Can anyone answer a couple of questions about WJ?

[Character]

Hello,
I currently work for the other guys however, I can't help but notice at how well oiled the WJ team is. All of the staff seem to be friendly, hard working people that take pride in their company. I have been admiring WJ for awhile and have a couple of questions. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone well enough at the company to get any accurate feedback. No offense to those that live in YYC or Western Canada for that matter however, my family resides in Ontario and that is honestly where I would like to reside. Is it possible to live in YYZ and commute or ultimately, is the option officially on the table to open up a base in YYZ? My second question would be, does anyone have any rough idea as to how long it would take at WJ to go Capt? Thanks.

[Red1]

Yes, You can commute from Toronto. But you will be based in YYC

Toronto Base, who knows. when it makes sense, it will happen.

up-grade to captain, all depends on growth of the company but if you come now plan to sit in the right seat for awhile. Which isn't all bad because the pay is pretty good.

[McDoo the Irish Navigator]

Pilots can, and do, live anywhere they want. St. John's to Comox and everywhere in between. If you live in YYZ you can sign up for the YYZ "port" which will give you a pairing or two that begins and ends in YYZ, depending on the month.
I have "heard" that the time to command is now 5-7 years, but I have no personal knowledge of this.
Third year F/Os make about 100k. New flighties like that # quite a bit.

AM

[North of You]

100k for 3rd year FO? Can someone confirm this. I thought even the red team is lower than that.

[chief]

An FO at WJ that has been here for 2 years plus one day will make approx 80K. if they elect to take full advantage of the ESP program their T4 that year will state a gross income of 96,000. Generally speaking WJ pays better than an red team 320 pilot. Heck just to have our schedule I would take a 20K a year paycut (but don't tell payroll that! just kidding)

[bcflyer]

An FO at WJ that has been here for 2 years plus one day will make approx 80K. if they elect to take full advantage of the ESP program their T4 that year will state a gross income of 96,000. Generally speaking WJ pays better than an red team 320 pilot. Heck just to have our schedule I would take a 20K a year paycut (but don't tell payroll that! just kidding)

I'm not sure if I have this straight in my head so I'm going to ask outright. You say that your T4 will read 96000. How much of that money do you actually have access to that year? All of it or just the 80000? If its just a stock option then adding it to your income is kind of like comparing apples to oranges. Can someone please explain this too me?

[chief]

Hey there BC flyer. the stock options are totally separate than what my last statement explained. The ESP is the you put in a dollar and WJ puts in a dollar to the comoany. i believe it has to sit in there for one year and then you can do with whatever you want with it. When i talked to financial advisors about investing, they basically told me "dont give me your money. take full advantage of the ESP and if you have money left over then talk to me. They figured it was such a good plan that i would be a fool not to take advantage of it." some advisors want the paper work on the ESP because they say its too good to be true and dont believe you. heck even imperial oil and monster companies like that only match up to 10% instead of 20% of your gross income like WJ.

[twinpratts]

Yeah, profit share is also above and beyond that too .

[WJ700]

So the simple answer is 80K a year 2 if you don't want to buy stock. However, if you'd bought stock last year... you would have tripled your money, like me

[bcflyer]

Thanks for straightening that out for me. I'm actually had it right in my head for once!! I'm all for comparing salaries in hopes that we can all get a bit more cash so I just wanted to make sure that we were comparing apples to apples. (money that you are actually able to take home at the end of the year) I'm not sure about AC but I know that Jazz does have a Employee Purchase Plan that is very similar to what you have talked about. However when mentioning Jazz salaries no one adds in what they will make off their stocks.

[invertedattitude]

Wow, so...hmm. Off the top of your heads what does a 10 year WJA Captain make, with the ESP in full effect?

Sounds like WJA is the best paid airline on the planet...

[Ryan Coke2]

I believe about 185k? Not including options, of course.

As for Jazz's ESP, that is no where close to what the WJ plan is. That is why we consider it at WJ, but we didn't include it at Jazz--- it was insignificant there, and it is a voluntary 20% raise here.

You are right, it doesn't help you in the first year or so, but by the time you get to year 3, and you have a continual stream of stock coming available to you (in the tens of thousands of dollars a year), it is still very useable money.

[bcflyer]

As for Jazz's ESP, that is no where close to what the WJ plan is. That is why we consider it at WJ, but we didn't include it at Jazz--- it was insignificant there, and it is a voluntary 20% raise here.

You are right, it doesn't help you in the first year or so, but by the time you get to year 3, and you have a continual stream of stock coming available to you (in the tens of thousands of dollars a year), it is still very useable money.

So because the amount you could make at Jazz with ESP is less it isn't included and at WJ it's higher so it is? My point was that anytime a WJ salary is mentioned everyone includes the ESP. Why not just state the actual salary instead of inflating it with what you could make should you decide to invest 20% back into the company? Just out of curiousity what would happen to all that money if WJ went under? (just playing devils advocate here, I know they are a very strong company etc etc)

[CBGUY]

Just out of curiousity what would happen to all that money if WJ went under? (just playing devils advocate here, I know they are a very strong company etc etc)

That's a good point. To answer that, Westjet only requires us to keep the stock in for 1 year, after that you can transfer within a RRSP account to other equities or sell outright. [/code]

[Ryan Coke2]

[quote="bcflyer"]So because the amount you could make at Jazz with ESP is less it isn't included and at WJ it's higher so it is? My point was that anytime a WJ salary is mentioned everyone includes the ESP. Why not just state the actual salary instead of inflating it with what you could make should you decide to invest 20% back into the company? Just out of curiousity what would happen to all that money if WJ went under? (just playing devils advocate here, I know they are a very strong company etc etc)[/quote]

Hypothetically, if at one company you got a $20 bonus at Christmas, but at another you got a $20000 bonus, it is probably more likely you consider that when the issue of total compensation comes up.

If I recall, the AC share plan would allow you to contriubute up to 6%, and they would match 1/3....or 2% of your salary. If I am wrong on the details forgive me, it was the worst investment decision I ever made, and I try to block it out . So for a year 5 FO making just over 50k, that equates to an extra $1000 bucks from the company if you maxed your contributions. As a year 3 FO at WJ, the company portion of the stock would be over 16k. So it is definitely more significant.

Honestly, if it feels any better, that just over 50k as a 5 year Jazz FO included the small amount of money AC kicked in on the share plan. Either way, the numbers given above for WJ is what we make--the money on your T4 is the bottom line, and I still use that money to improve the quality of my llife. So I just don't think it is invalid to state what you would actually make, instead of cutting out certain parts of your compensation package to try to make it smaller.

At any rate, as you have probably figured out by now, the WJ compensation package is more complicated than just 'here is my bi-weekly salary'. It is something that some people just aren't comfortable with, and that is OK.

[Huge Hammer]

I know that some will accuse me of being a kool aid drinker but I think that what is great about the pilot compensation is that it ties the personal success to the company success.

I have read comments from pilots at other companies that say they don't really care what happens as long as they get paid every 2 weeks.

There is a refreshing team atmosphere with our pilot group in how they see themselves in the company as a whole.

[invertedattitude]

I know that some will accuse me of being a kool aid drinker but I think that what is great about the pilot compensation is that it ties the personal success to the company success.

I have read comments from pilots at other companies that say they don't really care what happens as long as they get paid every 2 weeks.

There is a refreshing team atmosphere with our pilot group in how they see themselves in the company as a whole.

WJA Profit Sharing I've always believed is the core reason why "WestJetters care so much" to quote the commercials.

One thing to look at with every employee being an "Owner" is the higher level of possibility that safety may be "shoved" a bit in order to save money. I'm not saying it does or has happened, but obviously with every employees bottom line being directly affected by the companies bottom line, obviously the chance for some people to push the limits is possibly higher than with other companies.


That being said both of our major carriers to me are nothing but stellar examples of safety for the rest of the industry.

[Rotten Apple #1]

Invertedattitude...another line of reasoning might be that with stakeholders being directly impacted by any "incident", the opposite might be true---a higher level of safety.

In our company we have we have a very proactive, non-punitive reporting system. Something happens---you fess up. The SMS system dictates that of course, but it is very alive and real in our company. I know because I've submitted more than one report in the past year, and it has helped evolve SOP's and flight standards, as does every report submitted.

Flight Data Monitoring---as stakeholders, we all want to know that our fellow professional colleagues are following established safety guidelines. Again, a non-punitive system (as long as no flagrant violation of SOP's). FDM isn't mandated, not by anyone. WJ management believes it beneficial, as do we 750 - 800 professional pilots. We willingly endorsed it three years ago.

I think what you postulate (mentioning "POSSIBLY" more than once), is nothing more than that - POSTULATION, without any factual information.

You are of course permitted to postulate.

For me, and I daresay the vast majority of the professional pilots at WestJet, we go to work, carry out our duties professionally, and then go home to our families.

[invertedattitude]

As I did say JD, I fully agree with you in regards to WJA pilots being safe, and very professional some of the best in the industry.

Like you said I was just postulating, and by no means accuses anyone of anything, its just the devils advocate side of the conversation.

The problem with the possibility of it happening is that, you could potentially have 798 pilots who will always put safety first, never put the dollar over safety.

It only takes one crew to make potentially one poor decision based on saving a few bucks.... to say it couldn't happen would be ignorant, and to say it will happen would be equally as ignorant.

As you said the safety programs both WJA and TC instituted will hopefully ensure that it will never happen.

On the flip side of that, thinking that WJA will never lose an airplane is nothing more than a pipe dream, every airline has accidents, incidents and crashes.

Heck even your "Sister" company Southwest may not have had a fatal airplane crash (Except for the child in the car at MDW) but they IMO got lucky in both of their over-run cases that the airplanes didn't come apart. Both of those cases were examples of one crew in a system of many, who made a bad decision.


For one having Air Canada and WestJet as our national carriers makes me proud to be Canadian, since both are two airlines the rest of the world looks to for safety practices.

[Rotten Apple #1]

IA, I forgot to mention as well that I attended recurrent Ground School last month and it was probably the best GS I've ever attended (4 airline's worth) in respect of the topics we covered.

The results of the Boeing "audit" we had over a year ago, as well as the results of the LOSA (Line Oriented Safety Audit) sponsored by some university in Texas were discussed.

A large part of the presentations focussed on the daily safety "threats" encountered by a WestJet crew. The LOSA in particular was quite valuable. To date, some 40 major airllines worldwide have participated, WJ being the only Canadian carrier (I think). WestJet came off very well in the studies, but the results are proprietary of course...

Proactivity is more than just a buzzword..it's real, tangible, and producing a very safety oriented pilot culture.

You're right, it only takes one crew...none of us want to be the next episode of the "MAYDAY" series on television. Which is why the growth of the Safety departments at WJ.

Hope that helps address any concerns you might have...and I believe educating the masses as to what goes on internally isn't a bad thing.

Cheers

Johnny "Dangerous"

[WJ700]

I'd like to put forward a motion....

How about WestJetters just say how much the base hourly salary is, when asked.

Then we can just avoid these threads.

[Four1oh]

about $86/credit hour. I've been here 3.5 years.(FO but for not much longer) My last T4 was $92G

[WJ200]

Fourth year captain $120/hour....Last year's T4 said $145K.....next years' should say about $180K with some options sold.

As far as the thread about owners thinking money before safety, it's a non-starter that doesn't even deserve a response.

[invertedattitude]

That type of blind thinking is what allows such events to transpire.

It's just a discussion WJ200, one which points no fingers, and shows no blame on anyone.

Safety starts with prevention and awareness.

[Four1oh]

What's worse for the stock price? taking the safe route or crashing a plane? Think about it. What's more expensive? Does that not defeat your little discussion right there?