Encore gets one list and a new pay scale.

[Hozer]

with one seniority list does that mean if you where to get on at mainline say next summer, you would upgrade at mainline behind all of the encore guys ahead of you?

[Bede]

yes

[TheStig]

Do you carry your years of service, for example start on the 2nd year pay scale for the 737?

[bythenumbers]

Do you carry your years of service, for example start on the 2nd year pay scale for the 737?

Nope

[brooks]

Can someone explain the Vacation and Stat holiday system for WestJet Pilots? I understand there is 4 weeks off the bat with 2 of those weeks awarded for Stat holidays. When do you get additional weeks?

Thanks.

[Legacy]

Hey Brooks. If I recall correctly this is how it goes. If you start Jan 1 you are awarded 4 weeks. (10 days holidays and 10 days of stat). I say 10 days because on a normal mon-fri job you actually don't get 2 weeks a year. Its only 10 days because you already get sat/sun off. So at WJ you actually get these holidays before you even earn them which is nice. At the end of the second year (so 730 days) you are awarded an additional week. So is 15 days holidays/10 stat days. I believe its at the end of the fourth or fifth year you get 20 days/10days. Hope that helps

Also if you start exactly half the way through the year you are awarded half 5 days holidays and whatever amount of federal stats are left and so on, I believe.

[BE20 Driver]

I think that is incorrect. Everyone in the January courses or hired last year only got 10 days of vacation. Stats are paid out if you actually work them. Your 10 days are given in two blocks of 5 and I believe you get 1 GDO on either side of vacation time.
I'm not certain what happens when you flow up. I don't think that vacation follows you and you start at the beginning again. I haven't seen anything clarifying this and I could be wrong here.

[Legacy]

Hi Be20. I think he was asking about Westjet not Encore. Well at least that is what his post was so I answered for WJ vacation

[brooks]

Thank you Legacy. I was asking about WestJet BE20. So the 5th week of vacation comes at the end of the 2 year as I understand.

Cheers,

[Legacy]

Yes third week of vacation with 10 stat days equating to 5 blocks of time off

[leftoftrack]

How many Encore guys have their resume at Air Canada? When AC starts hiring again. You can bet Encore captains are going to be a target. AC could cripple encore with 40 job offers right now

[North Shore]

^Very few, I'd bet. I think that an application, and then a job at Encore is a pretty strong vote for the Teal team.
You are probably correct, though, that AC could give WJ some headaches by going poaching.

[DaveP]

Hi,

I’m sure there are a few resumes in the AC cue and that’s ok because they likely and simply don’t want to be here.

Being a recruiter for about 11 years here now at WestJet - I too, could have targeted any one company (and still can) but we don’t.
In fact, I picked the next class yesterday and purposely diversified the class.
We try to practise this all the time however once in a while, I’m forced to place 2 or 3(or sometimes more) from the same company into one class. I remember a few years back - we had spike in hiring in which we took a full class from Jazz. We haven’t done that since. It all has a lot to do with who interviewed and when....
It’s also worth mentioning that we will often work with smaller companies and build a relationship in that we don’t want to hurt them by taking too many at once. Open communication is appreciated. The larger the company the less we worry about that aspect. My colleagues at AC practice this too as we converse from time to time.

Take care,
Dave

[loopa]

Factual info at its best.

[leftoftrack]

Hi,

I’m sure there are a few resumes in the AC cue and that’s ok because they likely and simply don’t want to be here.

Dave

I appreciate where you stand on that but is it possible they may just want to get onto a pay scale that's going to pay their bills. Red, Teal, with an accent, or occasionally doing a summer in Europe. Besides if you look at the pay scale their not really there anyway

[DaveP]

Hi,
I think anyone could draw up hypotheticals nine ways to Tuesday. Everyone has different reasons in their life for making their own decisions. If that is your anecdotal (or maybe factual) assumtion - I respect that!
Cheers!

[lostaviator]

I had applications in with both WestJet and air canada. My air canada application has since been cancelled. If encore is not for you, then feel free to apply else where. Everyone I fly with on a day to day basis is very happy where they are and like me, will be calling WestJet home for the next 25 years.

[flygal19]

I'm sure lots of people would be happy to stay at encore/westjet for their full career. However for some this is proving to be difficult. The wages especially for FO's hover at the poverty line. Commuting from affordable towns is very difficult. Upgrade times and flow are longer than previously communicated. There is little opportunity to work overtime unless you actually never want to be home. Some pilots will have their resumes in at Air Canada because they need an income to survive on and to say it is because they don't want to be there is a cop out.

[rudder]

I'm sure lots of people would be happy to stay at encore/westjet for their full career. However for some this is proving to be difficult. The wages especially for FO's hover at the poverty line. Commuting from affordable towns is very difficult. Upgrade times and flow are longer than previously communicated. There is little opportunity to work overtime unless you actually never want to be home. Some pilots will have their resumes in at Air Canada because they need an income to survive on and to say it is because they don't want to be there is a cop out.

Part of working at WJ is drinking the koolaid. At least before, the koolaid came with a good schedule and good pay on day 1. With Encore now the pre-WJ start point, that has all changed.

WJ expects pilots to now apprentice at Encore and accept apprentice working conditions and wages. If AC was in its major hiring cycle (that will not commence for another 2 years) this strategy would fail. But in the current market, WJ seems interested in finding the lowest offer that will attract the minimum number of pilots required.

If Porter or Jazz were to fail or downsize significantly, WJ could get away with this strategy for some time. Failing that, conditions at Encore will have to improve otherwise many will determine that the number at WJ isn't worth it, particularly when better career opportunities present themselves.

It is a sellers market for pilots and that trend will tip even more in the pilots favour in the years to come.

[rxl]

The similarity is that a DHC8 and a A330 are simply just aircraft types.

I'm in no way saying this is going to happen because WJ's management actually seems to value maintaining a good relationship with the pilot group. But for a second imagine if your management held another company wide employee vote on a proposal to start up another carrier (Westjet International has just been mentioned, so we'll run with that), except for arguments sake, say WJ's current FA's were going to be from the same group. How would that vote end up? The current group of mainline WJ pilots could get left out in the cold, right? You don't have any scope language because you're not actually a union. You couldn't even stake a claim to this flying as your because you've already allowed TC to do it on your behalf for years.

We all know this isn't going to happen because the pilot group would riot right? Why? Because widebody jobs are viewed as being above you (and the group would fight to keep those positions, even though they're not actually yours yet), not below you like flying a Dash 8 which you gladly handed over to your managers to set up a Tier 2 airline (even though the flying wasn't yours either) the group could have insisted that every pilot hired at Encore could have been hired by the same company under the same contract (at a different pay scale) but who wants to fight for a job they don't want. Instead you're sitting here cheerleading as if Encore actually is some little start-up airline to justify wages 10% below industry standard. Why would you care, you're already flying the 737, and every penny they don't earn benefits your profit sharing and stock options.

Wow. I wish I had read this a long time ago. Great post Stig.

This is hands down the best illustration yet of how even after the long and sad history of Air Canada and it's "regional partners" we as pilots haven't learned a single thing.

[ThatArmyGuy]

Hello,

Any news if the 80/mth min guarantee has remained or has it decreased to 70 now that January has passed?

[BE20 Driver]

I haven't heard anything about it being extended at all. That doesn't mean it won't be. I believe it is set to expire at the end of June.

[Canadianjetpilot]

I'll start by saying that I am a captain with Westjet and have been for over 10 years.

When I started things were very different and for me it was the right career choice at the time and I am happy I am here. Frequently we have conversations in the flightdeck about the next generation of pilots and what they can expect. As of today if you are hired at WJ you are looking at 12+ years to upgrade and the expectation is it may take longer...and you will be based in Toronto.

I can tell you that WJ pilots were very upset with the work conditions offered to Encore people when the airline started. We warned management that they would not get the people they needed to operate those Q400's if they were going to pay such low wages and poor conditions. We were right. Encore struggled to find pilots and it caused training and scheduling nightmares for Encore. In spite of the press releases it was a s**t show. The people that did get hired were worked very hard and paid very little. The trade off for them was that they have/will see a quick trip to the jets. However, after that group, things will dry up. In fact its already started.

If you are hoping to get a quicker trip to Westjet via Encore you may want to rethink the strategy. Based on projected WJ fleet growth (narrow and wide body) combined with relatively few retirements( we have a young pilot group) over the next several years, the potential for movement is very low at best. From a career perspective there are better pay and lifestyle choices via AC/Jazz. For example: Wj will have 15 retirements in the next year vs. AC's over 300. Other things to consider are work conditions and compensation over the course of your career ie. if you are going to sit in the right seat for 10-15 years you should get credit for that. AC offers significantly better credit for that time which means more dollars in you pocket at retirement than your WJ peer.

If you do decide that you want to try Encore just to gain overall experience be aware of what you are in for. Presently WJ management is resisting the push to put an agreement in place for Encore pilots. In fact, Encore's president Ferio Pugliese was in their groundschool recently trying to convince Encore pilots not to start the TA process. Sad and embarrassing.

If you do decide to try Encore you can take some comfort in knowing that WJ pilots an the WJPA are fighting hard to make it a better place to work but for now it's not quite there yet.

Presently just under 200 pilots at Encore. Fleet has planned increase to 45 by 2022. If you were hired today there are 200 people in front of you for WestJet, they are taking 1/4 for ground schools from Encore. They keep saying they will take more but that is unlikely due the training costs to replace them at Encore(and lack of applicants).WJ is presently hiring about 40 guys a year which means 10 from encore per year...that is a long wait for Encore Pilot number 200. Even if it was 2/4 it would still be a 10 year wait. Those numbers arent expected to change anytime soon.

A better career path and better career compensation is to be had by going the Red route. It will suck a little more at first (reserve,red-eye) but towards the end you will have a better lifestyle. You wont be 60 years old working a hard 80 hours and 16 days a month at AC.

[lostaviator]

All good points canadianjetpilot. The issue with team red is they too are going to a flow method. In 5 years I'm willing to guess both "mainlines" will be hiring the majority through the regionals so it doesn't really matter how you look at it, there is always going to be pain before the gain. Even at 25% flow! I think you'd move faster at westjet then from ac regionals to AC given the huge number of pilots already employed compared to encore. All we can do it keep our spirits up and hope that positive change comes and the race to the bottom lets up at some point when they realize, no one wants to work for those wages anymore.

[Woodstock22]

Thanks Canadianjetpilot for being so honest and candid with that last post. I think perhaps people are hesitant to respond to it because sometimes the hard facts are tough to absorb sometimes, even with respect to Westjet.

But I can say that from my perspective, I really appreciate your thoughts and insight on the subject because for those of us preparing to make decisions for the future, we need to hear that honest side. A great career I'm sure, but a long road to the left seat of a 737; lots of early mornings, late nights, and hotel rooms along the way. Anyway, thanks for the post and your honesty.

Woodstock