Flair Hiring

[Soyer]

With the pullback announced yesterday by WJ if you are at Encore or Sunwing you may want to consider a growing company with multiple bases. Rapidly growing with strong backing a pilot with some experience will upgrade quickly, currently DEC spots available in the YYZ area (YKF) and for those with less experience an opportunity to build that experience and upgrade within a few years.

[itaserb]

Are you guys require ATPL to get hired or A exams will be enough?

[C-GGGQ]

Are you guys require ATPL to get hired or A exams will be enough?

Exams are enough now.

[Blueontop]

Any chance someone can post the pay scales at flair?

[frog]

https://negotech.labour.gc.ca/cgi-bin/R ... ture=en-CA

[co-joe]

just google :flair pilot cba", the first link is a bcbargaining.ca one, the cba page 38 lists it. That was the Unifor pay scale, ALPA is currently in active negotiations working on a new and improved scale. Likely the FO scale won't change much, but we should see decent improvements on the Captain scale.

[kikwon89]

Any updates on candidates who have been hired on recently? I am still waiting in the pool and not much info coming from the HR.

[goldeneagle]

Likely the FO scale won't change much, but we should see decent improvements on the Captain scale.

Typical of airline pilot unions at negotiation time, throw the junior folks under the bus to pad pockets of those higher up the list. It really is no wondering why those organizations have so much infighting and bad blood.

[Tbayer2021]

Likely the FO scale won't change much, but we should see decent improvements on the Captain scale.

Typical of airline pilot unions at negotiation time, throw the junior folks under the bus to pad pockets of those higher up the list. It really is no wondering why those organizations have so much infighting and bad blood.

I believe the company isn't moving on the FO pay because they claim there is no need to as FO's will be Captains in a year or two. Very short sighted I know, as upgrades won't be this quick forever.

My understanding is based on a letter sent to the pilots by the union regarding the matter.

[DanWEC]

The initial FO scale looks comparable to others in Canada, it's a nice improvement over payscales at the regionals, however these are 737's... however it's also Canada.
The captain side is hilariously bad however, makes sense that's where they'd need to focus for retention.
I have a feeling they know that they'd never keep that scale 5 years into the future, but a low progression looks good on paper for cost projections when shopping around for things on the financial side.

[Allen120]

Any updates on candidates who have been hired on recently? I am still waiting in the pool and not much info coming from the HR.

When did you do your interview and did they get back to you now?

[co-joe]

Likely the FO scale won't change much, but we should see decent improvements on the Captain scale.

Typical of airline pilot unions at negotiation time, throw the junior folks under the bus to pad pockets of those higher up the list. It really is no wondering why those organizations have so much infighting and bad blood.

For the first year Flair is the highest paying airline FO job in the country. 2nd year TS pays more, none of the rest do, by years 3 WS pays more but it's a 10 year upgrade. It's only after year 4 that mainline AC pays more. You could come here with 2000 hours and still be a 737 captain after 2 years, so no at the moment, the FO scale doesn't need any improvements. We need to bump the left seat scale up a decent amount to retain the millions in training spent in the past year as well as to reward the great people who have been here all along making this good company better.

Once the company matures and upgrade time grows, then the FO scale will need work. Then, status pay and other FO improvements will become worth it. IMHO

[Blueontop]

Medium jet captain here, 6500 hours total, 1750 multi jet pic, how long to upgrade at flair?

[tbaylx]

Medium jet captain here, 6500 hours total, 1750 multi jet pic, how long to upgrade at flair?

Assuming that jet was a 705 operation, that would meet the current direct entry captain criteria, so immediately.

[Blueontop]

Medium jet captain here, 6500 hours total, 1750 multi jet pic, how long to upgrade at flair?

Assuming that jet was a 705 operation, that would meet the current direct entry captain criteria, so immediately.

Negative, 604/704 ops

[tbaylx]

Medium jet captain here, 6500 hours total, 1750 multi jet pic, how long to upgrade at flair?

Assuming that jet was a 705 operation, that would meet the current direct entry captain criteria, so immediately.

Negative, 604/704 ops

That would be assessed on an individual basis, but most eligible right after the first recurrent sim, 6 months.

[Arnie Pye]

Likely the FO scale won't change much, but we should see decent improvements on the Captain scale.

Typical of airline pilot unions at negotiation time, throw the junior folks under the bus to pad pockets of those higher up the list. It really is no wondering why those organizations have so much infighting and bad blood.

I believe the company isn't moving on the FO pay because they claim there is no need to as FO's will be Captains in a year or two.

Until you consider that almost no one applying now will meet the upgrade requirements in one year. The fact that we are doing an open house style recruitment drive means that very likely anyone with experience has found another seat at a higher paying job.

No movement on the FO scale means that our current FO's just took an 8% inflationary decrease in take home pay. If the management team had settled the contract 6 months ago, no one would have been talking about inflation or factoring this into the salary scale.

[kiaszceski]

Honestly I’m curious. How having 2 years on the right seat in enough to be a highly skilled 737 MAX captain? That seems to be be less than Ryanair.

[co-joe]

Honestly I’m curious. How having 2 years on the right seat in enough to be a highly skilled 737 MAX captain? That seems to be be less than Ryanair.

They hire Cadets don't they?

[DanWEC]

I'm very curious to what will happen with Flair on the labour side. With all the initial bluster about bringing up the conditions in Canada, they're now in a position where experienced people are flying out the door, they're hiring with sub-2k hrs, and the contract talks are now basically stalled.

Unfortunately in Canada we seem to have a history of rather than jacking pay for retention, some operators have gone the opposite direction entirely whereas they become a mill, and the payscales are kept very low as the seat itself is compensation enough. They're probably trying to justify any pay increases for such low hour averages. Perhaps they're deciding if it's cheaper to hire low and train, than retain.

WAWCON's across the board should finally be improving quite a bit with new contract negots at all majors in the next 2.5 years, and hopefully Flair maintains their mandate to improve conditions, but we will see.

[indieadventurer]

Heard Flair is paying triple time for open time flying this long weekend. Nice to hear!

[music.is.the.answer]

Contract talks are stalling? Anymore info to be added on that?

[Arnie Pye]

Not much to comment on. Little to no communication from the union so your guess is as good as everyone else's. The longer it drags on, the more experienced people we lose because we don't have a contract. We also get to watch all of the other carriers increase their pay by 15-100% south of the border which tempts more people to leave. Expectations from the pilot group go higher every day and with every inflationary report from Stats Can. I don't see us settling for anything other than a good contract. Anything mediocre will be voted down.

If the company wanted it done, it would be done. Guess we'll just have to reach a point of desperation when everyone trickles back overseas for the money. Most people being hired now won't get command for several years at best which will put increased pressure on the captain side.

[co-joe]

I'm very curious to what will happen with Flair on the labour side. With all the initial bluster about bringing up the conditions in Canada, they're now in a position where experienced people are flying out the door, they're hiring with sub-2k hrs, and the contract talks are now basically stalled.

...

F8 management had to know that a lot of the repats they hired were rentals. Every one of them I've talked to has considered going back to their expat jobs at one point or another. Whether they do or not is ultimately up to them. Personally I'm grateful to all of them for coming here and giving us the solid high time backbone to expand so rapidly with. Covid created this once in a lifetime opportunity for a growing airline to attract highly skilled and experienced drivers that they would never have had access to otherwise.

From here on some of them will go back, some will go to Air Canada, but no large numbers are "flying out the door". AC recalled everyone who didn't have a written LOA. A few guys went back to the sand box. Lots of the rest have bought houses domestically again, sold their overseas homes and are looking forward to flying into the sunset here.

music.is.the.answer » Mon Jul 04, 2022 9:31 am
Contract talks are stalling? Anymore info to be added on that?

The union reps and management pilots are flying full time again and management has been focused on adding 3 new Max 8's in less than a week. I don't think things are "stalled" so much as a small company like this doesn't have the resources to commit to spending full time in conference rooms indefinitely especially now that the nutso summer flying has started. Most ALPA contracts take 2 years plus to negotiate, and our guys are 6 months in. I have tonnes of confidence in the people at the bargaining table, I know them all personally and know they are all working towards the right goals.

[music.is.the.answer]

They better figure it out, in regards to getting together at the table and keep bargaining moving. Because once Porter has their E2 certification, if you thought finding pilots was hard now, just wait. Plus AC is about to take a significant amount of pilots from Jazz, so Jazz will be aggressively hiring too. And we all know how many younger pilots will run to Jazz for the dangling carrot of AC, even though they’re probably the lowest paying 705 now.

You guys want 50 airplanes staffed in 4 years? You better get a good contract and soon. Not later. Or 3X OT on GDO’s will become the norm, but it’ll get old real fast. This is how cargojet operates. They throw money at pilots outside of their CBA even bargaining with pilots for OT rates. It just creates low morale and burns out everyone.