Part two begins... slowly

First few days in the new airline, which will once again remain nameless but won't take long to figure out.

The majority of last week was spent going from office to office collecting papers, signing other papers, filling in endless forms and being issued with several tons of company material: uniforms, suitcases, books, etc. The usual stuff really.

The rest of the month will be spent in various classrooms learning about local air law, the company's Standard Operating Procedures, reviewing the agonising Airbus Computer Based Torture (Airbus calls it training actually - but it's completely irrelevant to a pilot already familiar with the aircraft), reviewing aircraft performance, etc.

Once suitably brainwashed I'll get sent to a secret location for a two weeks (same as the initial rating course) in the box of tricks before finally, after nearly two wasted months, being allowed to fly again.

My theory is that all this training takes place so you have time to forget your old airline callsign because 90% of everything else stays the same. It's still a scandalous waste of time though.

Probably won't write anything here until the real flying starts but I will be tweeting from time to time.

S.

Office work and free flights

Spent the morning walking from desk to desk at work in another stamp-and-signature collecting exercise. I was also briefed on how to use the duty/rostering system and shown how flight planning works. Still no date for those 3 sims that separate me from flying online.

A friend and I decided, on a whim, to go to the beach for a few days in East Malaysia as we have nothing better to do. Flight takes off at 1700 local. The joys of ID90 (very very reduced fare) travel mean that we only paid £9 - RM50 (The price of a taxi into town) which is a tenth of the full last-minute fare.

I think it may be time for some pictures soon - once I find a suitably fast internet connection.

Papertrail

First day (back) at work today - although one could say it was genuinely my first day at work as I actually did something: Rush around more offices than I can remember fetching/delivering/copying papers, being briefed about all the briefings which will take place, collecting the training schedule and doing a lot of waiting. I was also assigned my permanent base: WBKK.

Tomorrow is another day of paperwork and going to see various agencies. SOP training starts Monday morning for about 4 weeks.