Air Japan (AJX) B767

[The Dominican]

1- will 44$ per diem while on training cover nice 3 meals per day (nothing fancy)?
It is pretty funny actually because Japan being as expensive as it is and famous for having $10 cups of coffee (I'm a big coffee fan, I've looked for it and never found it) but you can eat pretty cheap here, or as expensive as you want really, there are a lot of Japanese style fast food eateries where you can get a bowl of rice with meat for ¥450.

2- how much $ do you girls and guys spend while on duty in Japan, 50-ish $ per day, is that enough (plus the hotel)?
The hotel alone will run you ¥5,700 per day, How much total depends on the lifestyle you lead while at work, if you are the "slam and clack type" (the slam of the door and the clack of the lock, see you at check in time) then your per diem is enough, if you are like most of us that enjoy a frosty beverage here and there, a nice steak, a Brazilian or Spanish dinner, then the periderm is not enough, drinks specially are expensive in Japan, a pint will run you around ¥650

3- when you ask for the block days off back on back 10+10 you get only one commuting day on each side of the block? is that right...? you lose one day of commuting for each month?

No, the fact that the bids are back to back is irrelevant, they are considered separate bids and you get your commuting days with every bid.

4- when they book you the C class ticket home, do you get good connections, not losing a lot of time, for the EUroland guys, just to save money (cheaper ticket=a lot of time lost on connections)

I don't commute to the EU but to the US rather, but the policy is to book you with the most convenient connection time. They don't make you sit around to save a couple of dollars, now it all depends on available connecting flights etc.

[SyncPilot]

Hello Dominican,

Thank you for your post, you helped a lot, as usual...

Throughout the whole thread you provided a lot of useful info about the company and the job.

How strickt are they about the flight times?
I am not sure how much PIC cross country i have, they require 100 PIC cross country, I have 140 h PIC and 170 h PICUS but do not know how much is cross country and how much is air work and traffic paterns...
Will they check all of my 3 logbooks?

[Fratemate]

How strickt are they about the flight times?
I am not sure how much PIC cross country i have, they require 100 PIC cross country, I have 140 h PIC and 170 h PICUS but do not know how much is cross country and how much is air work and traffic paterns

When you join you will fill out a form that lists your hours in the form of PIC/P2/Night/Cross Country etc and this form will be checked against your logbooks. The Japanese do not recognise PIC U/S and this time will only count as P2 (Copilot). Of your 140 hours PIC I would be pretty certain that less than 40 of those hours were spent bashing the circuit, therefore you've got more than 100 cross country PIC. Just make sure when you come to list the hours that you can show that less than 40 hours were spent in the circuit i.e. that the flight description does not show circuits as the purpose of the flight. For what it's worth, I believe > 7 nm from the circuit counts as cross country.

This requirement is not just some random number dreamt up by AJX. On completion of training you will be given a Japanese ATPL and, in common with most ICAO countries, 100 hours PIC cross country is a requirement before issue. If you don't have that you don't get an ATPL so, yes, they are 'strict' but only in the sense that if you're not qualified then it's a waste of time interviewing you because you're not going to get the licence at the end of it.

[Deep and fast]

Can you guys still recommend it if commuting from the UK?

[atccfi]

Originally Posted by Deep and fast

Can you guys still recommend it if commuting from the UK?

a one leg commute on ANA metal?? What's not to love about it??!!

[gtseraf]

not being negative, just realistic.

Consider the effect of jet lag/time zone changes. Depending on how you choose to commute, you may be looking at a 9 hour time change twice a month. Some find it OK, some really battle. I commute north/south so I have no problems with that , but I don't think I'd be able to handle the time changes

[NineInchSnail]

As far as the business class confirmed ticket you get every month, does it have to be on ANA or any other carrier can be a possibility? who choses the airline of commute, ANA or the pilots? I am thinking at the options for people commuting back to Europe, maybe using AF or LH might give better chances to get home early by leaving on the last day of duty in the late evening instead of waiting for the lunch time departure of ANA flights to Europe.

Thanks for the information

[The Dominican]

Commuting

The company has a lady at the office that passes the pilots requests to a travel agency. Their mandate is to book the ticket on the following order of priority: ANA, another carrier on the Star Alliance, other carriers...!

[NineInchSnail]

Thanks for the message Dominican, but what criteria makes them chose a carrier other another one. Can we request to have a flight that leaves the night of the last day of duty as most of the euro carriers will leave in the late evening whereas ANA will leave roughly 13 hours later? Or will they just book ANA if the commute city is on the network? Thanks

[The Dominican]

You place your request of the day you want to leave and after what time etc. then they will book you on what's available following the criteria, if there isn't any ANA flight available for that time & date, then another Star Alliance carrier and so forth....! It is really that simple.

[NineInchSnail]

OK thanks again Dominican. One last question, do they usually try to accomodate you to leave on your last day of duty or will they book you on a flight on your first day "off", hence my previous questions.

Let's say for example you come back from a flight in the afternoon of your last day of duty period which is a monday, can you request a flight that leaves monday night or will they book you on a flight on tuesday morning? No ANA flights in the evening for Europe so I was just wondering if that could push them to wait the next day to put you on an ANA flight since that would be contractually your first day off.

Euro commuting is a big time waster on both ways, so every little bit of extra time off at home helps.

Thanks

[The Dominican]

That horse has been beaten here to a fine pulp over the years, so sorry if I didn't expand on it, but what's one more after hundreds right?

So here we go: You get your schedule the 20th of every month, you see that you are scheduled to finish on a Tuesday at noon JST, if you want a C class ticket for that month, you fill out an application where you will let them know that you want to travel from NRT(or HND) to XXX on that Tuesday after 13:00 JST. Provided there isn't a disruption due to WX or something un foreseen, they will book you on the next available flight that Tuesday after 13:00 JST. If the next available flight FOR THAT DAY....! Is not an ANA flight because they are all gone, the travel agency will look for an option on another Star alliance carrier, if there isn't a flight on another star alliance carrier, then they will book you on another carrier THAT DAY! They will try their best to honor sending you home after you are done because they want you to honor coming back to work when you are supposed to, it is NOT about saving a couple of dollars here and there. There is no "pushing" to the next day because that will open the Pandora's box of people "pushing" coming back to work. Make sense?

Haven said that, that doesn't mean you will finish every month with time enough to go home the last day of duty, they have been known to place something ridiculous on your last day (like evening STBY, or ground school, medical, for example) that will make it impossible to leave the last day of duty. Most of the time you are able to leave the same day but it is not a given...!

[UAV3]

Air Japan Express

Details....

I am finishing the application today.

[Jaz and the Fat Man]

I just completed the interview/sim last week and it's quite a process. I was told by a ppruner in this thread that I shouldn't have to prep for the sim and if I did need to, I should get a job flipping burgers or something like that. Fortunately, I didn't listen, as the sim was not a walk in the park. Coming off of the past few years on the A320, it would have been difficult to pass, even though I have a bit over 15K PIC hours in Boeing ranging from the B737-B744....

I understand they are interviewing every week and only one or two pilots at a time. When I attended the sim orientation, which was an hour long, it was evident they wanted me to fly per ANA/AJX procedures and I was corrected once in the sim when I did one thing non-standard in the cockpit set up. I have spent more than 20 years flying in Japan, China, and other parts of Asia and this was by far the most strict interview process I have attended. With that said, as others have mentioned, everyone was very nice and it was evident they wanted me to pass. Good luck with the interview and it starts with that application....

[Fratemate]

Jaz,

Let's read what was actually written and compare it to what you've just said:

I was told by a ppruner in this thread that I shouldn't have to prep for the sim and if I did need to, I should get a job flipping burgers or something like that.

Don't waste your money practicing the sim profile. It's so canned all you've got to do is make sure you learn the sequence and the way they want it flown, using the profile you'll get sent. The ONLY part of the sim where you get to demonstrate your hand flying skills are the visual circuits and, quite frankly, if you can't fly one of those without practicing first then you really should be looking at Burger King as a future employer and not any self-respecting airline.

Nowhere did I say you shouldn't prep for the sim. I told you to learn the profile and how they want it flown and I stand by that statement. What I did say was it wasn't worth you booking hours in a 767 sim, which was what you'd originally asked about (even more so now I learn you have 15k hours PIC in Boeing's machines). The burger flipping refers solely to the point that you should be able to fly a visual circuit without practicing and, again, I stand by that.

Throughout this entire thread, assuming one reads more than the last few pages, it has always been stated that the sim is the biggest part of the selection process and the bit they pay the most attention to, therefore it should not have come as a huge surprise that the sim was the biggest part of your selection process and the bit they paid the most attention to. Everyone advises prospective candidates to learn the profile off-by-heart and that has never changed.

You'll know very soon whether you passed or not and then, hopefully, you'll be given a course date soon after. I'm sure you did well and look forward to having another member of the Asahi Drinking Club soon

[oldhasbeen]

...was going to throw away a line about A320's and flipping burgers, but that would have been a flippant comment not worthy of this professional forum

[iflysky]

How have the rosters been lately ? I've read and heard from different sources there has been a lot of turmoil since the merger of two groups - fatiguing patterns, constant day/night shifting etc. Did things improve at all since ?

[The Dominican]

The implementation of the scheduling guidelines has improved the rosters some, but the nature of transferring from cargo to pax and back to cargo within the same roster hasn't changed. The merger of both operations was the worse thing that could have happened with this contract

[iflysky]

Thanks for the prompt reply Dom ! I can imagine cargo is mostly nights, so how many nights in a row do you guys normally fly ? For example in the sand box they can fly you (and they pretty much do) 3 nights in a row and can schedule you 4 nights in any 7 consecutive days (which they also do).

[Fratemate]

I find my rosters consist of about 75% cargo flying and, recently, that figure has been even higher (around 80%). One of the problems is, predictably, the JCAB and it's insistence (so we're told anyway) that training be carried out on pax flights and not cargo. Take those trips from the list, the pax trips that must be flown by the over-60 Japanese 'career' pilots and the pax trips that are used for checking and the number of cargo trips soon mounts for the standard line pilot. I agree with TD that, for the pilots, combining the two companies was ONE of the worst thing they've done but I don't think they're going to change back any time soon.

As far as consecutive nights are concerned, the average cargo patterns seem to consist of two and then a reversal to a day flight to get back to NRT. There are plenty of three night trips floating around but it's likely that you'd only see one of these on your roster during the month and the rest of the cargo trips would be of the two night variety. The pax flights have their fair share of night flying and coming from SGN to NRT at stupid o'clock in the morning is not high on the list of fun but at least you don't have to stage through OKA. OKA is the biggest pain in the arm and THAT is the worst thing they did when they turned this from the best job around to another job.