Finally, a bit of truth.

[Kelly Hopper]

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/want-pilot-count-cost-first-214346961.html

[Dash8driver1312]

Ummm...what do you mean finally? This isn't news to anyone except for people who have never looked into the industry.

[Kelly Hopper]

But finally it is getting out to the wider public through the media who have up 'til now shared the belief that all pilots are blessed with superhuman powers which get rewarded by fabulous lifestyles, high salaries and benefits that others can only dream of.
In Balpa's words, a leftover income of "£500-£1000 per month" after investing £100,000 in training is the reality for the few that even get a job at all, or worse still P2F.
This is the reality of aviation in the 21st century! :yuk:

Incidentally, articles in yahoo get hundreds of comments. This has so far had 5. Read what you like into that?

[G-AWZK]

...and where was BALPA when the industry was heading down the tubes for trainee pilots 10 years ago? :hmm:

[Cows getting bigger]

There are those of us who have been saying this for years. The bottom line is that nothing will change whilst there are a significant number of kids who are willing to risk all for a job which, let's face it, isn't half a glamorous as it is made out to be.

P2F, 'cadetships' (which are actually just another P2F) etc - why wouldn't a business encourage it? There are few of us in aviation who realise the industry is a business and not a dream.

[BigGrecian]

We constantly hear about a drastic pilot shortage, but in Balpa alone we have more than 500 qualified, trained and committed pilots in membership who are unemployed and filling in with other jobs to make ends meet in the hope that something will turn up.

Part of the problem is that unfortunately a large number of those who get through will not be successful as they simply aren't good enough.

Declining standards in training has let too many people through who shouldn't have made it in the first place - and then having unrealistic expectations set by their ATOs who managed to get them through training so they can make a quid or two.

[Kelly Hopper]

G-WAWZK. Yes totally agree. Where were they indeed? Just glad I didn't pay my 1% to these bunch of clowns. A worse union and represent you could not have had. I am just glad I am seeing out my senior years now. Counting the days and feel pity for those that believe there is still a career in this. There isn't!

[G-AWZK]

Yes totally agree. Where were they indeed?

For the last 12 years BAPLA and the IPA have been at best sound asleep on this, at worst complicit.

Compare the terms and conditions of train drivers and tube train drivers with that of pilots.

Whilst many on these forums hate unions, I think the railways are a good example of what a strong active union can do to protect T&Cs. How quickly do you think ASLEF would accept people going to their local preserved railway and learning to drive a train and then paying Virgin to let them drive their pendolinos?

[Luke SkyToddler]

It's not the unions' fault it's the wannabes - complicit with the schools who are quite happy to feed them BS and take their money.

There was a time about a decade ago when the lo-cos did in fact hire experienced pilots, turboprop guys and FI's, and bond them, just like everyone else. This buy-a-type-rating thing was available but pretty uncommon. It only took a few people in the early '00s who managed to jump the experienced pilot queue by buying those ratings and those hours - and then surprise surprise, the schools realized they were sitting on a gold mine and started aggressively marketing the type rating as part of all basic training.

Pretty quickly after that, the accountants in the lo-cos noticed this and realized they could get into bed with the schools, and collectively make a fat profit. All the other ideas, charging for interview, charging for "line training", flowed from that. Now it's an integral part of their business model and it's not going ANYWHERE.

But I really don't believe the idea didn't come from the airlines initially, it came from the few :mad: rich greedy short sighted selfish wannabes who did it first. The damage was done so quickly by the mid '00s, I really don't blame the unions for not seeing the danger until it was too late.

[Flypuppy]

I saw this coming 14 years ago and wrote to Chris Dark at the time he was head shed at BALPA. BALPA didn't act then and they won't act now.

Luke, passing the blame onto the wannabes isn't right. The only people who could have prevented this didn't.

The horse has bolted and there is utterly no point in closing the stable door now. Until there is an accident that can be shown to be linked to a pilot trying eek out a living on £500 per month the CAA or EASA won't even start to look at the issues.

[wiggy]

Luke, passing the blame onto the wannabes isn't right. The only people who could have prevented this didn't.

Who are??????

I'm not sure BALPA should have been quite so keen to provide a platform for some of the FTO's at its various fairs but OTOH any formal action by the union to hinder the FTOs may well have run into legal problems in the UK ( cf. restraint of trade).

[Cows getting bigger]

Wiggy, the whole industry is to blame (and I'm part of it). We are all businesses and, in the UK, the law is that company directors should work in the interests of shareholders having regard for, amongst other things, the interest of employees (Section 172 of the Companies Act 2006).

If a company can increase profit, or at least minimise loss, it is obliged to follow that route providing it retains 'regard' for its employees. Once the P2F door opened there was no turning back. The companies are behaving like most other businesses would. Its nuts but it is reality.

[wiggy]

Agreed.

In the UK certainly it's the directors' job to maximise profit and Restraint of Trade regs makes it just about impossible for the likes of BALPA to interfere with a company who is legally trading with private individuals.

BA BALPA found out to it's cost (literally) what happens if you try and get between a company and a third party.

That said I didn't like the fact BALPA took advertising from the FTOs in "The Log", and I think they were guilty of painting a rose tinted picture for far too long....but beyond that I'm not sure what magic wand they were meant to wave to "solve" the ills of P2F, etc.

[Luke SkyToddler]

So you guys bagging on BALPA, let's hear some specific practical steps the unions could have taken last decade to stop this :mad: from happening, in the context of the fact that it didn't actually happen at the unionized airlines (BA, Virgin, Monarch, Airtours & the rest of the decent charter airlines).

Bear in mind this (the mid-'00s) was also a time when the lo-co's were in massive expansion mode and the established operators were taking a massive hit on their intra-European traffic numbers. BA was running massive losses, hiring was certainly not on the agenda, talk was all of massive restructuring, everyone was in fear of their own jobs. XL went bust, Flyglobespan went bust, Virgin laid off about 200 pilots, Thomson laid off 70-80ish.

Nope 90% of the damage was done by the only two operators who were hiring in numbers at that time - Ryanair and Easyjet.

Ryan to this day doesn't even recognize unions, and while BALPA has managed to establish a foothold in Easy it's been more or less a history of barely having the membership numbers to be recognized, and constant firefighting with hostile management trying to stop the divide-and-conquer and the shaftings that occur every time they try to open a new base on lower T&C's than the others.

Legal advice was certainly taken by a couple of BALPA pilot committees at that time, and it was decided to not pursue legal action because to be blunt P2F is immoral but not illegal. As for the other pilots in other airlines - well they might have had a lot of sympathy but it is straight up illegal for them to take industrial action in support of what's happening at their competitors.

No guys I have to say the only thing that could have stopped it at that time was the wannabes themselves, if enough of us had stood up and said "no we aren't going to accept this becoming the new norm". Fat chance of that happening at the 200 hour level though.

[mad_jock]

You might find there is quite a lot of internal arguments within BALPA about this stuff.

Hence the inclusion of advertising in literature.

Like it or not the way things are set up these days the training regulations are set up to give TRI/TRE's a nice little part time job earning good money after they have finished flying the line.

They is also a very small but very influential group which all know each other and have old colleagues/squadron mates in the training industry who believe that the integrated pilot is what they want. And they have in the past sabotaged modular intakes to ensure that they are not used.

Now they all know that unless the supply of fresh meat going through the schools isn't kept up the schools won't be able to continue. So it is in there interests to keeping the flow through the schools even though they know that the poor sods have pretty much no chance of fulfilling their dreams.

http://www.pprune.org/flying-instructors-examiners/536575-fte-jerez-instructor-recruitment.html

This thread has the stink of cabair about it.

There just isn't enough business in the market these days. Modular schools have a lot lower cost base. And to be honest I think they have screwed there own markets by actively screwing every job they hear of by going straight in and trying to convert it into a cadetship.

Before people had a chance of getting the jet job if they paid the extra. Now if your not pre-selected you have to be extremely lucky to get any job if they fail Ryanair.