Are the working conditions / is the pay that bad at air canada

[squidkid4]

I am a aspiring pilot and currently live near yyt and after seeing some of the posts here about working conditions and Air Canada widebody pilots making less than regionals and some things about the working conditions I was just wondering to what extent / if these are a problem?

[alkaseltzer]

Don’t base a career decision off a public forum. Lots of troll posts which may sully your perspective. Ask someone face to face, and ask several people at that point too. FACE TO FACE. Its your career.

Do your homework and then ask yourself where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years, money aside.

Air Canada, nor any company, is the end all be all. And you can’t predict what will happen either in life. You need a medical to stay current and your lifestyle will flux with changing economic conditions.

Good luck.

[RippleRock]

I wouldn't bother with this company until either they acknowledge the WACON rift and start respecting their pilots by compensating them properly, or the Union shows its got a set.

Neither have been proven yet. Wait and see.

If this group chooses to continue to be the "industry bottom feeders", there are better choices out there.

[Donald]

Another first post troll.

Lots of bored people over the holidays.

[Core]

This comes up occasionally, but I'm genuinely curious about the monthly schedules as well. I've had an interview offer for a while, but other than a more solid pension (I'm not at an airline.) I'm really not sure if there's a point. I'd be sacrificing years of seniority and from what I see the only way to claw back to my current salary in less than 10 years would be to take a NB upgrade, but as a commuter the schedule terrifies me -from what I've heard-. Or perhaps I've just gotten lazy.

Is it possible to work 12-14 days a month regularly without it being some random outlier month? I see the cap is 17 days, is that also a target for planning?

How many days are you working on the NB and WB side?

A personal problem for me is, if it takes 15-20 years to hold a WB CA seat, that put me just a few years from retirement and the bottom of the list... so if you're mid 40's it seems to be a NB for life position....

Can you hold CA salary if you voluntarily go from NB CA to WB FO or is that only if forced?

For the pension- is the target indexed? Is it essentially matching with up to a 30% ish contribution? I'd be comparing it to a matching fund contribution of around 14% total.

Thanks all,
C

[MontrealCanucks]

It's all perspective

US Airline Pilots compare themselves to the highest paid professions

Company shills compare Air Canada pilots to plumbers and rationalize world worst working conditions by finding some pathetic data point to anchor off

If you want to spend $100k plus to be "lucky" to make $50k, you're in the right field

Things could change, but not till this profession starts valuing itself and stops making excuses

[billybgone345]

The contract has lots of hidden gotchas that affect your quality of life. They go along the lines of a really good contract, but end with "unless the company has to" or some other vague comment that the company can use.

An example of this is under Reserve 29.10.04.02 "...when no other pilot is immediately available, a Person on Reserve may be reassigned outside of their original pairing window" as well as 29.10.01 "a PoR may be subsequently assigned to any other flight or flights that may be necessary due to changes in required flight coverage." What that translates into (in real life) is crew sched has the ability to assign you into your GDO because that is how they interpret the rules. Speaking of reserve, there are a lot of other strange scenarios including random reserve time assignments prior to the start of your next few days of reserve, the ability for them to move the reserve time up or down a few hours 24 hrs prior to assignment, the contractual requirement to call to get released and if you are going from Reserve to Block Holder you have limited rights between the two on your days off. Crew sched has the ability (and actively does) to assign you up to 7 days of extra pairings. A buddy became a block holder in December and his first flight was December 8. He was assigned a 4 day pairing from Dec 1 to 4 (block holders have no GDO if you are wondering) and combined with his sim slots he was working 22 days as a NB pilot initially thought to be working 16 days a month.

With all this seemingly negatively examples given keep in mind ALPA has submitted 1200 contract changes to clean it up and get rid of such vague language open to interpretation. If management starts to acknowledge the need to fix this we might see better quality of life for Reserve and Blockholder's

[fish4life]

Honestly the OP’s biggest issue is going to be if they want to stay in YYT and commute, nothing easy about that.

NB has max days WB doesn’t but I wouldn’t base any career decisions off a stale 10yr old contract that is being renegotiated.

[squidkid4]

Don’t base a career decision off a public forum. Lots of troll posts which may sully your perspective. Ask someone face to face, and ask several people at that point too. FACE TO FACE. Its your career.

Do your homework and then ask yourself where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years, money aside.

Air Canada, nor any company, is the end all be all. And you can’t predict what will happen either in life. You need a medical to stay current and your lifestyle will flux with changing economic conditions.

Good luck.

Good point, thanks

[squidkid4]

Honestly the OP’s biggest issue is going to be if they want to stay in YYT and commute, nothing easy about that.

yeah, Might just move to one of the bases

[AJH]

The contract has lots of hidden gotchas that affect your quality of life. They go along the lines of a really good contract, but end with "unless the company has to" or some other vague comment that the company can use.

An example of this is under Reserve 29.10.04.02 "...when no other pilot is immediately available, a Person on Reserve may be reassigned outside of their original pairing window" as well as 29.10.01 "a PoR may be subsequently assigned to any other flight or flights that may be necessary due to changes in required flight coverage." What that translates into (in real life) is crew sched has the ability to assign you into your GDO because that is how they interpret the rules. Speaking of reserve, there are a lot of other strange scenarios including random reserve time assignments prior to the start of your next few days of reserve, the ability for them to move the reserve time up or down a few hours 24 hrs prior to assignment, the contractual requirement to call to get released and if you are going from Reserve to Block Holder you have limited rights between the two on your days off. Crew sched has the ability (and actively does) to assign you up to 7 days of extra pairings. A buddy became a block holder in December and his first flight was December 8. He was assigned a 4 day pairing from Dec 1 to 4 (block holders have no GDO if you are wondering) and combined with his sim slots he was working 22 days as a NB pilot initially thought to be working 16 days a month.

With all this seemingly negatively examples given keep in mind ALPA has submitted 1200 contract changes to clean it up and get rid of such vague language open to interpretation. If management starts to acknowledge the need to fix this we might see better quality of life for Reserve and Blockholder's

[garfield]

Few weeks ago I talked with a 787 captain with 30+ years of seniority. He was flying an average of 18 days per month.

Told me the schedule was better a few years back with the flights to China..!

[8895]

Few weeks ago I talked with a 787 captain with 30+ years of seniority. He was flying an average of 18 days per month.

Told me the schedule was better a few years back with the flights to China..!

30 YOS and that’s it?! That’s brutal lol

[FNGYYZ]

Air Canada's scheduling & reserve rules are second to none when you compare to the worst Bush operation

20 days is an easy feat here with all the extras. Sim, Sim travel, annual recurrent training, etc

[ogopogo]

A good friend retired 10 years ago with 35+ yrs, as a Triple CA and was working 8 days a month — what happened?

[Torontomaplelaughs]

A good friend retired 10 years ago with 35+ yrs, as a Triple CA and was working 8 days a month — what happened?

ACPA