737 interview
 

Hi! I have my 737 CA assessment next month. Any tips on what kind of questions do they ask on the interview. Thanks

someone has more information to the new proposed salary scheme for Captains?

also interested in salary for cpt. appreciate any insider information!

ppjn is acutal concerning salary. If you have family think twice to sign, informations given before signature are not the same than after signature. No flexible roster at all, a lot of expats are leaving due to roster now.

Hi “bnackdal” I would like to know if possible what is the actual monthly salary for a cs300 Fo because I am thinking to apply for the possition due to the end of February ! Please clarify the payment with the tax excluded!!! Thank you in advance for your response

I just received "out of the blue" an advert for Captains, Captains salaries:

Months 1-3 Gross 3070 Net 2026 Euros PM

Months 4 onwards Gross 8520 Net 6331 Euros PM

Productivity bonus 1500 Euro a quarter and housing 850 Euro for the first 3 months only.

fixed salary? no wage increase increasing the hours?

Avenger

Expect to have a 6/2 6/2 and even 7/2 roster on the Dash, they will push you to all your limits.

CFO told captains to stop complain and be happy to have a job at all, says how they think about the work of their pilots.

Could it be possible to see some roster of the dash 8 fleet ?

Are all aircraft equipped with EFB, for performance, manual, FPL ...
Usually a turn around how long ?
4 sectors days ?

Thank for the info guys

Good evening Gentlemen,

I would reaaly appreciate some infos concerning salary cpt dash 8, and an example of a typical roster.
Also via pm, if it should be handled discreetly.

Thanks for your help.

To answer Dash questions "Are all aircraft equipped with EFB, for performance, manual, FPL ... " Yes, to all but, FPL is AVA on personal company supplied i-pad, however must be completed in paper form (for now )

Roster involves 1 block of 4 OFF and (on good months) a couple of 2 or 3 day blocks (or maybe several single days ) Rostering preference system helps to a degree. On Q400 expect 4-6 (in a bad month ) short nights (2-4 hrs kip, but, you can come to RIX till 22:00 & leave at 07:00 if you are a commuter , don't worry, you will Zzzz on your DH flt to/from home )

Most turnarounds 25-35 min, but c'mon Ryanair is same with 189 seater, so, it works OK with 76.

4 sector days are more often than not. If you plan on €7000/mth net throughout the year you will neither be disappointed , nor unable to pay the bills.

For Boeing, maybe €500 more (due longer sectors/more Blk hrs) & nightstops tend to be 3/4 nts in a row in TLL/VNO as these are not (flight) crew bases. (yet) & less short nts. Last couple of years had Summer wet leases/charters in Italy/Belgium/Germany /Finland, officially this will not happen this year.

CS, longer sectors (for now ) + night flights (thank you guys I miss them so much )

Overall, it is neither the best, nor the worst, and, is still refreshingly "old fashioned" (in a nice way ) compared to some alternatives, & the company is recently acting annually/ biannually with a large degree of common sense in response to the pilot market situation, which is refreshing.

I am really quite interested in the position cpt dash 8-400, it would help me a lot if some can shed some light on the following questions:
how is Air Baltic doing in general? (are the making profit/ how is the outlook for the near future)
how is it working with the pension system?
how is it working with the health insurance specially for dependents?
what are the future fleet plans, is the dash 8 satying or getting faced out?

thanks for any informations on that, feel free to contact me via pm if you don't want to share something in the public forum. once again thanks to all.

Making money at the moment, pax figures continue upwards, Govt talking about selling all or part of its holding interest (can't say I am happy with that part )

Health insurance & pension ? you are best to plan to contribute more, as the "health care" is offered at the basic level (as I understand, haven't used it yet ) & Latvian pension not so great.

Q400 leases run till (if memory serves me well ) 2021, but, I am led to believe they are not so cheap & there is a potential plan to offload them somewhere else & replace with CS100's, but. . . . who knows when, or indeed who is paying, nothing fixed.

For more detail on pensions/health etc , either ask at interview, or drop an email to H.R. they are usually pretty responsive if they sniff a hint of interest on your part.

Hello guys.

I would like to share with you my experience as Dash8 FO candidate for airBaltic:

I was contacted by Ingmar Kibermanis offering me an assessment for de Dash8, if I was sucessful I had to pay for the Type Rating. Also the assessment have a fee of 500€ which, in case I was successful it would be discounted from the TR :"We are charging this amount just to be sure that your plans are serious. As promised – if you are successful, we offer you to join airBaltic and if you come – we will deduct these 500 EUR from the payment for your type rating.". They also offered me tickets on airBaltic Flights to travel to Riga.

Ok, once time in Riga, the day of the assessment the assessor arrived late because the initial assessor went sick, after this the SIM was very rush; No time for briefings, manouver after manoeuver, directs to some RNAV points, etc. The assessor left after the sim and we didn´t have any technical questions. We had HHRR and Psychological interviews. I was the last one so I was done around 16:00. This was on Friday. Now, Just the next Monday I received the Email asking me if I was available on Wednesday in the morninig for the Skype interview with the chief pilots. Of course I answered I was available. Then, the next day I receive an email:

"Hello, xxxxxx!



I am very sorry but we will have to cancel the interview tomorrow, there is one more important thing came up.



I will let you know later.

Sorry!"

I answered that no problem and I would stay tuned. Of course they did not send me any email along the week, so the next Monday at evening, just in order to plan my life I answered them, very respectfully, if would be possible to know if the interview would be this week. Just in orden to plan my actual work. This was on Monday. They did not sent me any response on Tuesday and, suddenly today, wednesday I received a generic Email :

Dear Miguel,



Thank you very much for your interest and participation in the pilots’ selection process.

However, after careful evaluation of your theoretical, practical and psychological knowledge and tests, it has been decided that your current level of skills is not sufficient for airBaltic standards.



Wishing good luck in your future career!



Best regards,

Nothing else, after have been one week updating my email evry 30 minutes, after have paid "Because we want ensure your plans are very serious" they say good bay with this bad manners.


This post is just because I would like to everybody know what kind of people they are. Just this.

Best of luck everybody.

Hi Maik,
May i ask you how many guys were you?

hi guys,

as stated before I am quite interested in the cpts position dash 8 in air baltic. first I wanna thank all of you, who supported me already with a lot of useful informations.
my next question, and hopefully the final one, is, if it might be possible to get a typical roster of a dash 8 cpt. most welcome also via pm.
really appreciate your help once again, tks!

Can anybody confirm they intend to keep the 737 fleet till 2022 instead than 2020?

Got your PM, I'll answer it here.

Nobody can answer that question with any degree of certainty, because, aviation/life is "dynamic", what seems like a good plan today, can turn out to be cr@p tomorrow.
The "plans" (such as they are ) in all airlines I have worked for have been subject to change, from slight refining, to complete 180degree turns, I doubt that airBaltic is about to buck that trend.

Internally, 737 phase-out date has had more than a few versions already. Impossible to forecast, because the business plan (no matter how well created ) cannot account for outside influences ( another war somewhere, oil prices go sky high, Bombardier offer a sweetener - & the CS uses 22% less - so, Bye Bye Boeing . . . . nobody has a viable crystal ball ) Current offer for DEC /Fastrack 737 Capt position is for 2 years, but, of course they can terminate with the agreed notice period . . . so why get excited beyond 2020 anyhow ? better to worry about the 1 mth notice period if you have to worry about something.

Nice reply, thanks!

Do not expect any kind of social responsibility in AB. You are an exchangable 3LC, not more, not less. They do not care about the health of the pilots.

Fatigue risk management is only written in the books, in real life it is not existant.

Just to give you an example. The office guys (working from Monday to Friday, heated office, fixed hours, no weather influcence, no walking on apron at -20 degrees) have been offered events for stress and burn out prevention. That is the guys who create the nice rosters with 7 working days for pilots, in that 7 days of course you start early (earlier than the first flight in from whereever you live), have a night duty to end after 167 hours, most likely there is no flight to whereever you live).

Commuting is only possible if you live in one of the scandinavian countries, all others are not working.

Any kind of flexible roster as 20/10 will never happen, they do not like it but of course they will promise you "we are working on that".

Trust only informations which are written.

Vacation, not plannable, you will know if you can go worst case 2 weeks in advance. In theory you can add off days to vacation days, in real life you end with a duty period of 7 days after your last vacation day.

Who ever is able to leave will do. Reason: roster, roster, roster, roster.

HolA ! Got a 737 Assessment nxt month >>

MOre info is really Appreciated ! Mucho Gracias RobertO

Hi.

I also got an offer to fly on their C-Series and I would like to hear from an Air Baltic C-Series pilot what a monthly roster roughly looks like.

Thank you already in advance.

Hi,
I also would like to know, when FO CS300 can become CPT? I am interested in direct entry FO CS300 from DHC8 with 1000 hours on type.

This is not something that airBaltic does. RYR do, BTI doesn't.

FO's from all different types in the company are upgraded on the Q400. On paper you need 500hrs PIC to upgrade to CS. In reality, there is a pilot promotion list with a number of pilots (captains) mainly in front of you even if you acquire 500hrs PIC so don't count on upgrade to CS captain any time soon.

If you have flights with layovers, you can expect 2-3 sectors general, rarely 4-5 sectors and then 3th or 5th sector in case of 5 sectors will be to layover destination. Next day either you fly back or go as dead head and can expect 2 sectors. Without layover, occasionally 2 sector days, majority are 4 or 5 sector days, mix of shorter and longer flights. Each pilot has his own efb. FPL is still on paper. Turnaround anywhere between 25-30min (TLL, VNO, PRG, BRU) to 50min or even 60-90min (LED, CPH) there's a good mix in that sense. But you can easily turnaround in 20min and have time left to breath when all goes smoothly.

Hey guys,

I have an urgent question. I toy with the idea to apply as DEC on the Dash 8. I am current on type and already Commander flying for Eurowings.

At the moment they have increased the salary for Captains and my wife and me can imagine to leave Germany and move to Riga with our children. Does anyone knows if all Dash 8 Captains will be trained for the A220 when die Q400 leaves the fleet? Or do I have to start again as FO. Is the salary correct, 8600 € before tax and approx. 7100 € net salary?

Would you recommand this step or would you stay away from Air Baltic? I also have the opportunity to change on the A320 for Eurowings as First Officer for half the salary I have right now and no upgrade the next maybe 10 years. I guess this sounds terrible, doesnt?

I would really appreciate any advise .

@ Mehlsocke, if you want to fly max duty min rest go for it, have sent you a private message....

Ok thank you. Commuting is not an Option, we would move there instead. What do you man when saying "not for everyone"?

I admit it was quite a useless comment on my behalf, as the same can be said about most places. I've spent a few years in Riga so I have 'an opinion', but don't feel it's appropriate to share that here.

Yes and that will be the reason for the upcoming incident, its not the question if but when it will happen. Flight safety is not their number 1 priority at least on the Dash fleet. Do not tell passengers that flight crew is permanently tired because of unhealthy rostering.

do you actually work/have ever worked in the company? I feel that there is a lot of rumor milling going on here and a very few facts. The only thing true is that the roster indeed is not commuter-friendly. Like for most airlines - make your base city your home and you'll be fine. The guys typically complaining the most are the ones who try to keep commuting going or who have bad sleeping habits. Eventually they fail and the bitterness comes out.

In the busiest summer months I flew roughly 70 hours a month with about 10 days off, FDP around 125 hours. There is no average roster but generally it looks something like this - 4 on, 3 off, 5 on, 2 off, 5 on, 4 off etc.. Never seen a 6-1, in fact "6 on" I've only seen with some standby days in the beginning or at the end of the period. I get about 2 to 3 short night stops a month and maybe 2 to 3 long night stops.

For the short night stop you check in at roughly 10 in the evening, fly to a close by destination (TKU,TMP, LED, KGD or LPX) you go to the hotel for about 2-3 hours and get back to Riga in the early hours of the morning. Check out before 7 in the morning and you are done.

Generally it's an ok place to work, their maintenance is the best I've seen - aircraft are in top condition, it is very rare to fly with something INOP, and if you do, it won't be long before it's fixed. Yes - some days are tougher than others, but there are very few days in a month when your duty period touches 12 hours and if it does - typically it's because you had long turnarounds/ground time. Most of the time your day is done after 8-9 hours of work. It's not a perfect roster but I prefer it over the Ryanairs famous 5/4 where for 5 days you do 12 hour duty and then spend 4 days in your bed trying to recover your will to live.

Upgrades to CS are happening and Dash captains become captains on CS, no one is downgraded to an FO. There's a system in which you can see the seniority list and who's ahead for an upgrade, the process is transparent, but sure enough if you join now you will probably stay on the dash for a while. Is it going to be till the end? I don't think so, there are some dash captains who don't want to go to the CS simply because it potentially will mean that they could be sent to Tallinn or Vilnius. Then there are the CS/737 FOs who will want to upgrade to left seat sooner rather than later again causing movement in the organization

If I was you Mehlsocke I would be more concerned about your wife/children. Sure enough if your wife likes to be a sit-at-home mom, I guess she will do fine, however any career opportunities for people not speaking Latvian are quite slim outside aviation industry/IT/Finance. There are very few international schools around for your children and the ones that exist seem to be geared towards the super-wealthy Russians.. there's really no middle ground when it comes to education

Last summer was the same, but what really seems to be working for me is to bid for the long legs, HAM/BRU/SVG etc, I get them and I no-longer have to deal with the pentagons - I believe they are the ones who allow the company to squeeze the juice. Also talk to Mara if you're not happy, they seem to be very accommodating

So Direct Entry Command on the Q400 in Air Baltic is not the life of glamour and riches you expected?? Well I have some even more sad news for you, it’s very similar wherever you go. Any Turboprop pilot knows your pain, it’s the main reason no one really wants to fly one, regardless of type. The Turboprop is there to bring the pax from the regions to the main hub, doing multiple short sectors, and overnights.
Currently I fly anywhere between 75-85 hrs a month,( my worst was 92), usually with around 3 or 4 six sector days a month, thankfully at my base there are not so many night stops, but other bases have crew away for up to four nights. Roster is normally 5/2,but 6 on is not uncommon, but I am getting it easy compared to the First Officers, they are working 90 hrs a month since Christmas past, due to the shortage of crew. Now they are even being asked to work days off, and sell their leave back to the company. Before you start shouting that my salary is better, my current take home is about the same as a level three pay scale with Air Baltic, I do get a company pension, annual leave is thirty five days a year that must be used or lost.
So my advice would be forget about commuting, move your family, live in Riga, otherwise you will burn out. I have been there done that, and know from experience. Use the opportunity to gain command time, and think seriously about what you want from Aviation. I know former Q400 Cpts that have moved directly to left seat jet with other companies because of their time on the Q400, even I have been offered left seat A320, all because I did my time on the Q400.

If Riga was my home, I could keep doing it and wait for better days, heck, maybe even fight for them. But it never was, isn't, and never will be; the question, as far as I am concerned, is what's the point of working this tiring roster and getting vacation requests denied, when, in this market, there are plenty of good jobs in nicer places? (spare me the 'grass is greener' lectures). Of course, unless that 4th stripe is the most important thing on the world... Yes, there are DEC jobs going from the Q400, but it's never the place you'd really want to end up in, always just another 'stepping stone', probably a bottom feeder too.

Hello Everibody
 

Hello Everybody,

I hope you all doing fine
Is there any good soul out there who knows, how is it going with Air Baltic recruitment for A220, Are they paying type rating? What is the current payment for FO I heard they have improve conditions.

Thank you in advance, any feedback is appreciated!

Hows AB doing with their DEC on the Q400 with upgrades to A220 within 2 years according to latest adverts? Any scheduling and roster improvements or new bidding system in the pipeline or already active?