, they’ll ask you your thoughts about it. Then captains will ask one by one their stuff. If you come from the 737 (my case) you will probably have one captain that flies it or has flown it recently. You can tell because one captain will ask about performance, tech and ICAO procedures (memory items, flaps, landing gear); another one will ask about Air law (comm loss, light gun…) and the last one will ask about equipment in your aircraft and related procedures (EGPWS, WS, TCAS…).

Everything is pretty straight forward, although the performance and air law questions sometimes might surprise you a bit (tyre pressures, hydroplaning speeds, light guns…), be prepared for the ATP, I think they guide their questions regarding your answers in the prior exam, as it has been stated before.

Then back to HR and last questions about conmuting, distance from the airport to your place, etc.

You’ll have about one hour to keep going with the personality test and you go to the sim. So far they’ve been so nice that I was not nervous at all. It kinda looked you were barbecuing with them. They were very nice, prepared the aircraft for me and invited me to sit down and relax. You’ll start with a Autoland, they will tell you to check the N1, pitch settings and how you go down to 3 reds on the PAPI in the last 100ft.

Then a visual approach. I wasn’t practically corrected anything. Just was told to check more the instruments and when I told them I was doing it, the PM told me to exaggerate the movement. They were very clear with that.

You then start the official assessment. VISUAL, VOR and SE ILS. Nothing new here, just make sure you work hard prior to arrival in TYO so you take advantage of the sim sessions as much as possible. Very short briefings but make them correctly and checking everything. They want speeds, minimas, AB, and you to read the top part of the plate. Missed app? “Standard missed approach” and you brief the first 5 steps of the go around. That’s it. They don’t want anything else. Now, with the motion everything is much easier than in the FBS, so don’t worry if altitude or speed or trimming is difficult, you’ll feel more comfortable with the motion ON.

Once you finish, remember to leave everything OFF (as much as you know or can) and stow your headset, seats and harnesses. You’ll be told to go back to do your test and that everything has finished.

Once you finish your test you’ll be escorted back to your hotel. I was the only one being assessed and I started at 1500LT and finished at 2300LT. So it’s a long day. If there’s more candidates it might take until 3 or 4 in the morning I was told.

In my case I was successful at the screening and interview so at about midnight I was contacted by email to be told to go the next afternoon to the ANA medical center. It took 4 hours. Then go to the town, have a nice dinner to celebrate it and go back home the next day.

It’s a very demanding week, I took me 7 days to go though everything. Overall, again, everyone very very polite, super nice people and an unforgettable assessment. To be honest we had some laughs at the interview. They are very smiley and have a good sense of humor (something I didn’t know they had).

Thanks to everyone here again that has been for years maintaining this thread alive and active and helping us without having anything in exchange. I should be starting in July or September if the medical goes well.

Lots of luck for the guys going now to TYO!!!
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Old 15th Mar 2020, 03:15
  #3386 (permalink)  
 
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Congratulations Montema. Very good write up.
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Old 15th Mar 2020, 04:39
  #3387 (permalink)  
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This.

Originally Posted by montema
Just came back from TYO. I’d like to thank every AJX pilot actively participating here as what It’s been said in this thread is very important from the very beginning to the very end. Lots of different scenarios and tips have been mentioned here and everything counts. The interview and the sim ain’t easy although it’s pretty straight forward. You know what you’re going to be asked so they want to see a lot of preparation prior to go. It makes sense.

About the process in Japan, arrived late evening and had 2 days of sim. Really important here is to have the profiles very clear prior to arrival. Most of us arrive from other aircraft and its indeed different to fly. My advices here would be:

- Don’t follow the FD, just point at were you want to turn and at the rate you want to turn and let the flight director catch you. If you don’t do it like this you will end up making violent moves as the flight director moves (in the sim) aren’t smooth.

- Always use the descend to drag the aircraft. Ask for flaps any time you push V/S.

- Arm yourself the Autobrake and order the Parking Brake.

- Train your speech. Japanese like it straight to the point and loud. Even if they are hiring you as an FO (my case), they are looking for future captains. Weak or soft voice is considered insecurity or weakness.

- I would strongly recommend to have a look at how the sim and the facilities are left after the Japanese had their go. They always take care of the seatbelts, pedal and seat position, doors or even chairs and tables. Play their game, learn how they behave in their culture. They want to see that you can adapt, if you really want the job, you must show them.

Try to learn all the pitch and power settings in the sim, although in the end, you’ll always have to fly the aircraft. These settings are just a reference.



After the 2 days sim I had a day OFF. Spent it reviewing the ATP and the sim profile. There’s a lot of stuff to remember so give yourself a good amount of days or weeks.

About the interview day, you’re escorted from the hotel to the training center. Now the interviews are held at the new TC of ANA. Massive facilities and beautiful to see and visit. So you can imagine how big it is, there’s 20 sims there and cabin crew are trained (and that’s only in the first floor).

You will start greeting the HR people (in my case I was told that captains and every person involved that they in the assessment had been checked the day before and were free of the virus for my safety). Your will fill some papers and give consent to the process. Make sure you bring all the paperwork with you. They will check everything. It’s a good idea to bring the logbook too. I was asked If I had it with me to take some pictures.

You have 25 minutes to do 20 questions of ATP. Straight forward and it looks they are completely random. Some are easy some are crazy.

About 15 minutes later you go to the interview room and are told about the profile. 3 captains, 2 HR and one person in charge of the computer and projector. Everyone is very nice, warm welcome, shaked hands and bowed. Alll of them are smiling the hole time, I suggest you do the same. They explain exactly how they want the profile. What you have to ask for and repeat 1000 times that even if you’re a FO they want you to be the captain. They wont do anything unless you ask for it. It takes about an hour and one of the captains will be going through the hole profile until you agree that you understood everything. Any questions you have, ask them. They will lovely answer any weird question you have, but they will be clear. Ask your PM to do anything you want. Use common sense with this, you cant order your PM to report something in the next leg or something like that. Just give him the orders.

Then you have free time (about an hour) and you start with your personality test. 567 questions exactly.

An hour later you go to the interview. Exactly the same place as before with the same people. HR will start asking about the company and how do you feel there, if your travel was pleasant and if you trained in the SIM. If so, they’ll ask you your thoughts about it. Then captains will ask one by one their stuff. If you come from the 737 (my case) you will probably have one captain that flies it or has flown it recently. You can tell because one captain will ask about performance, tech and ICAO procedures (memory items, flaps, landing gear); another one will ask about Air law (comm loss, light gun…) and the last one will ask about equipment in your aircraft and related procedures (EGPWS, WS, TCAS…).

Everything is pretty straight forward, although the performance and air law questions sometimes might surprise you a bit (tyre pressures, hydroplaning speeds, light guns…), be prepared for the ATP, I think they guide their questions regarding your answers in the prior exam, as it has been stated before.

Then back to HR and last questions about conmuting, distance from the airport to your place, etc.

You’ll have about one hour to keep going with the personality test and you go to the sim. So far they’ve been so nice that I was not nervous at all. It kinda looked you were barbecuing with them. They were very nice, prepared the aircraft for me and invited me to sit down and relax. You’ll start with a Autoland, they will tell you to check the N1, pitch settings and how you go down to 3 reds on the PAPI in the last 100ft.

Then a visual approach. I wasn’t practically corrected anything. Just was told to check more the instruments and when I told them I was doing it, the PM told me to exaggerate the movement. They were very clear with that.

You then start the official assessment. VISUAL, VOR and SE ILS. Nothing new here, just make sure you work hard prior to arrival in TYO so you take advantage of the sim sessions as much as possible. Very short briefings but make them correctly and checking everything. They want speeds, minimas, AB, and you to read the top part of the plate. Missed app? “Standard missed approach” and you brief the first 5 steps of the go around. That’s it. They don’t want anything else. Now, with the motion everything is much easier than in the FBS, so don’t worry if altitude or speed or trimming is difficult, you’ll feel more comfortable with the motion ON.

Once you finish, remember to leave everything OFF (as much as you know or can) and stow your headset, seats and harnesses. You’ll be told to go back to do your test and that everything has finished.

Once you finish your test you’ll be escorted back to your hotel. I was the only one being assessed and I started at 1500LT and finished at 2300LT. So it’s a long day. If there’s more candidates it might take until 3 or 4 in the morning I was told.

In my case I was successful at the screening and interview so at about midnight I was contacted by email to be told to go the next afternoon to the ANA medical center. It took 4 hours. Then go to the town, have a nice dinner to celebrate it and go back home the next day.

It’s a very demanding week, I took me 7 days to go though everything. Overall, again, everyone very very polite, super nice people and an unforgettable assessment. To be honest we had some laughs at the interview. They are very smiley and have a good sense of humor (something I didn’t know they had).

Thanks to everyone here again that has been for years maintaining this thread alive and active and helping us without having anything in exchange. I should be starting in July or September if the medical goes well.

Lots of luck for the guys going now to TYO!!!
As an ex AJX pilot, I will say to any future prospect, if you want to succeed in selection, THIS is how you do it.

This gentleman has displayed the exact attitude the Japanese are after. If you follow this guys advice from start to finish, you will get the job....... if you want it lol.
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Old 16th Mar 2020, 08:26
  #3388 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by Hawk Circle
Any insights or advice with regards to which agency is best: CReW or Longreach Aviation?
I went with crew and couldn’t be happier with the support for the interview prep. Longreach I believe is the same contract but the benefits are ability to do sim prep in australia prior to travelling to Tokyo. With crew the sim prep is in Tokyo in the ANA sim, and as such you’ll need an extra 3 days on the ground, making it a 5-6 day trip for the interview. They also have slightly more comprehensive training notes, but with crew you’ll get a couple of one on one coaching calls with a check pilot.
Both will prep you very well for the interview.
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Old 16th Mar 2020, 09:54
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at this stage, Crew appear to have the better package available and definitely communicate better with their employees. The latest issues with the virus have definitely illustrated this. BTW, I am employed by the other company. There are a few other issues which support this, in fact, some would quite happily change to Crew if they had the opportunity.
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Old 16th Mar 2020, 12:37
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BTW, I am employed by the other company. There are a few other issues which support this, in fact, some would quite happily change to Crew if they had the opportunity
PARC are an absolute disgrace, both in the recent reduction in medical cover (which will barely buy you a bandage and some Aspirin) and now the blatant lack of initiative in gaining any protections for their pilots or in communicating anything useful about the current situation. CREW are getting regular updates, with new news. PARC's rep is on leave and has, in the two emails sent, just said nothing.....unless "wash you hands" or "standby" is considered useful. What else would we be doing

I don't know who would stay with PARC if CREW said "come on in". The non-poaching agreement has been used as a reason for turning down requests to do so but there is certainly no need to poach. There's no need for CREW to even ask; just say "yes".
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Old 17th Mar 2020, 05:18
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Rishworth posted an ad for type-rated B787 FO-s for Air Japan.
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Old 19th Mar 2020, 22:59
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Originally Posted by j.nips
Rishworth posted an ad for type-rated B787 FO-s for Air Japan.
The shield of invincibility with this contract is simply not there, the whole reassurance that the company "will keep hiring" is based on hope more than financial reality.

The effects of this long term are still unknown, for the first time on all the years that I've been here I'm getting the feeling that unless the pandemic doesn't begin to subside in the next couple of months this could very well be the end of AJX.
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Old 19th Mar 2020, 23:07
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well said!
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Old 21st Mar 2020, 06:00
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Originally Posted by The Dominican
The shield of invincibility with this contract is simply not there, the whole reassurance that the company "will keep hiring" is based on hope more than financial reality.

The effects of this long term are still unknown, for the first time on all the years that I've been here I'm getting the feeling that unless the pandemic doesn't begin to subside in the next couple of months this could very well be the end of AJX.
Surely ANA would get government’s financial support if this was to continue longer than 1 or 2
months. Would AJX not be included in this?
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Old 21st Mar 2020, 07:08
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that would be great to see but one never knows how these things work
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Old 21st Mar 2020, 09:13
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Originally Posted by bringbackthe80s
Surely ANA would get government’s financial support if this was to continue longer than 1 or 2
months. Would AJX not be included in this?
That's not my point, I'm not concerned with mainline ANA's ability to ride the storm, they have a lot of cash at hand and credit lines since they've been profitable even in down times like the Swine flu and The Fukushima disaster days.

My point is that we are contractors, if mainline makes the desicion to ground a large portions of its fleet that means mainline pilots sent home, I very much doubt that the mainline pilots union would be ok with mainline guys on forced LOA's while the gaijin are still at work, and lets face it, they would have a valid point!
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Old 21st Mar 2020, 09:32
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Our existence as support contractors to the group has always been predicated on progress for the mainline pilots group not being affected by our participation, in previous downturns the group just plowed ahead betting on the temporary effect of the downturn and thus far, they've been proven right, and at none of this events the mainline pilots had their career progression nor T&C's affected. A grounding of a portion of the mainline fleet and mainline pilots forced on leave as a result would by like nothing AJX had faced before within the group.

You tell me, What would your reaction be if you get an LOA letter while a subsidiary with contract pilots continues ahead business as usual?

I already went through this back in my regional days after 9/11, negotiations had to be made and people where furloughed and displaced while mainline guys took the captain's seats. I realize is not a good comparison since the Japanese labour relations with their company is very strange to say the least, but there is something all pilots have in common! None of us likes to be displaced by contractors.
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Old 22nd Mar 2020, 00:29
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I wonder what would be the case for foreigners who are NOT contractors, for example in Peach, JJP, etc.
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Old 24th Mar 2020, 18:33
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Is Air Japan still hiring at this time or have they stopped? If they are hiring would the contract agencies ever consider employing someone who is on a voluntary LOA from another airline, or do you need to cut ties?
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Old 24th Mar 2020, 22:02
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Drop, in the past, AJX has hired pilots who are on LOA from other airlines, so I see no reason why they won't do it now.

Best is to contact a recruitment company, CREW at this stage is the better company to work through. They will have the best answers available
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