60N30W
I appreciate your comment and as I've said, I've always found the AT folks professional and courteous. Occasionally, however....

Now, as for a sim eval? I think they're a complete waste of time for those below a certain level of qualifications and experience. They only serve to sell sim time and rarely gives you a valid impression of how the candidate would do after properly being trained to fly an A330 or an A310. But let's face it, if everyone's doing it, it must be a good thing. Right?

Personally, I don't think it is.

again, I'm just sayin'

Cheers
Gino

Sim evals are useful, but only when conducted in a real environment...ie. 2 crew operation, challeng and response. I've done a few sim evals in my day, some just to see how I fly, and others to see how I work in a team environment.

At Transat, I was told they are looking for situational awareness. Intercepting radials, how to enter a hold. Now that is a waste of time! In real life, you use all the tools available, like the fms and your captain. In a sim eval, if the captain just sits there watching the PF make mistakes, then the sim eval is a waste of time!

Financially speaking, sim evals are a waste of time!

I say if you can use a sim for an eval on a potential hire, USE IT! Its way cheaper to find out if a new hire candidate has it or doesn't during a sim eval (just make it real if possible)...and lots cheaper to find out now than later when it's much tougher to CT that person...way easier and way cheaper!

If you're flying professionally, in a multi-IFR environment, it usually means you're required to do at least an annual checkride for proficiency, either in an aircraft or a simulator.
There is little or no benefit in doing sim evals for anything other than MCC and CRM assessment when the candidate flies for a living.
Any and all of this can be taught and assessed upon completion.
Sim evaluations are a waste of important airline resources, usually line captains or Check A, Check B pilots being pulled off-line.
Sim evaluations are expensive and bear little return for the airline doling out the dollars for it.
In the end, the airline could be trashing quality people who may have had a bad day due to nerves or intimidation.

Personally, I wouldn't waste the time or money on them.

Gino Under

.

Some commute. Many do from Montreal. You can try to bid for as many days on in a row, and can waive certain clauses like only one 6 day pairing per month or only 6 days off in a row in order to get your days off in as big a block as possible. Only 1 month on reserve in a row but when you are on reserve your days on and off will be all over the place, and the days off can move around, so in my opinion it's not very good for commuting.

Right now upgrades are reaching those hired in 2007.

Per diems are 4.12 $ / hour in Canada and 5.30 $ / hour international. Extra for UK pairings I think.

.

Seniority rules as to who gets reserve. You can bid for it if you want.

You can only spend one month on reserve before flying a block, so worst case one month on one month off reserve.


Regards,

60N30W

Theoretically you take the number of reserve spots multiply by two and the bottom that many pilots will be on reserve half the time. In practice people are on vacation, training, ect and reserve can climb a lot higher than that up the seniority list. If you are at the bottom of the list, you can expect to be on reserve every second month.

Why the huge 4.00/share selloff last week...anyone with details. Not trying to be offensive, just curious from an industry standpoint. thx

Quarterly loss
Higher fuel prices
Increased competition

From my point of view, not a good outlook for the future.

CanadaEH wrote: Quarterly loss
Higher fuel prices
Increased competition
From my point of view, not a good outlook for the future.

Hmm pretty much sounds like every airlines in Canada right now. It's essentially like a gamble, in the long run you can worry about that, which is a small loss for a company the size of transat, or you think in 2-5 years how the balance of power will be and where you want your seniority number to be.

CanadaEH wrote:Quarterly loss
Higher fuel prices
Increased competition

From my point of view, not a good outlook for the future.

OMG...an anonymous internet poster has just predicted the demise of Group Transat based on a quarterly loss ....It's time to jump ship! I think I'll apply next door...

SkyLounger wrote:

CanadaEH wrote:Quarterly loss
Higher fuel prices
Increased competition

From my point of view, not a good outlook for the future.

OMG...an anonymous internet poster has just predicted the demise of Group Transat based on a quarterly loss ....It's time to jump ship! I think I'll apply next door...

Correct me if I'm wrong CanadaEH, but what I believe you were saying was the general view was nothing impressive in the outlook given by management and hence the stock fell, not that the company was doomed.

I think the fall was so dramatic because it was basically the same results as last Q1 even though management hinted they had a few things up their sleeves, which left the analysts really disappointed in the results. Either the stuff up their sleeves didn't work, or there was nothing up there to begin with.

...

Skyboy, relax esti haha

This Q1 report may have been hard on shareholders but TS is far from being in trouble.
During the winter, they find themselves competing against an airline (Sunwing) that lease foreign planes and crews at cheap rates so they can bring the prices ridiculously low... This is good for the general public but bad for the industry.

This summer, Transat will most likely break a record in load factor and revenue, last year load factor was 97% i think! The main thing to watch is if the arabs keep driving the fuel costs up the profit margin will quickly fall in the red, otherwise summer should be a good season again.

Having said all that ... overall traffic is still forecasted to keep increasing so I wouldn't worry about anybody's jobs for a long time.

skyboy wrote:Well according to this posting:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=70166

I would probably be worried if i was at the bottom of the seniority list....

fly safe

The ongoing hiring has nothing to do with possible service to Japan, on top of that it looks like that service won't happen this year at all and that was decided on before the disaster in Japan.

No reason for you to cause any worries in our new hires.

Regards

60N30W

......

So... has anyone gotten a reply recently? Anyone got the Yes call or the No PFO yet?

Any more news on upcoming ground schools?

I can tell you that calls have been made for the April 7th GS and that letters have been sent as well.

B.

DeltaHotel wrote:Gino Under,

Try getting into Porter or Westjet with a French accent ... you won't.
Transat is not the only company that discriminate based on language. It only throws a little fairness into this ridiculous debate.

And by the way, they're not looking for FRENCH pilots, they're looking for BILINGUAL pilots which to me is honourable.

So how come we have so many French pilots at WestJet? Looking at the list I can find 100, and that's just the pilots I have flown with. (sorry to Hijack, good to see Transat is enjoying expansion, in both official languages )

WJ700 wrote:

DeltaHotel wrote:Gino Under,

Try getting into Porter or Westjet with a French accent ... you won't.
Transat is not the only company that discriminate based on language. It only throws a little fairness into this ridiculous debate.

And by the way, they're not looking for FRENCH pilots, they're looking for BILINGUAL pilots which to me is honourable.

So how come we have so many French pilots at WestJet? Looking at the list I can find 100, and that's just the pilots I have flown with. (sorry to Hijack, good to see Transat is enjoying expansion, in both official languages )

WJ700,

I really doubt you have that many French pilots at WJ, we only have 4 at TSC that come to mind and they are all now Canadian citizens.

I am sure you meant to say something to the nature of "Francophone Canadian sounding names" since it is very unlikely WJ has hired that many French pilots, (French=someone from France) . On top of that a good many of your pilots with "Francophone sounding names" could be from places like Peace River, St.Albert, Gravelbourg or St.Boniface, or Moncton and all very far from France!

Salut,

60N30W

60N30W wrote: WJ700,

I really doubt you have that many French pilots at WJ, we only have 4 at TSC that come to mind and they are all now Canadian citizens.

I am sure you meant to say something to the nature of "Francophone Canadian sounding names" since it is very unlikely WJ has hired that many French pilots, (French=someone from France) . On top of that a good many of your pilots with "Francophone sounding names" could be from places like Peace River, St.Albert, Gravelbourg or St.Boniface, or Moncton and all very far from France!

Salut,

60N30W

Well I know of at least 2 Frenchies in the current GS and 1 Swiss for the next one. We all speak the same language and have the same roots, the accent shouldn't decide on who gets the job and who doesn't I think.

60N30W,

I think your splitting hairs here, you know what WJ700 meant...but thanks for "dumbing it down" for the rest of us...good gaawd

Troubleshot wrote:60N30W,

I think your splitting hairs here, you know what WJ700 meant...but thanks for "dumbing it down" for the rest of us...good gaawd

The wagons sure circle quickly!!!!