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Flight to France
- Thread starter Sig_Girl
- Start date
fuqdat. I'd be cool with a non-hot sister. Times are hard, man. It's a recession.
Find a job at the airport (YYZ), slingin bags, directing planes, etc whatever you have to, part time. 6 month probation, once you make it, you need to work min 10hrs/week and it's $5/timezone to fly wherever you want. A lot of people don't make it past the 6 months unless they REALLY want the job, but then it's gravy.
Beats dating a flight attendant, after a while, the crazy sets in (be careful Sinz!)
Beats dating a flight attendant, after a while, the crazy sets in (be careful Sinz!)
Red_Liner740
Well-known member
It used to be like that, not anymore.
I started working at YYZ back in 2003 and after 3 months we had standby tickets (buy them for $20 and its good anywhere the airline flies IF there is a seat available. Its a bit of a gamble as you dont know if the flight coming back is full).
After 6 months you get standby tickets and also internal booking ability where a hotel, travel arrangements, everything like a normal booking would be arranged. Usual cost was 50% of what the normal joe blow would pay.
Now its diff, at least at the company i worked for, part of the big blue star, hint hint. Now its a year before standy, 1.5 years before confirmed and stanby tickets are closer to $100.
Air Canada i'm not sure, but good luck getting in there. They are part of star alliance and get flights anywhere star alliance members fly which is the entire world.
Guys used to hop on a flight down south on friday night after work, party fri/sat, return sun and it would be cheaper than a good night at a club downtown.
Oh just to add. Airport, unless you work for GTAA (the non profit company that owns Pearson) pays ****. I mean ****! We had a lot of guys who joined for "flight benefits" only to find out that if they worked somewhere else, over the course of a year they diff in pay would buy them a regular flight vs the "benefits" and then some!
I started working at YYZ back in 2003 and after 3 months we had standby tickets (buy them for $20 and its good anywhere the airline flies IF there is a seat available. Its a bit of a gamble as you dont know if the flight coming back is full).
After 6 months you get standby tickets and also internal booking ability where a hotel, travel arrangements, everything like a normal booking would be arranged. Usual cost was 50% of what the normal joe blow would pay.
Now its diff, at least at the company i worked for, part of the big blue star, hint hint. Now its a year before standy, 1.5 years before confirmed and stanby tickets are closer to $100.
Air Canada i'm not sure, but good luck getting in there. They are part of star alliance and get flights anywhere star alliance members fly which is the entire world.
Guys used to hop on a flight down south on friday night after work, party fri/sat, return sun and it would be cheaper than a good night at a club downtown.
Oh just to add. Airport, unless you work for GTAA (the non profit company that owns Pearson) pays ****. I mean ****! We had a lot of guys who joined for "flight benefits" only to find out that if they worked somewhere else, over the course of a year they diff in pay would buy them a regular flight vs the "benefits" and then some!
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toshison
Well-known member
%
I have family that work for Qantas and the travel benefits are great so if I ever get the opporunity to work for a major airline, I will glady accept be a corporate schmuck for life. For some years I was using the Qantas benefits and they were great.. Basically tickets were 10 percent the cost + taxes. Typically this means that the bulk of the ticket is taxes.. So a return flight Sydney-Toronto cost me about $500. The actual ticket cost was like $140 bucks so tax made up the rest of it. Business class costs a bit more but it cost my inlaws about $1000 to fly return Sydney to YYZ. A normal ticket is crazy expensive.
Flying standby can suck and be a little stressful but as long as you are calculated in your bookings/timing, you stand a good chance and not getting stuck. In all my time flying standby, Ive always managed to catch the flight even when it looked like I had no chance because my priority is low and there were so many others. Some how it always just worked out, sometimes with on the spot business class upgrades too.
I have family that work for Qantas and the travel benefits are great so if I ever get the opporunity to work for a major airline, I will glady accept be a corporate schmuck for life. For some years I was using the Qantas benefits and they were great.. Basically tickets were 10 percent the cost + taxes. Typically this means that the bulk of the ticket is taxes.. So a return flight Sydney-Toronto cost me about $500. The actual ticket cost was like $140 bucks so tax made up the rest of it. Business class costs a bit more but it cost my inlaws about $1000 to fly return Sydney to YYZ. A normal ticket is crazy expensive.
Flying standby can suck and be a little stressful but as long as you are calculated in your bookings/timing, you stand a good chance and not getting stuck. In all my time flying standby, Ive always managed to catch the flight even when it looked like I had no chance because my priority is low and there were so many others. Some how it always just worked out, sometimes with on the spot business class upgrades too.
I left that out of my previous post, but it's actually so true. Every flight attendant that I know is actually crazy. Attractive...but crazy.
Hey Red_Liner, have you heard of anyone traveling half a year and coming back to work for the other 6? Is that possible? 'Cause I know that some unions allow this and you just have to work a minimum number of hours to stay employed with them.
I've been on the other end of this. I got to see Japan for 10 days, so it wasn't all that bad...but when I used to fly chance from family benefits, it almost never "worked out". Although we were flying as 2 - I'd imagine that was a huge reason for it.
By the way, what do you think is a fair price for YYZ to Australia? (its looking like it'll run me $1000 one-way) Or even Australia to Europe? I sort of just want to have a ballpark number in mind for pulling the trigger on the tickets when the time comes.
Red_Liner740
Well-known member
My friend did it, He went down to Florida for about 5 months. Basically as per seniority you choose your shifts which can be given away to other guys. So every month i'd fax him the schedule, hed bid on it, then i would give away all his shifts or i'd work some of them.
We had ppl who worked for us and Air Canada, any discrepancies in shifts. ie, overlaps, they'd give away the shift or trade for one that works for him.
We were' also allowed to submit for leaves of absences, most got rejected .
You gotta remember though, there were 200 of us with same qualifications and it wasnt a position that couldnt be filled by someone else. Those jobs dont pay a lot...
You can forget about a high paying job at the airport and flying away nilly willy whenever you please. In the end thats what it comes down to. Yes, flight benefits are great, BTW you only have 2 week vacation...catch 22.
We had ppl who worked for us and Air Canada, any discrepancies in shifts. ie, overlaps, they'd give away the shift or trade for one that works for him.
We were' also allowed to submit for leaves of absences, most got rejected .
You gotta remember though, there were 200 of us with same qualifications and it wasnt a position that couldnt be filled by someone else. Those jobs dont pay a lot...
You can forget about a high paying job at the airport and flying away nilly willy whenever you please. In the end thats what it comes down to. Yes, flight benefits are great, BTW you only have 2 week vacation...catch 22.
toshison
Well-known member
Hey man,
My in-laws flew up to T.O and on the way here they got stand by business class with no problems. On the way back though they got delayed in Toronto and couldn't get on 8 flights in a row because they wanted to fly together. If they split up they probably would of got to LA quicker but they kept waiting for the next one hoping they would get on together. They then got stuck in L.A for 2 days as well and they couldn't get into business class as it was all booked up. So yeah, its hit and miss.
Flights to Aus, it really depends what time of the year. $1000 one way is not unreasonable. I am going in January myself and so far the fares are quite a bit higher than the last time I went. Im still searching but so far the cheapest fare I saw just doing a quick search was $2500 and it was via Hong Kong which adds another 5 hours to the overall trip. Last time I paid 1700 return YYZ -LAX (AA) and LAX-SYD(Qantas). This time around I am going to look into some different options.
Sinz
Well-known member
Thanks for the reply. Screw that noise...I might as well just get it over with and date a flight attendant! hahaha
That's a relief. I met some Aussie who's been paying 2500 to get to Europe and I was certain he was doing it wrong. Man, I was looking up tickets from BKK to Manila and it's only like 45 bucks...
Whaaaat! I'm*aiming* to touch down there around that time. I still owe you a beer (probably more like 5 million) if you're up for it and the dates somehow work out!
Anyway, I decided to give it another chance. I managed to land myself a standby ticket for when I leave for SEA in October. I'm leaving alone so I should be fine... but I figure one extra "just-in-case" day should be enough, right?
Also, OP, sorry for ******** on your thread. But at least you're getting free bumps
(and they're not the tafb kind trololol)|
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