Vietnam Airlines (info please)
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A330 Captains flying n future in Vietnam Airlines
Hi,
Anybody got any info on flying the A330 fleet in VNA? Like how many hours per month....days per month.....no. of night stops etc & future of the fleet in the company.
Thanks.
Anybody got any info on flying the A330 fleet in VNA? Like how many hours per month....days per month.....no. of night stops etc & future of the fleet in the company.
Thanks.
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Hey Everyone,
Where do you think I cud fit in? 9500TT, 1800PIC Military A/C, 5500 Hrs WideBody FO time of wch 3000Hrs on present A/C (777).looking to join up as an FO or Senior FO and then a fast upgrade to Left Seat...Thanks
Where do you think I cud fit in? 9500TT, 1800PIC Military A/C, 5500 Hrs WideBody FO time of wch 3000Hrs on present A/C (777).looking to join up as an FO or Senior FO and then a fast upgrade to Left Seat...Thanks
Last edited by TopGun 24; 24th Aug 2014 at 16:32.
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Would be interested to hear from any former sandpit pilots now working at VN to compare and contrast VN vs. EK, QR, etc..
Lots said about pay and such but wondering about lifestyle, rostering, cockpit culture, management, safety culture, etc..
Lots said about pay and such but wondering about lifestyle, rostering, cockpit culture, management, safety culture, etc..
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well guemes there's a pretty big difference between EK and QR so, which one would you like it to be compared to?
Plenty of ex QR guys here, and only a couple of EK that I'm aware of. I don't know anyone that's gone the other way, except a couple of old guys who reached 60 and went to the-airline-we're-not-allowed-to-talk-about so they could fly til age 65.
Plenty of ex QR guys here, and only a couple of EK that I'm aware of. I don't know anyone that's gone the other way, except a couple of old guys who reached 60 and went to the-airline-we're-not-allowed-to-talk-about so they could fly til age 65.
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Fleet
I suspect Luke is on the WB fleet, so his info is somewhat different, on the A321 fleet a number of guys this year have gone to the nameless airline and to EK, and more are waiting for a chance.
VN pays nothing more than your salary and good luck trying to get overtime, school fees are on average +$1000 a month raising to almost $1800 per month for a senior in high school (field trip, laptop etc ). Whilst the cost of living is not that of Dubai, it has risen considerably in the last 7 years.. Factor in the official inflation rate over that period +10% annually compounded and a basic salary 10.8K for 6/2 Capt 321, if your a single guy it's ok, but if you have kids and a wife, not so much. Unfortunately guys often overlook the benefit of a provident plan, until it's to late. For FOs this is one of the best paying contracts out there and they offer a path to the left seat, albeit minus the cost of training and a bond and a 10% pay cut for the first year (approx $60K total)...
As with any airline that expands too rapidly, one calamitous incident may cause the CAAV to revisit the rapid upgrades and put the brakes on! As investment advisors often say "past fund performance is no indicator of future fund performance", there is no guarantee that the upgrade path will continue as it has.
VN pays nothing more than your salary and good luck trying to get overtime, school fees are on average +$1000 a month raising to almost $1800 per month for a senior in high school (field trip, laptop etc ). Whilst the cost of living is not that of Dubai, it has risen considerably in the last 7 years.. Factor in the official inflation rate over that period +10% annually compounded and a basic salary 10.8K for 6/2 Capt 321, if your a single guy it's ok, but if you have kids and a wife, not so much. Unfortunately guys often overlook the benefit of a provident plan, until it's to late. For FOs this is one of the best paying contracts out there and they offer a path to the left seat, albeit minus the cost of training and a bond and a 10% pay cut for the first year (approx $60K total)...
As with any airline that expands too rapidly, one calamitous incident may cause the CAAV to revisit the rapid upgrades and put the brakes on! As investment advisors often say "past fund performance is no indicator of future fund performance", there is no guarantee that the upgrade path will continue as it has.
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VNA
Thanks for The info, Dihedral... So basically what you're telling me is to skip VNA and apply in the nameless airline? BTW, I'm a a320 cap... I was kind of atracted to Hanoi and the low cost of living vs. the high cost of the sandpit...
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hello
Anyone here have a contact email for VNA besides the ones from rishworth and what is posted on their website ? The latter doesn't go through !
Please inbox me the same if you do .
Thanks in advance
Anyone here have a contact email for VNA besides the ones from rishworth and what is posted on their website ? The latter doesn't go through !
Please inbox me the same if you do .
Thanks in advance
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Dihedral's right, and I'm right too I guess ... he's on A321 and I'm widebody so I appreciate we have different points of view. A321 has always been the fleet that works the hardest, does the most sectors and has the greatest turnover and the greatest cause for annoyance in terms of roster disruptions, fatigue etc. Having said that, everyone's working hard this year, I've done 960 hours in last 12 months, only did about half that the first year I joined.
Lifestyle here, yes I still like it and there's no way on earth as a family man, that I would leave here for anything based in the sandpit. Obviously there's some very tempting money on offer up in China these days but there's a reason for that, it's a much more difficult place to live and every sim / medical is a roulette wheel whether you keep your job or not.
If anything the quality of life in 'nam has gotten better overall, it seems every 10 minutes in the expat area these days, they're knocking down an old house to put up a new western style cafe or wine shop or something. We've got much better groceries and even good quality organic food places, Mcdonalds and Starbucks is here in a big way now, there's a heap of new bars and supermarkets and stuff now that were never here 5-10 years ago.
I agree with dihedral in that costs have gone up, a LOT, in the last few years. My kid's school fees have risen from $10,000 to $16,000 p.a. in the last 4 years. I was clearing out the cupboard the other day and found a pizza delivery menu from 2010 from my local, a margarita used to cost VND90,000 now it's 220,000. Electric and water etc also gone up. Having said that, rents have actually gone down I think, in HCM anyway, because of the glut of new build apartments that have come on the market in An Phu / Phu My Hung, these days you can get a really good 2 bed apartment for $7-800 and a 3 bed for $1000, it used to be hard to find anything good western quality for less than $12-1400.
There are certainly some major challenges ahead for the airline particularly with Vietjet snapping at their heels - they are massively expanding, undercutting them on price, and more immediate problem for VNA is that they are poaching a heap of our Vietnamese pilots and engineers. Mostly A320 guys of course which is another huge rostering headache for that fleet. The main airports are getting saturated with parking space and, because the local ATC is so bad and applies such huge separations between landing and departing aircraft, it's pretty much every flight now out of Hanoi / HCM where you have to sit at the holding point for 15 minutes waiting for a takeoff clearance. They need some major infrastructure upgrades on that side of things very very soon.
It's still one of the most secure contract jobs in the world, with the B787s and A350s both arriving next year there's going to be jobs galore. Total aircraft numbers are still increasing for many years to come. The next problem will be that the old 777s and 330s are starting to get retired in 2 or 3 years, and the expats on those fleets are waiting with great interest to see what kind of offer we get for transitioning onto the new types.
Command upgrades ... big news in town is that for the first time in VNA history they are upgrading some 777 FO's right to left on type, historically it's always been upgrade to the A321. They're very long serving guys who've been waiting patiently for their turn but, still, nice to dodge that A321 bullet. As things are at the moment, it's almost hard to justify paying for the upgrade onto A321 as a widebody FO, the salary's about the same and the lifestyle is significantly worse.
So overall marks out of 10, I'd still give it a solid "7". If they would sort out a few quality-of-life issues with rostering and staff travel and give a pay rise that matches the cost of living - specially for the A321 boys and girls - it would go back up to 8's and 9's.
Lifestyle here, yes I still like it and there's no way on earth as a family man, that I would leave here for anything based in the sandpit. Obviously there's some very tempting money on offer up in China these days but there's a reason for that, it's a much more difficult place to live and every sim / medical is a roulette wheel whether you keep your job or not.
If anything the quality of life in 'nam has gotten better overall, it seems every 10 minutes in the expat area these days, they're knocking down an old house to put up a new western style cafe or wine shop or something. We've got much better groceries and even good quality organic food places, Mcdonalds and Starbucks is here in a big way now, there's a heap of new bars and supermarkets and stuff now that were never here 5-10 years ago.
I agree with dihedral in that costs have gone up, a LOT, in the last few years. My kid's school fees have risen from $10,000 to $16,000 p.a. in the last 4 years. I was clearing out the cupboard the other day and found a pizza delivery menu from 2010 from my local, a margarita used to cost VND90,000 now it's 220,000. Electric and water etc also gone up. Having said that, rents have actually gone down I think, in HCM anyway, because of the glut of new build apartments that have come on the market in An Phu / Phu My Hung, these days you can get a really good 2 bed apartment for $7-800 and a 3 bed for $1000, it used to be hard to find anything good western quality for less than $12-1400.
There are certainly some major challenges ahead for the airline particularly with Vietjet snapping at their heels - they are massively expanding, undercutting them on price, and more immediate problem for VNA is that they are poaching a heap of our Vietnamese pilots and engineers. Mostly A320 guys of course which is another huge rostering headache for that fleet. The main airports are getting saturated with parking space and, because the local ATC is so bad and applies such huge separations between landing and departing aircraft, it's pretty much every flight now out of Hanoi / HCM where you have to sit at the holding point for 15 minutes waiting for a takeoff clearance. They need some major infrastructure upgrades on that side of things very very soon.
It's still one of the most secure contract jobs in the world, with the B787s and A350s both arriving next year there's going to be jobs galore. Total aircraft numbers are still increasing for many years to come. The next problem will be that the old 777s and 330s are starting to get retired in 2 or 3 years, and the expats on those fleets are waiting with great interest to see what kind of offer we get for transitioning onto the new types.
Command upgrades ... big news in town is that for the first time in VNA history they are upgrading some 777 FO's right to left on type, historically it's always been upgrade to the A321. They're very long serving guys who've been waiting patiently for their turn but, still, nice to dodge that A321 bullet. As things are at the moment, it's almost hard to justify paying for the upgrade onto A321 as a widebody FO, the salary's about the same and the lifestyle is significantly worse.
So overall marks out of 10, I'd still give it a solid "7". If they would sort out a few quality-of-life issues with rostering and staff travel and give a pay rise that matches the cost of living - specially for the A321 boys and girls - it would go back up to 8's and 9's.
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All you guys asking for contact emails for the airline direct or if there's a way to bypass the agencies - forget about it - the answer is no.
The only way to get employed directly by the airline is on a local Vietnamese contract which you don't want to do. And even if you did, you can't, because you need a Vietnamese passport.
The only way to get employed directly by the airline is on a local Vietnamese contract which you don't want to do. And even if you did, you can't, because you need a Vietnamese passport.
VNA
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You're welcome.
By the way pezetaroi I just realized you're the one who started this thread back in 2007 - have you seriously been been agonizing over it for the last SEVEN YEARS and still not made a decision?
By the way pezetaroi I just realized you're the one who started this thread back in 2007 - have you seriously been been agonizing over it for the last SEVEN YEARS and still not made a decision?