Current Pilot QOL in YVR

[BCHireme]

Hey everyone,

I’m looking into Flair and trying to get a better handle on the actual quality of life for YVR based pilots. I’ve seen public facing info but I don’t know anyone working there so I’m hoping to hear from someone about the day to day reality of it all.

1. Scheduling
How often are crews being pushed to max duty with min rest? Is it the exception or the rule?
For those based in YVR, what’s the rough percentage of nights away vs at home?
What’s the average number of working days per month for a junior FO?
What’s the callout window typically like when on reserve?

Maintenance
What’s the quality of maintenance?
Are airplanes always flying with pages and pages of MELs?

None flying related gripes
Any issues with payroll reliability or late payments?
What’s the verdict on uniform and crew gear?
How are the hotels? Any safety concerns? Free breakfast?

I appreciate the insight. Feel free to dm me if you prefer.

[co-joe]

Hey everyone,

I’m looking into Flair and trying to get a better handle on the actual quality of life for YVR based pilots. I’ve seen public facing info but I don’t know anyone working there so I’m hoping to hear from someone about the day to day reality of it all.

1. Scheduling
How often are crews being pushed to max duty with min rest? Is it the exception or the rule?

For those based in YVR, what’s the rough percentage of nights away vs at home?
What’s the average number of working days per month for a junior FO?
What’s the callout window typically like when on reserve?

Maintenance
What’s the quality of maintenance?
Are airplanes always flying with pages and pages of MELs?

None flying related gripes
Any issues with payroll reliability or late payments?
What’s the verdict on uniform and crew gear?
How are the hotels? Any safety concerns? Free breakfast?

I appreciate the insight. Feel free to dm me if you prefer.

1. All the FOs I've spoken with seem to be run off their feet atm, we went from being overstaffed, and offering LOAs which a bunch of people took, to all of a sudden we seemed short staffed to the point that all Captains had to do right seat training to cover the FO flying. All the cadets are on line, and we're hiring again. A bunch of the short term LOAs end in February so I'd assume things settle a bit.

2. I don't know the YVR stats unfortunately, but I'd plan on working the full 18 days a month that the ALPA agreement lets us do. Bottom of the list you'd be on reserve or doing low credit flying. No idea how much of the flying is overnight, but in YYC about half of it is now, this changes every month. Call out is 90 minutes, on morning flights you usually get 2 or more hours unless it's a late sick call.

3. Maintenance is really good, I routinely fly aircraft with zero MELs, there's no messing around here, it all gets fixed on time, once in a while jobs pile up and a few planes get extensions but that's the exception not the rule. I also get zero blowback for writing snags up, if it's broken, it goes in the book, if it grounds a plane, we deal with it. There's no pressure to accept anything unsafe.

4. I've never been paid late, most of the time that I thought they'd messed up my pay it was either my fault, or a misunderstanding about cutoff dates. They have clawed back over payments which can sting for sure depending on timing, but that's a case by case thing and they work with people to minimize it.

5. Uniforms are a constant problem, they come from Portugal, and the admin in YYZ responsible for it always sorts the problems out but it takes time. It got so bad at one point about 4 years ago, a guy came to work in jeans. Since then it's way better but still lots of room for improvement. The shirts are adequate I get years out of them, the pants are garbage and die within a month, the winter jackets are nice.

6. Hotels are a solid 2 star, always in an industrial area or right at the airport, with some Mexican and US hotels being way nicer. Free breakfast is becoming the norm now, that's been a long process. The ALPA hotel rep is a great guy that has made some really good progress, but there's work to do.

Hope that helps. Training is really good, we have our own FTD, and sim so we have full control over the training experience.

[BCHireme]

Yep that helps so much! Thank you.

[CaptDukeNukem]

Hey everyone,

I’m looking into Flair and trying to get a better handle on the actual quality of life for YVR based pilots. I’ve seen public facing info but I don’t know anyone working there so I’m hoping to hear from someone about the day to day reality of it all.

1. Scheduling
How often are crews being pushed to max duty with min rest? Is it the exception or the rule?

For those based in YVR, what’s the rough percentage of nights away vs at home?
What’s the average number of working days per month for a junior FO?
What’s the callout window typically like when on reserve?

Maintenance
What’s the quality of maintenance?
Are airplanes always flying with pages and pages of MELs?

None flying related gripes
Any issues with payroll reliability or late payments?
What’s the verdict on uniform and crew gear?
How are the hotels? Any safety concerns? Free breakfast?

I appreciate the insight. Feel free to dm me if you prefer.

1. All the FOs I've spoken with seem to be run off their feet atm, we went from being overstaffed, and offering LOAs which a bunch of people took, to all of a sudden we seemed short staffed to the point that all Captains had to do right seat training to cover the FO flying. All the cadets are on line, and we're hiring again. A bunch of the short term LOAs end in February so I'd assume things settle a bit.

2. I don't know the YVR stats unfortunately, but I'd plan on working the full 18 days a month that the ALPA agreement lets us do. Bottom of the list you'd be on reserve or doing low credit flying. No idea how much of the flying is overnight, but in YYC about half of it is now, this changes every month. Call out is 90 minutes, on morning flights you usually get 2 or more hours unless it's a late sick call.

3. Maintenance is really good, I routinely fly aircraft with zero MELs, there's no messing around here, it all gets fixed on time, once in a while jobs pile up and a few planes get extensions but that's the exception not the rule. I also get zero blowback for writing snags up, if it's broken, it goes in the book, if it grounds a plane, we deal with it. There's no pressure to accept anything unsafe.

4. I've never been paid late, most of the time that I thought they'd messed up my pay it was either my fault, or a misunderstanding about cutoff dates. They have clawed back over payments which can sting for sure depending on timing, but that's a case by case thing and they work with people to minimize it.

5. Uniforms are a constant problem, they come from Portugal, and the admin in YYZ responsible for it always sorts the problems out but it takes time. It got so bad at one point about 4 years ago, a guy came to work in jeans. Since then it's way better but still lots of room for improvement. The shirts are adequate I get years out of them, the pants are garbage and die within a month, the winter jackets are nice.

6. Hotels are a solid 2 star, always in an industrial area or right at the airport, with some Mexican and US hotels being way nicer. Free breakfast is becoming the norm now, that's been a long process. The ALPA hotel rep is a great guy that has made some really good progress, but there's work to do.

Hope that helps. Training is really good, we have our own FTD, and sim so we have full control over the training experience.

Sounds amazing. From your post, I’ve heard that you stay at 2 star hotels with some that have free breakfast, sometimes get overpaid and then have to pay it back which can hurt if you’ve moved that money already and that your reserve callout is 90 minutes when the norm is 2 hours. Good thing you guys “own” your sim machine.

Remind me where you guys park your cars at YYZ?

[Blackdog0301]

Hey everyone,

I’m looking into Flair and trying to get a better handle on the actual quality of life for YVR based pilots. I’ve seen public facing info but I don’t know anyone working there so I’m hoping to hear from someone about the day to day reality of it all.

1. Scheduling
How often are crews being pushed to max duty with min rest? Is it the exception or the rule?

For those based in YVR, what’s the rough percentage of nights away vs at home?
What’s the average number of working days per month for a junior FO?
What’s the callout window typically like when on reserve?

Maintenance
What’s the quality of maintenance?
Are airplanes always flying with pages and pages of MELs?

None flying related gripes
Any issues with payroll reliability or late payments?
What’s the verdict on uniform and crew gear?
How are the hotels? Any safety concerns? Free breakfast?

I appreciate the insight. Feel free to dm me if you prefer.

1. All the FOs I've spoken with seem to be run off their feet atm, we went from being overstaffed, and offering LOAs which a bunch of people took, to all of a sudden we seemed short staffed to the point that all Captains had to do right seat training to cover the FO flying. All the cadets are on line, and we're hiring again. A bunch of the short term LOAs end in February so I'd assume things settle a bit.

2. I don't know the YVR stats unfortunately, but I'd plan on working the full 18 days a month that the ALPA agreement lets us do. Bottom of the list you'd be on reserve or doing low credit flying. No idea how much of the flying is overnight, but in YYC about half of it is now, this changes every month. Call out is 90 minutes, on morning flights you usually get 2 or more hours unless it's a late sick call.

3. Maintenance is really good, I routinely fly aircraft with zero MELs, there's no messing around here, it all gets fixed on time, once in a while jobs pile up and a few planes get extensions but that's the exception not the rule. I also get zero blowback for writing snags up, if it's broken, it goes in the book, if it grounds a plane, we deal with it. There's no pressure to accept anything unsafe.

4. I've never been paid late, most of the time that I thought they'd messed up my pay it was either my fault, or a misunderstanding about cutoff dates. They have clawed back over payments which can sting for sure depending on timing, but that's a case by case thing and they work with people to minimize it.

5. Uniforms are a constant problem, they come from Portugal, and the admin in YYZ responsible for it always sorts the problems out but it takes time. It got so bad at one point about 4 years ago, a guy came to work in jeans. Since then it's way better but still lots of room for improvement. The shirts are adequate I get years out of them, the pants are garbage and die within a month, the winter jackets are nice.

6. Hotels are a solid 2 star, always in an industrial area or right at the airport, with some Mexican and US hotels being way nicer. Free breakfast is becoming the norm now, that's been a long process. The ALPA hotel rep is a great guy that has made some really good progress, but there's work to do.

Hope that helps. Training is really good, we have our own FTD, and sim so we have full control over the training experience.

Remind me where you guys park your cars at YYZ?

I kind of want to know now.

[TurkeyFarmYQX]

1. All the FOs I've spoken with seem to be run off their feet atm, we went from being overstaffed, and offering LOAs which a bunch of people took, to all of a sudden we seemed short staffed to the point that all Captains had to do right seat training to cover the FO flying. All the cadets are on line, and we're hiring again. A bunch of the short term LOAs end in February so I'd assume things settle a bit.

2. I don't know the YVR stats unfortunately, but I'd plan on working the full 18 days a month that the ALPA agreement lets us do. Bottom of the list you'd be on reserve or doing low credit flying. No idea how much of the flying is overnight, but in YYC about half of it is now, this changes every month. Call out is 90 minutes, on morning flights you usually get 2 or more hours unless it's a late sick call.

3. Maintenance is really good, I routinely fly aircraft with zero MELs, there's no messing around here, it all gets fixed on time, once in a while jobs pile up and a few planes get extensions but that's the exception not the rule. I also get zero blowback for writing snags up, if it's broken, it goes in the book, if it grounds a plane, we deal with it. There's no pressure to accept anything unsafe.

4. I've never been paid late, most of the time that I thought they'd messed up my pay it was either my fault, or a misunderstanding about cutoff dates. They have clawed back over payments which can sting for sure depending on timing, but that's a case by case thing and they work with people to minimize it.

5. Uniforms are a constant problem, they come from Portugal, and the admin in YYZ responsible for it always sorts the problems out but it takes time. It got so bad at one point about 4 years ago, a guy came to work in jeans. Since then it's way better but still lots of room for improvement. The shirts are adequate I get years out of them, the pants are garbage and die within a month, the winter jackets are nice.

6. Hotels are a solid 2 star, always in an industrial area or right at the airport, with some Mexican and US hotels being way nicer. Free breakfast is becoming the norm now, that's been a long process. The ALPA hotel rep is a great guy that has made some really good progress, but there's work to do.

Hope that helps. Training is really good, we have our own FTD, and sim so we have full control over the training experience.

Remind me where you guys park your cars at YYZ?

I kind of want to know now.

It's not that exciting. It's at the Flair office down the street. Makes for a miserable five minutes walk.

[CaptDukeNukem]

Ya………. That sucks