New HNA Job?
 

I did a search on this but any an all information on HNA is several years old.

I'm sure most of you have undoubtedly read about the HNA job listings (is it Hainan Airlines or one/all the airlines in the HNA group umbrella??). It's funny because at the very least, Hainan's Wikipedia page lists no orders for some of the types they're offering jobs on.

$336 000 usd/year (after tax) really seems too good to be true, I'm assuming flying to the max and a non commuting contract. How else would they know the tax rate? However, even reducing that by 40% still makes it a potentially amazing job, at least financially.

This contract also seems to be permanent and not on a cycle through an agency. Does anyone have any insight into current working conditions at HNA now? I'm currently left seat on the Airbus in the Middle East and a commuting contact/pay being offered seems like a good exit plan from the ME to finally live at home.

Does anyone have any current/up-to-date information on HNA in regards to cockpit/corporate culture, basings being offered/honored, etc? Judging from contract job threads I don't think anyone would touch it with a 10f pole. Anyone employed by the company directly?

Any and all insight is greatly appreciated!

HNA - not a mistake
 

Hi CitationTen,


there are a few posts you should look into:


http://www.pprune.org/images/misc/navbits_start.gif PPRuNe Forums > PPRuNe Worldwide > South Asia and the Far East http://www.pprune.org/images/misc/na...allink_ltr.gif $336,000 after tax at hainan. Is this a misprint ?


http://www.pprune.org/images/misc/navbits_start.gif PPRuNe Forums > PPRuNe Worldwide > South Asia and the Far East http://www.pprune.org/images/misc/na...allink_ltr.gif Hainan interview




You find there the information you are looking for in terms of working conditions.


Regarding your research on Wikipedia, well you are partially right...that there are no new orders, but in the HNA Group the orders are moved between the various airlines of the group, so if one airline has aircraft deliveries, they might just be moved within the group to another airline.


The confirmed order for the HNA Group is till 2015 a total amount of over 580 aircraft and currently they are receiving 1 aircraft per week.


So....there is expansion!


Latest confirmed route: Beijing - Paris in June 2015 on A330


FCOM-5

Hainan Air
 

Hello FCOM-5, I have been interested in joining Hainan Air and saw some of your posts. Can you provide me any details? Your welcome to PM me as well.


Anyone else want to comment on Hainan Air is welcome.


Thanks,


On Final

HNA recruitment, lousy outfit, uneducated reps.
 

Hey On Final, you will never land a job with HNA.
Unless you want to be on final forever look for other options.
The problem is not really that hard to describe: you have a team of nomads dealing with groups of pilots coming for interviews, and they simply do not have sufficient staff and or good attitude to look after everyone. They are bean counters, they look at the mass, they do not focus on quality, they All have the same song of lies, and untruthful statements, and you are being asked to give up your present job before you sign the contract.
Check lawyers advise in your home town or wherever the contract laws apply, I have been told this is a scam, several new joiners are piling up litigation due to dishonorable practices. It is all documented, check other forums about HNA-Overseas or Hainan Airlines, pilots agencies themselves do not want to continue hiring pilots for them.:eek:
FCOM-5 is an insider, identified as a host of deception or bag of $&!t, read all the forums, not a good outfit, welcome to your nightmare!

Welcome to your future
 

it would be futile to comment on this HNA-Overseas inside agency and their scope of work. There are enough postings in this forum for you to make your own mind about coming to this travesty.
I thought I could explore the possibility of quick advancement to PIC, but so far we are simply staples, filling out for their own boys to climb the lather of success. Perhaps the biggest hurdle for us foreigners is communicating our impressions, no one answers the phone, and if they do, most of the appointed personnel have an attitude. Put it simply they end dreading you here, as they know how much you make, they like to delay your refunds, and they piss off everyone who want to make a change, including the DGM who is probably doing this b/c he thiks the Chinese will put him were he belongs, into Space, he claims the world is not enough, pretty much another 007 but with a three inch winnie.
Litigation is in process for some corrupted practices so they say, they want to avoid too much noise, but clearly they are not changing anything towards this purpose. It is the same if not worse team of Chinese villagers running the show, and they only know about Chinese culture, the rest is mot important for them, once they make you sign the FSA, they think they own your life. They are wrong, I am outta here soon, i am not having fun, everyone lacks of the most important aspect of any job, "honesty".:yuk:

HNA what it is like
 

There is a small group of pilots at Hainan that has been flying here for a while, about 6. The rest are all new hires. Here is what you need to know:

The general feeling is that since Hainan is the golden child of private China and an airline where locals rape and pillage the system with cabin crew carrying more off of the aircraft than you can imagine a person to be able to carry.

The recruitment

Recruitment is long and painful. Most have taken around a year to finally report to Haikou to start working and collecting some pay. This pay is between 60 and 70% of your basic depending on contract. During this time, if you see a refund for a ticket you are better than superman.

The year is spent messing you around. nothing you have is recognized eg licenses, medicals.

After 1 or more years, one or two have been lucky with 6 months you report to start your contract.

During this time you do a company acceptance simulator checkride. The logic of this checkride still defies me as it is the same as the old checks of the more than 20 years ago aviation culture in other parts of the world.The instructors simply destroy the simulator and you must cope. Multiple illogical failures and very little structure.

The next checkride is the CAAC check. This seems in some cases to be more structured than others but again it is a superhuman check and not really something that always makes sense.

Reporting

This happens in Haikou. Then you sit for long periods of time waiting for elearning and ground school. elearning is a ton of work aimed at beginners and ground school is all in Chinese in Sanya and consists of the typical emergency training, slides, swimming pool things. Most costs are carried by the company.

After this you wait a couple of months for your residence permit, background check and other documents like medical.

You also complete the ATP test which can be in any city.The ATP test is a matter of learning the database and cheating as you must as most questions make very little sense in English. In many cases it is a matter of recognizing and choosing.Painful.

Reporting to the fleet

After about 1 year that the process starts with some taking 2 years,you report to the foreign fleet in Beijing. This is where the fun starts.

Most live in sanqui hotel which is a no star old soviet style military accomodation.Your first tasks are elearning and preparation once again.If all goes well you will receive your CAAC license and medical and then start by going to Shanghai, Sanya or other to do a requalification simulator meaning 4 sessions of 4 hours of which the last session is an opc.Found this to be ok but some have had horror stories.

An American pilot was reported to have been shouted at and then to have been struck in the simulator.He opposed this and it appears he had a shouting match with the instructor and left the smulator.He was fired and nothing happened to the instructor. Chinese first officers say it is normal for their instructors to shout and to strike them not only during training but also in flying.Many say it is improving especially when embarrassments like the one with the American pilot happen.

If you pass the opc you then do a captain check.Your captain check is not like the ones the chinese do but a ridiculous senseless attempt at showing you who is in charge excused as being a high standard.This includes multiple failure no flight director manual flying single engine max crosswind approaches down to rvr of 550 and worse.Do not be surprised if you fly more than 3 or 5 such approaches after each other. It looks aimed at literally forcing you to not cope but you do what you can and sometimes you pass. The story on the ground is that they must fail you once to keep you in line.One guy was failed I heard for adjusting his seat on downwind and he was not the flying pilot.

Once you pass the capatin check, you go online and start with observation flights. Now you are at 70 or 80% of basic plus allowances depending on your contract.You will do no less than 4 observer flights but some have done up to 18 before touching an aircraft themselves. When you start your training sectors, normally anything between 30 hours and 12 sectors to 80 hours and 40 sectors with little logic seemingly used, you can fly right or left. Right seaters in Hainan do not normally fly the aircraft and only drop the gear and flaps.

If you survive this then you go for another simulator check,same as previous capatain check. This you must pass again.If you pass it then you go back online to do a line check of 4 sectors.

If you pass the line check then you will fly 100 further hours with a Captain in the right seat after which they will meet to decide if you can finally be released as a line captain.

This process has taken 6 months for 2 very lucky people but most take between 1 to 2 years to be released and this is on all fleets. During this time you are at reduced salary which is felt and if you work it out you actually lose money in comparison to other companies. Most companies take 3 months to have you on line but Hainan it is between 1 and 3 years from start.

After this

Your job seems to always be threatened here.Pilots are murdered in the simulator in batches. Recently an A330 pilot was failed in the simulator for a small bounce on landing during a low visibility, single engine, flapless approach.No matter he stopped safe and without major issues but the result is that he must now fly right seat ,no actual flying only dropping gear and flaps for 200 hours then get retrained and rechecked. That is Hainan.

You can be on a good run which you never know when it will end but you can also be the target.I do not know of any except 2 pilots who are not always saying that they have made a bad choice.

Local pilots do not want foreigners here and do everything to block them at training level.This is an opinion based on constant talks.It is not professional.

My suggestion?

There are many other jobs in China.If one can chose I would chose the others from what we hear all the time. This was not a good choice.If you are happy to collect money for doing nothing and just being messed around, you can probably survive your contract but be prepared to sit left, right, fly not fly, fail, be a highly qualified observer and more.Then collect your money go home and enjoy home and you will add to the bank but the secret is getting signed out as soon as possible which also requires much ass kissing.

If instead you are looking at a structured professional contract where your experience and skills are appreciated and where things make sense or where you get treated like an adult.Then go somewhere else. The other companies get you online in 3 months and then let you do your thing.

Food for thought that no agent tells you and very very important:

When you start at one company in China you belong to them. Understand this very well.Like if you start at HNA group and you resign they will not release your paperwork to other airlines including your CAAC license and medical records for anything from 6 months to 2 years to prevent you working for the competition. Most do this but HNA seems the worst.One guy recently finished his contract and went to Air China Cargo.He had to wait more than 6 months before being released and earned nothing in that period.He seems to have been lucky.

This means you must choose well in China and expect that you must finish your contract at least or you might as well leave China.

During HNA recruitment you will become non-current as per FAA, ICAO and EASA rules as you will spend much time not touching an aircraft.

Maybe this helps you, personally unless there were massive changes I would have made very different choices.

Perhaps a candidate needs to offer a little incentive to the appropriate persons in order to move along faster. Isn't that how it works in the scheduling departments.

Hainan Air
 

Hello KR2, what a good post, very informative ..!


I wonder if there are any happy foreign pilots working at Hainan Air? The problem is finding any pilots that are happy anywhere..haha.


Most happy pilots don't waist time making posts to tell us how happy there are but will rant and rave all day long how bad things are. Its when you keep seeing many many posts about Hainan Air just makes you wonder is it really worth the pain.


Anybody that's worked I China knows that:


1. Crazy Sim Checks
2. Crazy Medicals
3. Employees allowed to pack everything off the jet
4. Foreign pilots are normally only tolerated and most are never totally accepted among other workmates
5. Elearning can really take up much of your time.
6. Unpaid safety meetings, often just takes you time
7. Medical checks scheduled on your rest days often
8. Pollution
9. Unsafe food
10. Initial training in China takes 3 to 4 months normally. Training pay after CAAC sim check about a week after you show up.
11. Chinese Written test difficult




But the most important thing is your work environment, are you safe? Is your employment safe without out worry of being taken out? Do you worry about your next crazy sim check if you will pass? At my current airline if you fail a sim, your done there is no right seat option. Fortunately they try to help you through it. Know one is perfect in the sim, and with these crazy Chinese sim checks if they want to kill you, they can.


If you need to start new work somewhere it takes months and months to get back into the cash flow again. So you need a kind environment or you will feel like you might not make it through your next sim check, not good for your health to feel this.


Without the environment I think its too risky and unhealthy to work in. The question is Hainan Air a safe place to work a contract?




Once again, great post.


Happy trails,


On Final

On Final;
Hainan was a sister airline to BCA that I worked for. BCA treated us well. Pilots and FA's could jumpseat on any Hainan carrier. I talked to a half a dozen HNA pilots, including a couple that were there for a while.

Their line training is very long and painful with a very high failure rate. BCA, Spring, and Shenzhen are much better, with a much higher success rate.

The owner of a recruiting agency told me the first 8 pilots they put up for the 320-330 CCQ failed their check rides.

Sims are hard, but doable. Good practice really.
ATP written is doable.
Medicals are a bit insane, and the worst part of the process. They don't get easier.

Hainan at the moment
 

I can tell you if it was up to me I wish I could have had more information before.Other airlines like BCA,Shenzhen are much better. The viewpoint at Hainan seems to be that local pilots must prove to management that foreign pilots are inferior to force a stop of hiring. This email might give you an idea and was received by pilots I still know there.

I left and must tell you I feel my shoulders to be much lighter since leaving---

Are you safe? On Final
 

I had to think of this to be sure it would be fair. Looking at the latest sim checks and what people are failed for I think as follows:

1.Your contract is at threat every 6 months.


2.If it is not your contract then your position is---a few captains have been demoted for 6 months to first officer with reduced pay because of strange and nonsensical issues in simulators.

3.The contract changes every year and is getting worse financially.That is correct, the latest contracts reduce the financial amount.

If you look at these three only then it makes sense that many pilots are looking for better jobs.


Latest simulator failures---

1.A330 captain- Etops failure after 8 years of operation.
2.A330 captain- given failed brakes on landing.Managed to stop safely and do evacuation on runway but does not know why it was unacceptable and failed.Moved to first officer position for 6 months and reduced pay.
3.B737 captain- argued with instructor for hitting him in simulator.Fired.According to the chief pilot, this did not happen. There were 2 foreigners in the simulator and cameras but if one Chinese says it is so then the view of anyone else does not exist.
4.B737 captain- failed for a not soft landing with flap 1 jam,single engine, 550rvr at heavy weight flying a no fd cat 1 min approach.Stopped safely but not acceptable.
5.B737 captain-entered wrong frequency on nav box before set up and brief.Failed. CRM-----what happened to threat and error management?

This is the type of failure you can expect. Of course there are always ones who make a valid mistake and get things wrong.The problem is it is like in Korean, inconsistent and a survival period with Chinese instructors showing no logic in exercises but only pushing as many buttons as they can to create as many multiple failures as they can.

There is also the known fact that the so called standard given to foreigners is much more complex than the one flown by the Chinese.This is very easy to see in flight and explains why many Asian airlines crash so much.

To finish. There is much more and the simulator practices are really scary and shocking with you thinking that these senior people have not seen much flying in many parts of the world.When you look closer you find out that this is 100% true. You will fly with first officers who have 6000 hours but only 20 landings. They log all time including observation time as flight experience.You fly with captains that have 15000 hours but when you look at how they get those hours it becomes very scary indeed.

My opinion and it is shared by people I worked with.

1.Your contract is never safe-----always have an escape plan


2.Your own safety is very doubtful-------all you need to do is look at how they propose to fly a Cat2 and it is very very scary.


3.It takes very long before you are on line even if you are in the Chinese system already.



Hopefully that helps.Again the good points are-----

1.You do meet some nice people
2.The money is good but except for your actual salary--the rest never seems guaranteed.
3.Commuting is quite easy.
4.Working patterns are quite easy and flexible.

I would say-------

1.For money it is possible but for everything else it is not worth it.You need to decide which one has priority.

Silence of the lambs
 

New regulations from CAAC to new comers including foreigners on their initial: "A punishment and reward record".

Not only that reading this forum convinces anyone frm staying away from this pit hole, but nothing more unpredictable than Chinese regulatory offices, causing now more delays to airlines in China for a healthy expansion.

The former DGM & "Trusted Advisor" has been removed and with him all promises left behind including the ads put by HNA-Overseas about benefits such as Education for your children, Health Insurance coverage, Loss of License and many other perks an illusion. This contractual benefits DO NOT exist, even the seal of the initial electronic job offer is not from HKG, you will regret joining this outfit, a complete disgrace of lies and false information.
The administrator of this forum has been put on notice:=:yuk:

Any recent News?

More recent news regarding this outfit, and how they treat expats?

Getting confused is GX part of this group