Carson air

[synthpro]

Hey guys...

anyone know what the interview is like. Questions they ask?. Is their a Sim Eval? Which approaches? I was invited to an interview.

Also, I am being serious when I ask this... is it honestly possible to live in Vancouver on 19k a year?.. Like... can I find a basement apartment and make ends meet?...

BC seems like a wicked place to live... the thing is... the industry is really really down now and will be like this until 2010. So... I'm gonna take whatever I can get at this point (If I can)

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

S.

[LegoMan]

I cant believe you would even consider flying for 19K a year, and my sister-in-law lives in Vancouver and barely survives off of $38K. She lives in a basement apartment with that.

Let me break it down, even if you can find a basement apartment for $600 you are lucky so to give you benefit of the doubt here we go

rent $ 600 (utilities included we say)
phone or cell $50
food $250-300
Transportation $300
Personal bills... you fill that in...
thats so far $1200. Which is what your take home pay would be. You dont have enough to buy toilet paper to wipe your ass.

[synthpro]

Yeah... guilty as charged.. I am considering it.

If my wife works... it might be able to work out though. In 2 years time, I can probably go on to West Jet with Metro time. So I'm kind of looking down the road.

[Westward_Bound]

Can you live in Vancouver and still fly for Westjet?

[flying4dollars]

Yeah... guilty as charged.. I am considering it.

If my wife works... it might be able to work out though. In 2 years time, I can probably go on to West Jet with Metro time. So I'm kind of looking down the road.

You do make money on the per diems, however the fact is its not part of the salary figure. 19K a year is rough and WITH the per diems you'd clear about $16-1800 a month into ur bank account. Is it possible to live in Vancouver on this salary? Yes...but you'll really be stretching your dollars.

As for the interview and sim etc, when I was offered an interview, they asked me to come to Vancouver (I was out of province at the time). As I was considering the position..I got a 2nd phone call (which I missed) followed by an email asking me if I could make Septembers groundschool. Basically I was being offered the position based on my resume and a brief chat on the phone with the lady doing the hiring. There is no eval, interview could be done over the phone if they wanted to I guess.

[flying4dollars]

Can you live in Vancouver and still fly for Westjet?

??

This should be asked in the WesJet forum, not a Carson Air thread.

[B-rad]

Basically I was being offered the position based on my resume and a brief chat on the phone with the lady doing the hiring. There is no eval, interview could be done over the phone if they wanted to I guess.

I have heard this same scenario (not myself but second hand info) but the outcome of being invited to a ground school and having a phone interview was not the same thing as being hired. From this point it led to an in person interview with a sim evaluation and, having the ground school completed was still not considered being hired but still a part of the evaluation.

Which means. Yes there was an in person interview, a sim evaluation, and required to prove yourself in the ground school to be put on the list of available hires. This is my understanding.

As for 19k a year, anything is possible. But I personally wouldn't suggest making that sacrifice in life. You're going to give up some good years in your life for what? To be able to eventually achieve a job at WestJet that will come in good time anyway?

Life is to be enjoyed. You are going to want to be able to go to movies, go skiing, check out the great music of Vancouver and enjoy what the city has to offer. All these things you wont be able to afford, that would just depress me and end up taking another step back by paying for those things with credit. If you can't afford to enjoy the pleasures that are around you then why not live in a more practical place that offers better pay? Accepting this pay level just keeps it low for the next one who will follow you. Be a leader. You need to be the change you wish to see in the world. It's called walking the walk. Easier said then done, but that's my advice I wish to pass on.

What do you think?

[flying4dollars]

Basically I was being offered the position based on my resume and a brief chat on the phone with the lady doing the hiring. There is no eval, interview could be done over the phone if they wanted to I guess.

I have heard this same scenario (not myself but second hand info) but the outcome of being invited to a ground school and having a phone interview was not the same thing as being hired. From this point it led to an in person interview with a sim evaluation and, having the ground school completed was still not considered being hired but still a part of the evaluation.

Which means. Yes there was an in person interview, a sim evaluation, and required to prove yourself in the ground school to be put on the list of available hires. This is my understanding.

As for 19k a year, anything is possible. But I personally wouldn't suggest making that sacrifice in life. You're going to give up some good years in your life for what? To be able to eventually achieve a job at WestJet that will come in good time anyway?

Life is to be enjoyed. You are going to want to be able to go to movies, go skiing, check out the great music of Vancouver and enjoy what the city has to offer. All these things you wont be able to afford, that would just depress me and end up taking another step back by paying for those things with credit. If you can't afford to enjoy the pleasures that are around you then why not live in a more practical place that offers better pay? Accepting this pay level just keeps it low for the next one who will follow you. Be a leader. You need to be the change you wish to see in the world. It's called walking the walk. Easier said then done, but that's my advice I wish to pass on.

What do you think?

Well if he's not flying right now then I'd take whatever I can get at this point, but you can bet your bottom dollar that if the choices are there, it wouldn't be at Carson, or anywhere else for 19K, you're right. Just depends on your current situation.

[B-rad]

I know desperate times call for desperate measures and any job is better then no job. It's a very hard time to be able to stand against the unwarranted low pay but the same rules still apply as when the times were good and they offered this pay. Carson did not shift one bit when there was a demand for Pilots, as people justified the pay in their heads. Now you are left with desperate times and this job is available while we are all at their mercy with ourselves to blame. Even with this downturn, having the qualifications for their job, and being unemployed, you will not see my resume cross their desk. Not just for my own principles but in hope that I don't continue the momentum for our Pilot group.

[Westward_Bound]

Can you live in Vancouver and still fly for Westjet?

??

This should be asked in the WesJet forum, not a Carson Air thread.

I just asked cus someone mentioned it in here.

[joe to go]

This is a good place to ask it cause I'm pretty sure that 90% of the pre-2006 Carson Air employees are at WestJet now. And yes, this topic gets beaten to death about once a month like wallypilot said. And at my current teal and blue company that i work for, my per diems are included on my pay cheque. And dont tell anyone this, but i bet you I have used perdiem money (cause its all a lump sum with my pay) to pay a portion of my mortgage. But wait a minute, that can't be true, cause apparently, per diem isn't income. So for those who don't think this, send me you perdiems, cause if it ain't income, why do you want it? Once again, my thoughts on perdiem!!! Same as it is every month when someone brings up the Carson Air pay scale thing. Oh yeah, and i made over 40 a year as an FO when I was there (not including Perdiems!!) And i never wore a pager, had every weekend and long weekend off, stats off, home every night for dinner. But I was YYC based, not YVR, and lived in a company crew house for $125 a month. That not too bad!! Oh yeah, and the year I left, got 1500 profit share! But that was back in the day when everyone there had 4000 hours plus on the Metros.

Oh yeah, and you can live in YVR working for WJ!

[altiplano]

...

[Invertago]

Careful you're not locked in with a bond at Carson when things pick up next year...

[SkyWolfe]

Careful you're not locked in with a bond at Carson when things pick up next year...

+1

[flying4dollars]

This is a good place to ask it cause I'm pretty sure that 90% of the pre-2006 Carson Air employees are at WestJet now. And yes, this topic gets beaten to death about once a month like wallypilot said. And at my current teal and blue company that i work for, my per diems are included on my pay cheque. And dont tell anyone this, but i bet you I have used perdiem money (cause its all a lump sum with my pay) to pay a portion of my mortgage. But wait a minute, that can't be true, cause apparently, per diem isn't income. So for those who don't think this, send me you perdiems, cause if it ain't income, why do you want it? Once again, my thoughts on perdiem!!! Same as it is every month when someone brings up the Carson Air pay scale thing. Oh yeah, and i made over 40 a year as an FO when I was there (not including Perdiems!!) And i never wore a pager, had every weekend and long weekend off, stats off, home every night for dinner. But I was YYC based, not YVR, and lived in a company crew house for $125 a month. That not too bad!! Oh yeah, and the year I left, got 1500 profit share! But that was back in the day when everyone there had 4000 hours plus on the Metros.

Oh yeah, and you can live in YVR working for WJ!

When people ask you what your salary is, do you tell them 19K or 26K? because if you're telling them 26K, then you're mistaken. It's 'income' yes to cover the food when ur away from home (which is every day all day mon-fri), but per diems are not counted as salary. So at the end of the day, you're wages are based on $19K a year, not 26.

[Westward_Bound]

I guess you dont have to pay tax on perdiems??

[Ralliart]

Minimum wage in BC if I'm not mistaken is $8.00 / hour.

14 hours a day x $8.00 = $112.00

$112.00 x 20 days a month (5 days a week) = $2240.00 which is $26880 / year

Carson Air's 19k/yr works out to roughly $1583 per month, or about $80/day before tax.

At 14 hours per duty day, that's around $5.71 per hour.

$5.71 per hour before tax!!

[Westward_Bound]

Can we report them and force them to pay at least minimum?

[Invertago]

You can report them, but they won't like you....

[Westward_Bound]

You can report them, but they won't like you....

Thats fine, I don't work for them(nor do I plan to), so they don't know me. If enough anonymous people report the same thing I'm sure someone will act. And I doubt the company will ever find out who they are.

Or do you have to be an employee to be able to make a report?

[B-rad]

This thread is really going down the toilet fast..

Report them for what? It's best to know where you stand before you start thinking about reporting someone. They can offer what ever pay they want. If you really want to do something about it, encourage people to have a higher self value.

[Westward_Bound]

This thread is really going down the toilet fast..

Report them for what? It's best to know where you stand before you start thinking about reporting someone. They can offer what ever pay they want. If you really want to do something about it, encourage people to have a higher self value.

Report them for breaking Canadian Labour laws.

Encouraging people to have a higher self value is like encouraging people to not drive their cars because they pollute. Always a good idea, but not really effective. Most people know it's bad and don't want to drive, but they NEED to. But if the laws said that internal combustion engines are illegal, and forced auto makers to make clean cars, well then the public would buy the clean car.

In this case, there are always going to be pilots out of work, so the labour laws are in place to protect the rights of the workers.

If you want to just try and encourage people to do the right thing, go try that in a developing country that has no labour laws and see how it works.

This is what makes Canada a developed, civilized country. If the pay at Carson is really what people here say it is, then as a civilized nation, we use laws to force better standards.

It's been done many times before in different industries and worked, so why not with aviation?

[altiplano]

-

[Invertago]

This thread is really going down the toilet fast..

Report them for what? It's best to know where you stand before you start thinking about reporting someone. They can offer what ever pay they want. If you really want to do something about it, encourage people to have a higher self value.

Report them for breaking Canadian Labour laws.

Encouraging people to have a higher self value is like encouraging people to not drive their cars because they pollute. Always a good idea, but not really effective. Most people know it's bad and don't want to drive, but they NEED to. But if the laws said that internal combustion engines are illegal, and forced auto makers to make clean cars, well then the public would buy the clean car.

In this case, there are always going to be pilots out of work, so the labour laws are in place to protect the rights of the workers.

If you want to just try and encourage people to do the right thing, go try that in a developing country that has no labour laws and see how it works.

This is what makes Canada a developed, civilized country. If the pay at Carson is really what people here say it is, then as a civilized nation, we use laws to force better standards.

It's been done many times before in different industries and worked, so why not with aviation?

Ahh... an idealist... welcome to aviation try not to let it change you. I'm not being mean, but rather serious. Every job is a step on to the majors and the end seems to justify the means for everyone hence the crap bottom level jobs. It is every pilot stepping on every other pilot as they climb over each other reaching for a chance at big red where they can be come bitter grumpy old men with a nice pension

I got my CPL in 2001... looked at the jobs, said to hell with it all and went back to school thinking a degree would lead to oportunities... (5 years wasted IMO, we'll see if it pays off later)

I wouldn't have a problem doing a stint at Carson myself, but your pay for the year is 20k, and your bond is 20k and the down turn is only temporary. Hate to be those guys working 14hr days for that money when things pick up and their buddies on floats / instructing / jumper dumping etc are all free to move on to other jobs and they are broke, burnt out and bonded to Carson.

[Switchfoot]

Can we report them and force them to pay at least minimum?

You'd be surprised to hear how many complaints are in at the Labour Board over this company...dozens. Over various issues. But none of those complaints have established anything, except that Carson Air has a good set of lawyers to help management when they need it and to prove that they can still screw over pilots who continue to accept the offers.