Air Transat

[Cloud Surfer]

Have a few questions for some of our brothers/sisters at Air Transat.

Don't know anyone in the company so this may be my only way to get some real answers from fellow professionals. No haters and no trolls please.

Any info on the following topics would be much appreciated. I've heard a lot about AC, Westjet and Jazz... but valuable info on Transat is hard to find.

1. Typical schedule?
2. Layovers?
3. Lifestyle?
4. Future/Outlook?
5. Crew dynamics?
6. Worth leaving a comfortable position with either Porter/Jazz/Georgian/CMA for?
7. Ground Schools coming up?
8. New-hire experience?
9. Choice of bases?
10. Interview/Sim tips?

Thanks.

[ahramin]

1. Nominally an 80 hour per month bid. Right now they are running 90 with little to no reserve because they have way more flying than they have pilots for and while they are hiring and training as fast as they can, they are taking on new work even faster. Guaranteed 11 days off a month, which doesn't mean much as with a 4 to 1 duty rig you always end up with more days off than that unless something goes really wrong. Only one 6 day pairing per month allowed unless everyone already has one. Can't be on reserve two months in a row. Reserve guaranteed 12 days off but only 4 of them are actual guaranteed dates, the rest can be moved around.

2. Layovers for pilots are anywhere from 24 hours to 3 days. Obviously the out of Canada destinations are good because if people don't go there on vacation, the company doesn't fly there. Nice hotels, almost always in the downtown area. Within Canada the hotels are decent. Many layovers in Europe involve deadheading on one of your layover days to reposition. No Ryanair but Easyjet is still on the list and not about to be removed any time soon. Sometimes deadheads follow directly after an Eastbound flight, not very pleasant. If you are into travel it's the best airline for layovers.

3. Eastbound Europe flights leave in the evening, sometimes very late. You fly all night and arrive in the morning. It's hard on the body, especially for the old guys. The Westbound flight back leaves in the morning, so no matter which way you slice it your clock is going to be seriously messed with for half of the legs. Southbound is a mix of turns down and back with some easy flights down with layovers at resorts for as long as 48 hours. It's not 9 to 5. It's not even get up and work long days. It's all over the place.

4. Growing like mad, which is very rare for Transat. Usually the company is extremely cautious about growth - favoring stable expansion - which is possibly why they are now in a mad hiring rush. Future? It's travel airline, owned by a travel company. The travel experts say that we are in a boom of travel vacation that isn't going to end. Ever. Travel is going to double by 20xx, and keep on going. If that happens to be true, then the future looks rosy. If the world self destructs and oil becomes difficult to obtain, travel will probably be one of the first things to go.

7. Yes.

8. Anywhere from 1200 hours and daddy works for the airline to 10 000 hours with lots of heavy 705 time. The last 1200 hour guy got there purely on his own merit, so it looks like they simply take the best French speaking candidates available at the time of hire.

9. Toronto.

10. Be yourself. They try hard to make it a relaxed and straightforward process, and usually succeed.

[yycflyguy]

Awesome post. Congrats to Transat.

[Cloud Surfer]

Yeah, thanks ahramin. Well done.

[slowstream]

Thanks ahramin, excellant post with tons of great info and greatly appreciated!

I did up a app last week and hoping to get a invite for a interview.

[BTyyj]

How much does AT favor French speaking over some-what French speaking and English only candidates?

[ahramin]

This is a wild ass guess but I think the days of favoring native French speakers are over. Almost everyone speaks English very well, and the company does an excellent job of producing all documents in both languages.

The website states that spoken and written English in French is a requirement and I don't see this requirement being changed unless there really is no other option. In my opinion it's not possible to work well as a pilot at Air Transat without speaking a usable French. Out of >350 pilots I think there are a couple who do not speak French, but it must be difficult. For example Union communications tend to be in French. Right now there is no English copy of the collective agreement. Kind of tough to deal with crew sched if you don't know the rules.

[cdnpilot77]

I thought it was a legal requirement in Canada to make all labour related documents available in either official language if an employee requests that.

[ahramin]

Never heard of that. Could you post a link to the applicable law? Does it state how long it can take after the request is made?

[cdnpilot77]

I figured it would be covered in the "Official Languages Act"

Part VI mandates that English-speaking Canadians and French-speaking Canadians not be discriminated against based on ethnic origin or first language learned when it comes to employment opportunities and advancement.

[WetJet]

The collective agreement was negotiated in French, and then translated to english. The first draft of the translation was weak so it was rejected by our union and sent back for a 2nd go. Final English copy came out today.

[BlueStar]

Buddy of mine did a phone interview yesterday, they will start the interview in english if you want but will switch to french later on in the interview and you have to be able to answer and understand french. He was told to brush up on his french before his interview, so I think it is still important that the candidate be bilingual.
cheers

[downtomda]

I did an interview and sim not too long ago. I was told by one of their pilots that I would have the option of doing everything in French or English. When greeted at the interview, it was in French and I reciprocated of course. Never was given the option to continue in English, however, during the interview, I had to explain something in english which was fine with the interviewers.

The sim was a different story. The 2 pilots running the sim only spoke French to me and the others. All checks and clearances were given in French. I told them that I had never piloted an aircraft using French Checklists. They continued only using French. I understood everything fine of course, however, I responded in English. I didn't get a good welcoming feeling from those two.

If you want into Transat, when they say jump...vous sautez!

[YWGGuy]

From my understanding you need to speak french to get hired. There have been a few examples hired in the past from the military where their french was not as fluent as a Quebec'er but apparently now you do not get the option. It's too bad really were other companies let you interview in either without a bias I do not think AT is open to hiring english speaking candidates.

[ahramin]

I do not think AT is open to hiring english speaking candidates.

English is required.

[TopperHarley]

I interviewed a few months ago. The phone interview started out in english. Then I was asked 1 question in french (have I ever lived/worked in a french environment?). I barely finished answering the question before she switched back to english. When I did my face-to-face interview, I was greeted in french, introduced myself in french, then they asked if I would be more comfortable to do it in english, so I did. For the sim briefing, the instructor briefed a group of us in french, he asked us if we were all ok with that though, and I was. For the eval, they asked me to choose between english and french, but they insisted to stick with what I was used to (english), so I did it all in english. I was hired a few days later, groundschool was pretty much all in french, but the instructors have always asked if there were any anglos/non-french speaking pilots in the room. Im just finishing up the sim now and Ive been doing it everything in english. SOP manuals, Airbus CDs, etc are all in english.

There might be a small percentage of pilots here who dont have any french at all; however, the company is mostly francophone, so it would be in your best interest in to aquire a basic understanding/working knowledge of french.

[SuperTroll]

It's no secret that Transat only hires bilingual pilots. However the degree to which you are bingual can go up and down depending on if they have reached the bottom of the pile of French Canadian resumes and are dipping into the pile that has Anglos that speak some amount of french. The Anglos that got interviews a few months ago spoke a good deal of French. The guys that I know now that had more recent interviews speak much less French. With the hiring that seems to be going on non stop at AT, I would say that if you know ANY french, the current hiring boom might be the best chance for somebody with limited French to get in there. Fire off a resume, it can't hurt.

[Gino Under]

Ahhh!
The games people play.

It would appear AT are going through some sort of 'expansion' requiring pilots to fly their big jets. Using an immature tactic like language in a screening process where the nervous candidate is trying their darnedest to put his/her best foot forward to work for this company can only serve to expose the separatist mentality within and running sim evaluations in a "French Only" mode will only prove disasterous for them. How pathetic? That's a 'revenge' tactic used by separatists to get back at the maudit anglais for wrong doings from almost a Century ago. How mature? You'd like to think English and French Canadians would do a better job of looking after this country by accomodating each other, not just outsiders who decide to make this home. I know that sounds a little naieve, doesn't it?

What a shame for such a reputable company, at a time when the 'experienced' pilot group is drying up. They may well soon find themselves spending money on sim time evaluating candidates who haven't a chance of getting on not only because they lack the experience but the language skills, even though English is the official language of aviation. It must be fun for some to know in advance the English candidate is only there for their amusement and for no other reason. Imagine a company where english speakers could improve their french and the french speakers could improve their english by getting along with each other rather than try to one-up the other.

Why would anyone really want to go through that kind of a screening process when it sounds like some of these AT characters only want to continue the 'battle of the plains'.

C'est une autre histoire. Vous obtenez toujours ce que vous méritez.
Bon chance a tous.

Gino Under

[full_throttle]

I did my sim in french, the other candidate with me in english. The instructors did not mind doing it both language. That's the experienc I hade during the hiring process.

[60N30W]

Gino Under,

Do you base your rant on personal experience or are you just guessing on how things are at TSC?

Regards,

60N30W

[DeltaHotel]

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.

[JTF01]

I interviewed about a month ago with Air Transat.

I'm an Anglophone who is mostly bilingual and have lived & worked in Quebec. I got the impression when they looked over my CV, it was a combination of my experience, Quebec links, and bilingualism that got me the interview invite. Air Transat was more than fair with me, both in the interview selection process and the interview itself. At every step (phone screen, interview I, interview II, sim), I had the option of it in either English or French. When I say that I'm bilingual, I'm serviceable bilingual. I'm adept at French, I can hold a discussion in it, but also, when you talk to me its obvious I'm Anglo. They didn't mind when in some technical parts of the interview, I changed from French to English. Heck, even during the phone screening, I had a very weak cellphone connection, their rep recognized this, and she spoke in English to help facilitate getting it done.

Overall, I probably did about 40% of the face-to-face parts in English (could have done more in English but wanted to speak French just to let them know I was comfortable with it). On a couple of occasions I might have shot myself in the foot because some of my stories or responses didn't translate as well as I thought they would to French, but that is life. The interviewers made me feel very welcome and relaxed. I left the interview room satisfied with how I did. The sim guys were equally kind - everyone else in the briefing room was French-Canadian, and though I understood the majority of the A310 sim pre-brief, there were a few technical questions I had about FD usage, the autopilot, and autothrottles, and he explained them in English. (at the beginning of the briefing, the evaluator even offered to do the whole brief in English but that wasn't necessary).

A lot of people want to take pokes at Transat for the French thing, but I did not perceive any biases. Everyone I met along the way, from the receptionists to the sim guys, were super kind to me, even going out of their way to talk to me in English when everyone around us was speaking French. I think it is more a cultural thing: Transat is based in Montreal, and has a lot of francophones working for them. To some that can be intimidating, but if you make the effort to reach them in their language, it should not be a factor, as they'll respect you for it. Besides, all airlines and charter companies have their own quirks in the hiring process.

JTF

[downtomda]

I had good vibs in the interviews as well...thats why we went to the sim. The sim operators or pee-lots did not say one word to me in english, even though i told them in french that i had never flown an airplane in french. That to me is ignorant! I never felt welcome to be in the sim eval, except the guy who briefed me...he was supper nice! So in the 20 mins you have to show them how you fly, is just a test to see if they want to fly with this guy! I briefed everything in english. Why didn't I get hired? Who the F*** knows!

Transat limits themself to find the best qualified pilots in Canada by being bias to hiring Bilingual pilots only! All this BS about being bilingual just to be hired to work in Toronto!

There are litterally thousands of English only speaking flight attendants, and Transat flies out of many english cities. Transats success is 75% english!

[Gino Under]

Folks.

I was only reacting to downtomda's remarks regarding his/her interview experience.
Perhaps for clarity and to avoid YET another language debate, let me say this.
As a 'biliingual' country, we've failed. We were force fed bilingualism in 1968 and it's not exactly worked so far. As long as Quebeckers refuse to tour Canada to share and expose their language and culture, we maudit anglais will never (or rarely) get to use the language. It's a question of numbers and demigraphics. When I see the number of Chinese signs sprinkled around Square One in Mississauga, it's obvious to me, this is not a bilingual country and will never be as long as there is no limit on tolerance when it comes to language. Tolerance has gone too far IMHO and it's not working.

As for Quebec, at least they have the b-alls here to define through language laws to defend their language and culture, unlike the ways in which we don't defend English in "english" Canada. Sad, eh?
That said, my point was simply that English Canadian sh*tting on French Canadian should have by now, run its course, and come to a stop. Naieve of me to think otherwise, huh?

Posts like downtomda's continue to prove Canadians are still fighting Canadians and to me, that's a shame.
The folks I know at Transat are professional and are content if you simply try to speak French. As for the wrong mix of personalities tasked with conducting a sim eval, who can say? If it's to be a language war, then AT will only slash their own throats in the process as there are fewer and fewer pilots around with the experince and qualifications to operate their fleets and route structures.

just sayin'

Gino Under

[60N30W]

Gino under,

Not going to do the language debate with you or anyone, that being said don't worry about the pilot hiring at TSC, while speaking both official languages has always been an important part of getting hired being a capable pilot takes priority over language abilities.

Regards,


60N30W