Corporate operators with more competitive vacation

[propstojets]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if 2 weeks off per year for many years (usually 5) is standard amongst most corporate operators ? I am contemplating corporate but find it difficult to ignore how many airlines provide about 4 weeks vacation to year 1 hires (includes public holiday). My understanding of corporate is that they don’t even get public holiday pay or time off for it.

I’m hoping there are better working conditions within corporate aviation in Canada.

Thanks for sharing!

[cjp]

Corporate is whatever you can negotiate, get it in writing, define compensation in lieu of, and hold the line.

If you're working for a puppy mill management company in Canada, expect the bare minimum by law and don't expect lots of notice when it does come.

End if the day if they book flights on your vacation, they are responsible to cover your flying - and if it's charter it eats into their bottom line. Hence why they don't provide much if any notice.

[NovaBoy]

My last corporate gig, we all started at 4 weeks

[CL-Skadoo!]

My last corporate gig, we all started at 4 weeks

Likewise for me. Many operations (not all) that are not affiliated with management companies tend to treat their pilots a little more humanely. A management company without strong influence from an aircraft owner will treat you like a disposable, inconvenient nuisance.

They may even use you as a laboratory test animal if you don’t stand up to them. bunnies are expensive/cute/need feeding, plus, they already paid for the pilots, so what the hell…

[propstojets]

Thanks for your replies.

[YC87DRVR]

My last corporate gig, we all started at 4 weeks

Likewise for me. Many operations (not all) that are not affiliated with management companies tend to treat their pilots a little more humanely. A management company without strong influence from an aircraft owner will treat you like a disposable, inconvenient nuisance.

They may even use you as a laboratory test animal if you don’t stand up to them. bunnies are expensive/cute/need feeding, plus, they already paid for the pilots, so what the hell…

One thing to consider though with the corporate operators is if they give you 4 weeks vacation, do you get your regular scheduled days off in addition.

From what I hear, with a lot of corporate operators you take a week off for your vacation but then are stuck working the remainder of the month. Are you really getting 4 weeks of vacation when your days off are wrapped into those weeks. Unlike the airlines and every other occupation where your vacation days reduce your amount of days worked 100%.

[Sulako]

I've never heard of that and I've been in corporate for the last 20 years in the GTA. I wonder if that's a local thing relative to where you live?

The corporate flight department structure is pretty different from airlines. Light and midsize jets frequently have only 2 dedicated crew. Heavies are more likely to have 3 crew - about 80 percent do, with another 10 percent having 4 - 5 crew. Under CAR 704 it takes 8 fulltime crew to guarantee 24/7/365 coverage, but I don't know of a single Canadian corporate plane that has more than 5 crew, and I could probably count those planes on one hand.

How do we survive this as humans and still have a life? Well, the average corporate pilot at the largest Canadian corporate operator flies around 215 hours a year. That average can vary wildly though - some corporate jets are going Monday - Friday and some fly once a month That being said, the average corporate pilots flies three or four times a month, with the rest of that time usually being on reserve. CARS 604 reserve usually works out to being on call for 14 days and off for 3. If a corporate crew does any charter, then they are captured by CAR 704 which gives them more time off, and more structure to it - CARS 704 crew have about 38 percent less availability under the 'new' duty regs from 2022 than they did previously.

What that all boils down to is that corporate pilots spend a lot of time on reserve but not flying. Fundamentally, we are supporting characters for the rich people and/or multinational corporations; we get to fly their sweet equipment and go on their business trips and vacations with them and they usually pay us enough to live indoors (which is increasingly rare) and in return, when they want to fly, we fly. Of course we make sure we aren't fatigued, but you get the idea. We will live with the uncertainty around scheduling in return for the unicorn that is the Canadian middle-class lifestyle.

Now that we know that corporate pilots are usually on reserve, the actual flying schedule greatly determines the quality of life of the crew - some people have schedules set months in advance, and some are subject to near-daily changes. I get it, that's what the rich people bought the plane to have the flexiblity to do, but it's still a pain if the flying schedule and the number of full-time crew don't fit. At the moment, pilots can just leave and find a job flying the same plane for a better schedule or better money, and good managment now also means taking a look at the quality of life of the flight crew to mitigate attrition. It's hella expensive to train new crew and on top of that, the big bottleneck right now is training slots - it's over 18 months to get an initial course on a Citation Excel, and about a year for a Challenger 604/605 initial. Rich people don't like not being able to use their multi-million dollar toys, so smart management does their best to keep good flight crew around for as long as possible.

TLDR: Most corporate flight crew are scheduled to be on reserve for CARS maximums, but their annual flight times are approx 1/4 that of airline flight crew.

[CL-Skadoo!]

thank

My last corporate gig, we all started at 4 weeks

Likewise for me. Many operations (not all) that are not affiliated with management companies tend to treat their pilots a little more humanely. A management company without strong influence from an aircraft owner will treat you like a disposable, inconvenient nuisance.

They may even use you as a laboratory test animal if you don’t stand up to them. bunnies are expensive/cute/need feeding, plus, they already paid for the pilots, so what the hell…

One thing to consider though with the corporate operators is if they give you 4 weeks vacation, do you get your regular scheduled days off in addition.

From what I hear, with a lot of corporate operators you take a week off for your vacation but then are stuck working the remainder of the month. Are you really getting 4 weeks of vacation when your days off are wrapped into those weeks. Unlike the airlines and every other occupation where your vacation days reduce your amount of days worked 100%.

Plenty of flight departments do exactly that, but there are still enough perks and downtime that life is pretty good, especially if you’re flying less than 300 hours per year. On the flip side though, there are corporate flight departments that offer both days off and vacation. They are the unicorns, but they do exist.

[TurkeyFarmYQX]

It's a tough thing to nail down as it all depends on the operator.

My corporate job only gave two weeks vacation but the plane was usually down for 3-4 for annual every year. Plus I probably had about 20 weeks off over the course of the year if we weren't flying, it's not technically vacation as I could theoretically get a call and need to fly the next day, but I sure as hell wasn't overworked.