DHL Leipzig
 

Hi there,

I've been called for an interview in DHL. Base would be LEJ (Leipzig).

Roster is one of my primary points. Could someone working there (or have worked there) write here a sample roster/duty shift?

Is it feasible to commute? I don't mean a fixed roster (it is stated in the interview package it's not fixed) but have an idea of how the OFFs are spread in a month.

Thanks!

EAT or DHL UK?
Sounds like DHL UK.

i'd say EAT
(you're lucky, i send mail on regular basis and everytime the answer is either "we dont plan to recruit " or "we just recruited new entrants".i must be very unlucky :{;) )

this might help, it's quite recent
http://www.pprune.org/freight-dogs/4...er-career.html

good luck :ok:

I thinks he means dhl air uk.

I applied last year with eat. I got an mail that i was meeting all the requirements except that f@cking german requirement. So i was not considered anymore.
It is time that others ban german pilots.

@inner

Stay calm buddy! If you want to apply with AF you have to speak French, Alitalia will ask for Italian and SAS will ask you to learn a Nordic language. Why is DHL (owned by Deutsche Post AG) as a German airline not legitimate to ask for German language skills?

Feel free to buy some books and learn this so called f@cking German... stay tuned!

For DHL Air UK (757) = Roster can be a bit random. Typically trips start at Leipzig, and will involve a bunch of flights, and finish in Leipzig several days later. Then a series of days off - maybe 4 or 5, sometimes less sometimes more.

There is a block roster of 9 on 5 off but it is over subscribed.

Commute is possible, but can be tiring and frustrating at times. Other times it can be straightforward, come out to Leipzig twice a month easy - really depends on your roster, and that can be quite random..

New block roster is in the pipeline, like a cheque in the post...

To add if it is Dhl uk , then there is no requirement to speak German or any other language apart from English.

inner, as the swissmen says, other airlines do ask their native languages as requirements. I was turned down by a Scandinavian operator cause of that.

Get over it or study.

Hey,

I got over it. It is just frustrating. There is always an excuse why they dont hire you. Makes you gonna think why to stay in aviation, dont you think???

Not really.

If you want to be a doctor or lawyer in Germany...guess what. And you'll probably of had to have studied in Germany.

Being a pilot gives you a lot more freedom in where you can live in the world then what a lawyer gets.

It was certainly not the choice of nearly anybody within EAT to become a German airline, from the Belgian quality outfit it once was.
Now, the gestapo has taken over and with their xenophobic behaviour want to root out everything non German, including Belgian instructors:mad:
Eat is NOT a National airline, it is International and the lingua franka in aviation is only English. Eat aircraft can be based wherever in Europe, and has absolutely NO German heritage. It is simply racism.

EAT is a subsidiary of DHL, which is German. I thought EAT ceased operations anyway and now only fly under DHL?

I wish it was English only as well so there's more room for us, but we don't have a leg to stand on when we disagree. I can understand why pax carrying airlines want a local language, so the pilot can make announcements to the passengers. Don't understand why cargo airlines follow, most Germans I know speak amazing English so ATC/ground crew won't be a problem.

Just like KLM, they are looking after their own nationals. KLM said they won't hire any more non-Dutch people.

Hi

Many years ago i did a selection for eat in brussels. The selection was just a small test, interview and a simcheck. They did not care about the small test, only the interview and simcheck (which i failed :E ). Eat was then in Belgium a really nice company and also well known for their good terms and conditions.
But since it moved to germany, it only got down. Dlr test, german speaking requirement, low pay. And now apparently getting rid of belgian instructors.
But hey, they think that the world is turning around germany these days.

The Elections in France on Sunday may slow the revolution rate a little.

You mean AIR FRANCE?:E

When EAT was belgium the recruiting department prefered applicants who spoke french and dutch, and as any belgium company you had to pay 50% income tax.

They hired new guys with low experience and not german speaking!

The roster are exhausted, commuting is almost impossible, expect to fly 7 night in a row and have 3 days off.
Forget if you want to go back to Belgium as the jumpseats are for the Belgian contract first.

Excpect to fly 250/300 hrs / year! But with duty of 1000 hrs!
Only night flight, no bidding system and if you do a request, be sure that you will never get it!
Low base salary with sector pay.

Otherwise, very good and nice people to fly with!

Nice company to start or finish your career...

"They hired new guys with low experience and not german speaking!"

Only in one case and he is a former Airbus engineer with specific experience on the A300-600.

"The roster are exhausted, commuting is almost impossible, expect to fly 7 night in a row and have 3 days off."

That is not a fair representation. 7 nights can and does happen but the minimum days off are 11 per month and you often gain a number of rest periods if the last flight lands after midnight. My last roster was 7 on, 5 off, 4 on, 4 off, 4 on, 4 off (admittedly with a few leave days).

"Forget if you want to go back to Belgium as the jumpseats are for the Belgian contract first."

That is definitely true. Same goes for most UK destinations too.

"Excpect to fly 250/300 hrs / year! But with duty of 1000 hrs!"

Also true, making it a bad choice for low houred, career minded FOs. If you want lots of hours and a quick command stay away, you won't be happy here. Almost all FOs at EAT have many thousands of hours and up to 11 years experience.

"Only night flight, no bidding system and if you do a request, be sure that you will never get it!"

Again, not entirely true. About 85% is night flying (at least on the A300). There are quite a few weekend charters and the odd day flight in the week too. The day flights are likely to increase if and when we start flying longhaul.

Can only speak for myself, but have so far got every request I asked for (but then I don't ask for that many).

"Low base salary with sector pay."

Depends what you call low. PPJN figures are fairly accurate. Also, you get sector pay AND the same per FDP so most of the 1000 hrs per year are also paid on top of the basic. The company provide beds in Leipzig so you can rest between flights. This is also FDP so you are paid to sleep!

"Otherwise, very good and nice people to fly with!"

Quite agree, although you need to watch your back at the moment. There are a lot of people looking to get a foot on the ladder in the company and don't mind who they tread on to get there. Of all the companies I've worked for this is biggest collection of 'individuals', but that will hopefully change as things settle down.

"Nice company to start or finish your career..."
:ok:

I can only talk about the 757 routes ;) with a Belgian contract!
And on the 757, it's 99% of night flight!

Also, there is 4 news F/O with no experience and not german speaking who are starting their training on the 757.


Happy to see that some guys can manage to sleep in this noisy and non respectful sleep facilities:E

Sleeping is never a problem, it's the staying awake that's the hard bit for me;)

See you round the coffee machine sometime:).

200-300 hrs per year! Seriously? Why? Wouldn't it be easier for the company to make their pilots do 600-700 hours a year and get rid of some pilots?

pudoc
average sector is about 1hr 05 mins, aircraft sit on ground all day, most of saturday and start up sunday pm.

thib: definition of a night is 0200-0459 so perhaps you might want to change your %

In 30 years and ten or so Airlines i've never seen such a cushty roster as yours i'm sorry :\

Oh I don't work within aviation. Was curious.

@Mr Angry does DHL UK offer part time?

Sounds good to me, I applied but haven't heard back yet.

Last 12 months I flew 500 hrs and 2100 hrs duty, normal regional pax ops... (lots of long turnarounds)

That's the FTL definition isn't it? Official night is 30 mins post sunset until 30 mins pre sunrise. Big difference depending which one you're talking about, especially in winter. So is most of their flying in official night or FTL night?

NIGHT as per FTL's definition will limit you max FDP (depending on the start time & number of sectors flown) while the "...± 30 mins..." is what goes in you logbook. It will fluctuate with the seasons, won't it?

It will flucuate a bit but most hours go in the night column.
EAM-Yep they do part time,all sorts from 11 months to 1/2 time but I doubt they would offer it from the start.

Official/FTL night: Its always dark. That's nights in my book.

300 hours. Doesn't sound a lot, but mostly in the infamous WOCL. See how that feels when day sleeping... Duty often close to or at limits allowable, rest getting closer and closer to min rest in many places. The flying's not the hard bit.

Not the worst job, nor the best. However, it is pretty much as secure as they come... Check out DPWN's (they own DHL) end of year reports.

inner
 

Dear Sir,

I find your comment to be very unjust and consider it to be utter nonsense as you fail to consider that those german pilots to be banned went through the hassel of learning a foreign language. It probably has not even slightly touched the thing you call your mind to pick up a book and start studying.
I am glad they don't hire snobs like you in my country. There's plenty here, we don't need any more...

I speak German, English, French, Spanish and am currently working on Swedish and Russian (with little success so far, but at least I can read it)

Go stay where you are, and do not try to go into international flying with a mindset as closed as yours.

Pudoc, No, it's not...ops are like that.

For ex: in one night you will have a duty of 11h but fly only 4hrs...
You start from an outstation at 2000z, coming back to Lej at 2200Z, have to wait up to 5 hrs in Lej before doing an other small leg or leaving Lej at 0200Z for two legs... as it's european flight, it's not very long legs.
From Lej to Vitoria or barcelona, it's 2h20 block... but if you are going to Copenhagen, Francfort, Warsaw, Paris,... it's only 0120 block time.

And if on top of that you are doing some stby....:ugh:

Oh ok that makes sense.

I suppose I'm used to companies having quick turn arounds.

Admiral,

Inner is not insulting the german pilot, he's just despite about the German speaking requirement;)

But as said earlier, the German speaking language is not an issue, they just hired people who are not speaking German.

They just want to have German contract with a Leipzig base an unstructured roster!!!

Yes Pudoc, you're right, Cargo night ops is quite different from the low cost ops ;)

Interested folk should note German Social Security is imminent for LEJ based crews, its a significant amount, especially if you're a cadet!

Sorry for writing so late, I mean DHL UK! I don't speak German :E

Lucky you. I applied as well but they are not even considering my application although i got jet time.:(

Ahh good, I thought we Germans have had become soft. Good to see we still can be strong! Noww vee vill rule zee woorldd soon! And we started with EAT.

Thats our evil plan!

That is bull****, of course Leipzig is in the responsibility of the STASI.

Anyway, not working for any of the two companies, I would say DHL UK gives a much better impression. While EAT does the assessment with interpersonal, knowing everything of the applicant, they don't give any information about the T&C they will offer. "We will make you an offer" thats it.
At present they don't hire anyone and keep pilots on hold. Seems they screened to many DECs.

DHL UK gives detailed information about the contract when inviting for the interview. Questions will be answered in the interview which is with DHL UK personal and after passing the screening it just takes a few weeks until you get the official offer.

the two contracts are pretty much the same with minor differences, commuting is a problem for both outfits since there are only few jump seats available on the freighters and no discount travel with passenger airlines.
Best advise is to relocate to LEJ.
For F/Os it is also worth considering the fact that command times are very long due to the small amount of hours flown per year.

Regarding command times, I guess it would depend on the previous experience of the F/O at the time of joining DHL.

If you are a low hour joining as cadet, flying 300 hours per year could obviously take longer than an experienced F/O who join the airline after the low hour (so not considering seniority as the first point) but with thousands of jet hours.

At this point, Granted that this is not the first point I'm interested in evaluating the job offer, I'm curious to know what's the average experience DHL need to consider a F/O for a command upgrade.

Time to command would be long as LEP, but try getting a quick command at a similar size (28ac) charter outfit and then try finding an airline which is part of a group as profitable as DPWN (results just out)! Joining with a bunch of hours could give command in 2-3 years.

If it's dark it's night! I don't do many sectors which involve daylight at all outside the months May/Jun/Jul.