“OK, OK Duke. You made your point. So, I’ll take the pay hit instead and do 4-on-4-off. It’ll minimize my exposure to flying over there and life will be good!”
Am I not making myself clear here? Oh you poor assholes, little do you know what’s in store comin’ at ya with the 4/4 shit on its way down the pipes. The Chinese are not stupid when it comes to certain things. Taking advantage of the system they reside above and abusing you is one of them. Think for a minute, why don’t they call it month on/off? Because, silly, they want the 4-weeks you are flying to be skewered across the calendar month. In this way, they can get around the 80-hour monthly limit. You’re going to be flying as close to 160 hours in 4 weeks as the schedulers can get away with, which will be in the vicinity of 159:59:59 after they cut out the taxi time and pencil whip some stuff.
Several pilots have complained about how fatiguing this is, but nobody really cares. Well, they do care: they want you flying for cheapo. Several pilots have pointed out the fact that the company is really just abusing the CAAC regulations for flight time by mishandling the distinction between calendar month and 4-week period. Ha! You think that’s going to make a difference? After hounding dickshoe over and over, Captain W was only given the runaround. “We trying to fix this’s problems. Don’t be worry.” And the foreign pilot coordinator won’t be any help: “Dude, they are trying to fix it.” “Who??” “Well, you know, the company as a whole.”
Yeah right. Neeext!
Another factor embedded in this flight time issue (like a shit thunderstorm lurking in a toilet bowl of diarrhea) is to look at the paycheck situation: you’re flying 160 hours in a 4-week period right? You’ve just taken a pay cut by accepting a 4/4 contract pattern and on top of that agreed to relinquishing the provisions for overtime. You’re being paid for 80 hours which means you’re flying the other 80 hours FOR FREE. Being that you’re flying the same number of hours yearly that others who are making more than you for base pay are flying, it turns out to be a pretty good deal for the company if you ask me.
Page | 127 “OK, I feel ya on all this Duke, but I really value my time off and I’ll be home for 4 weeks after flying like a banshee. Money isn’t everything aye? I’ll recover my sanity then and I’ll be good to come back!”
I hate to be the one who breaks it to ya: it’s really not a 4/4 pattern. There are several events during the year that erode your time off including the 2 months each year you do your sim check. During these months you are not allowed to have time off. Next, you have to switch your schedule pattern every year which also disrupts the 4/4 pattern (to allow others the chance of having Christmas off). Lastly, there’s the situation that has come up recently whereby the company requires you to stay in the country while they renew your visa and other paperwork which can take up to 2 weeks or longer. Do you see any problems with this? It ain’t 4/4.
Here is a report made to me by Captain R who was faced with the following pattern after signing the new contract on June 1st 2013 (he chose 4/4 and wishes to hell he hadn’t):
4 weeks ON 2 weeks OFF 4 weeks ON 4 weeks OFF 2 weeks ON 1 week OFF 5 weeks ON
We can all count here, and that sure as hell ain’t look like no 4/4 what I’ve ever saw. Apparently the Chinese, they done can’t count them so good.
Raising the gear to talk about some other concepts that don’t quite add up, it’s mentioned several times in my book about these so called foreign pilot meetings right? After these meetings are conducted, the Gaius Baltar of the airline frames up the minutes and sends them out to the group. These communications are particularly compelling and full of nifty little gems like the one below. In this case it’s a clarification of the rules governing the 4/4 cycle:
Page | 128 Above is a blurb from an actual eMail sent to the group by the foreign pilot… *ahem*… coordinator. Can you believe it?
“We realize that for those in the old contract it does not say anything about switching cycles but also does not prevent it... We appreciate your patience and understanding.” What a joke. So, it doesn’t really matter what is in the contract because anything not specifically prevented is Mao’s open country. So, those pilots who rejected the new contract (including pay raises) to avoid the new work rules JUST GOT FUCKED. Is any of this starting to make any sense to any of y’all out there yet? This is a big, “Hello, Mc. Fly,” if I’ve ever encountered one. Bring back Springer; I’m done with this if you are.
ED. note: The “new contract” Duke mentions never materialized.
OK, let’s see… as of 1/2014 there are only two reviews, both from 2011, both a month apart, both of which give 9 out of 10… hmmmm. “A must try,” huh? I’ll make a WAG this is what the French say is, “Le dubious.”
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