Cadets over Experience ? please explain
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I remember a long time ago when the first BEA cadet (ex Hamble) was due for command. You can't do that, someone made sure that he could not get into trouble, he has never made a decision in his life!!
He trained, became maybe a SO, depending on AC type, then a FO how could he possibly be a captain. That was the story. Somehow they made it.
A bit like today, except they did get paid!!.
He trained, became maybe a SO, depending on AC type, then a FO how could he possibly be a captain. That was the story. Somehow they made it.
A bit like today, except they did get paid!!.
Last edited by rogerg; 6th Aug 2014 at 20:08.
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Like a lot of things in life it's about being in the right position at the right time. If you want to be a trader in a big city firm then you need to present yourself to them with a decent red brick Uni degree (preferably OxBridge) under age 25 or so. There's little chance to 'work your way up' to the fast track positions that pay eye watering salaries - sure, you can join the back office and earn a decent salary, but you'll never catch the fast track high flyers up. At this time the same generally applies to a lot of european airlines: If you want to join then present yourself to one of their chosen schools with no experience. If you chance your luck training else and then taken other jobs then they aren't terribly interested.. Also, the salaries are far from eye watering.
My point is that if you choose to join an industry then you have to abide by the generally accepted norm. This means bar a few exceptions, joining with low hours having been to a established FTO. This is well known, yet people still take their chances and look surprised when no jobs are forthcoming!
These pilots are all legal, safe and fairly keen. People keep saying there will be a crash and the system will then blame the low hours pilot, but every time there IS a crash somewhere it is often the very opposite, a very experienced pilot involved!
My point is that if you choose to join an industry then you have to abide by the generally accepted norm. This means bar a few exceptions, joining with low hours having been to a established FTO. This is well known, yet people still take their chances and look surprised when no jobs are forthcoming!
These pilots are all legal, safe and fairly keen. People keep saying there will be a crash and the system will then blame the low hours pilot, but every time there IS a crash somewhere it is often the very opposite, a very experienced pilot involved!
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Malcontents
Seems there are many whingers on this thread. They seem to have forgotten (or maybe it was so long ago that their brains are somewhat out of tune with reality) that they themselves were once in the same position as today's "low-hours" pilots. I bet they didn't complain then. Come on guys - give the newcomers a break. And yes, most accidents these days do seem to involve "experienced" pilots...
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Of course it's practice!! You're seriously telling me you could land the aircraft as proficiently during your first few months on type as you could after a couple of years? Well in that case UberPilot you are clearly so naturally gifted that you are wasted in commercial operations and should be a test pilot instead.
Doing six landings in base training does not mean you are proficient at landing the aircraft.
Doing six landings in base training does not mean you are proficient at landing the aircraft.
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Of course you improve; all I'm saying is that by having your base training signed off and then the award of a TR that you have demonstrated the ability to operate to a set standard and, should the worst happen to the LHS then you should be able to arrive back at a benign airfield and put the aircraft on the ground. It is not like you're an apprentice electrician who has no qualifications and learns 'on the job' over a period of years before taking an exam!
Maybe my first point was poorly articulated.
Maybe my first point was poorly articulated.
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As I have said earlier. I've nothing against new comers at all! It's great when you meet someone with the enthusiasm for getting into flying. As I also said I've no comment when it comes to safety with new guys flying like we all did around Europe as I don't personally think its unsafe. My only point has nothing to do with winging about new comers.
It seems a well agreed upon point that the current heavy factory supply chain of "cadets" (they're not cadets, the airlines don't lose money training them) is taking over recruitment and damaging terms and conditions. And no one would ideally like that, even if they are currently sitting it pretty. It's hard to envisage how skewed it has become if you're currently into a long stretch at a airline and even joined say 5 years ago. I know I didn't get it until I lost my job. I before , from my lofty arrogant perch, thought people should just get on with it and shut up. I realised quite how much it had changed, and how quickly, between me joining this company and re entering the UK job hunting pilot workforce with a bucket load of experience and fast running out of options to pay mortgage/feed family.
Nothing to do with having any gripe against a keen new person. As I said, it's not their fault when they come face to face with the situation and I wish these new guys had a better range of options such as I was fortunate enought to enjoy. Anyway, there's nothing to be done, it was just a discussion taking place and that's the point of talking.
It seems a well agreed upon point that the current heavy factory supply chain of "cadets" (they're not cadets, the airlines don't lose money training them) is taking over recruitment and damaging terms and conditions. And no one would ideally like that, even if they are currently sitting it pretty. It's hard to envisage how skewed it has become if you're currently into a long stretch at a airline and even joined say 5 years ago. I know I didn't get it until I lost my job. I before , from my lofty arrogant perch, thought people should just get on with it and shut up. I realised quite how much it had changed, and how quickly, between me joining this company and re entering the UK job hunting pilot workforce with a bucket load of experience and fast running out of options to pay mortgage/feed family.
Nothing to do with having any gripe against a keen new person. As I said, it's not their fault when they come face to face with the situation and I wish these new guys had a better range of options such as I was fortunate enought to enjoy. Anyway, there's nothing to be done, it was just a discussion taking place and that's the point of talking.
Last edited by Cliff Secord; 6th Aug 2014 at 21:39.
Sorry john but we moved away from the safety thing a few posts back. It seems that in good ATC and ILS to ILS operations low hour guys are fine. What I'm saying is the argument for hiring them is b:'llsh@t.
Some people keep banging on how great they are because they haven't been tainted yet and other such nonsense. My argument is then why aren't all the non EU airlines who hire large amounts of expats not falling over themselves to hire 200 hour wonder kids from OAA?
I think the only people defending 200 hour kids are people who used to be 200 hour kids.
Funnily enough a previous poster wrote that he has only ever had problems with new hires from other airlines. All those "bad habits" you know. An acquaintance at a ME carrier said to me that the Easy/Ryan guys they get sometimes have problems themselves with transitioning to new SOPS!!! Who would believe it?
Some people keep banging on how great they are because they haven't been tainted yet and other such nonsense. My argument is then why aren't all the non EU airlines who hire large amounts of expats not falling over themselves to hire 200 hour wonder kids from OAA?
I think the only people defending 200 hour kids are people who used to be 200 hour kids.
Funnily enough a previous poster wrote that he has only ever had problems with new hires from other airlines. All those "bad habits" you know. An acquaintance at a ME carrier said to me that the Easy/Ryan guys they get sometimes have problems themselves with transitioning to new SOPS!!! Who would believe it?
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We can talk about whether or not it is healthy from a Ts&Cs point of view to have such a bias towards cadets, and clearly the answer is that it's not good at all from that perspective
I think the only people defending 200 hour kids are people who used to be 200 hour kids.
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let me explain the problem to you guys in very simple terms.I have no problem with Lufthansa, BA, KLM employing 200 hour pilots. I think it's absolutely great. They are chosen from a stupendously harsh preselection process, as being the highest quality 10 or so people out of probably 10,000 candidates, they are put through the finest training money can buy, they are mentored and supervised by their airline throughout, and in their first several months on the line they are exclusively flying with some of the finest training captains on earth, in perfectly maintained jets in a fantastically wonderful SOP and ATC environment. Safe as houses right? Of course it is, that is the dream that we all had when we first decided we wanted to be airline pilots, and that is the scenario that I think most of you are defending when you talk about 250 hour cadets.
But.
It's the dream.
It's NOT THE REALITY, not for 99.99% of us anyway.
The reality is, that the schools use the images of said dream, to market their product to every person that walks in the door who has money to spend. They make their PPL students wear epaulettes and hang pictures of A380s on every wall. They go through the motions of having a "selection process" which nobody fails
and they go to extraordinary lengths to talk about their "relationships with airlines" and every other kind of bullst under the sun. This is all done with one objective in mind, to draw the customer in the door, and keep them happy until they have spent their money. And they are very good at it.Which leads to the problem we have now. Massive massive oversupply of pilots who hold commercial qualifications but have no experience.
At some stage in the middle or later parts of your training, most of you probably realized or came to grips with the fact that you are NOT actually a special snowflake despite what the school marketing guy told you, and you have a potential problem on your hands upon completing your training.
Now what are you going to do about it?
No problem says the integrated school, we can sort you out with a "job" once you've completed your IR. It will cost you another 50,000 for the type rating and, ummm, you'll get paid 1000 euros a month, and, ummm, it's a zero hours contract so you might not get paid at all in the winter, and, ummm, once you've completed 500 hours there's a chance you might not get to keep your "job". But hey, you'll be a "cadet pilot" and you'll get to fly a jet!
This is the best that most of you can hope for nowadays. The 25% or so who fall into this category, are the lucky ones in some ways because they are probably in a European lo-co and still under that safety umbrella of European legislation. Not exactly living the dream and not exactly getting rich but they are learning their trade. They're still living at home because they can't afford their own place, and they are very tired all the time because of the long commute to work for those 14 hour 4 sector duty days with the low cost airline. And wow it was hard to understand those instructions from that controller in that crazy east european provincial airport we were at last night. But hey, we're safe enough right, we're "cadets"!
So. Now we have accounted for the 0.01% who got into BA/LH/KLM and we've accounted for the 25% who got into Ryan / Easy etc.
Where does that leave the other 3/4 of you?
Oh dear says the school marketing agent. Hmmm let me think. I can't do anything for you "officially" but I know a guy who knows a guy out in Indonesia and they sell type ratings and 500 hours on type. Can definitely get you in there. It will cost you 100,000 and you won't get paid at all. The operating standards aren't that flash, the captains are a bit "third world" in their CRM and the weather gets pretty interesting in the rainy season, and the FO's aren't actually allowed to do any landings because the company has had 3 B737s go off the end of the runway in the last 12 months but hey, what are the chances of that happening to you, you're the best of the best, you're a "cadet" and you're flying a Real Live Jet!
And once you've done your time and you head back to Europe, you'll be a Highly Experienced Pilot and the real airlines will snap you up for sure! I hear BA/LH/KLM will be hiring next year
You can see where I'm going with this.
This all leads to the kind of
obscene and ridiculous situation we have HERE. I work for a major airline in South East Asia and I can tell you that this part of the world is absolutely awash with sub standard pilots, and fake logbooks, and people who've been kicked off P2F schemes, and fools with 300 hours and type ratings on every kind of jet.I'm sure those guys didn't mean to start down that path and I'm sure when they walked into that flashy flying school to start their training, they got told they were special, just like everyone else. But the end result is what matters. They are responsible for the lives of 180 other people, just like everyone else. It never used to be possible for those kinds of people to get into a large passenger jet straight out of school, it is now.
Can you guys see the problem yet? All this talk about cadets just goes around in circles because the term "cadet" is used these days to cover everything from the BA/Lufthansa astronauts, to the P2F accidents waiting to happen.
As you move further away from the elite legacy airline schemes though, and into the other circles, I feel it's absolutely true to say that money plays more and more of a part, and ability plays less and less of a part. That's why I have such a problem with it.
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What part of this aren't people getting? BA, LH, KLM et al. Have been putting cadets in the RHS of their aeroplanes for decades
This means I can take my massive bonus and buy that Austin Martin I’ve got my eye on.
I think the point here is that there needs to be a balance, for safety and for Ts&Cs. And the suggestion on this thread is that the balance is perhaps tipping too far in the wrong direction.
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To answer PressTheTit's questions
There may be a trend for airlines now to use cadets, but this is of a temporary nature. All airlines will look for experienced pilots for recruitment at a particular time. I see it as a supply and demand issue. At the moment there is a huge back log of qualified cadets. And within the airlines a huge back log of senior First officers waiting to upgrade to Captain.
There is defineately not an issue of pay expectations.
With regard the standard of a cadet pilot, from an airlines point of view, they will have an affiliation with a particular school and they will appreciate the product they receive. The cadet is a less risk option for completing the Type Qualification in the minimum amount of hours. They know this from the previous cadets. And therefore less money for training.
I personally have flown with both cadets and experienced military pilots.
All of them can perform there duties to a high standard.
Airlines do value experience and yes they can speed up command upgrades this way if there is a need.
I believe there is no issue over an experience pilot complying with SOP's.
I know a lot of pilots in airlines that have spent between 7-10 years in GA before moving on to an airline, and some pilots who are still in GA. Either started their own company or are a career instructor.
Patience at a time like this is essential for someone in your position.
There is defineately not an issue of pay expectations.
With regard the standard of a cadet pilot, from an airlines point of view, they will have an affiliation with a particular school and they will appreciate the product they receive. The cadet is a less risk option for completing the Type Qualification in the minimum amount of hours. They know this from the previous cadets. And therefore less money for training.
I personally have flown with both cadets and experienced military pilots.
All of them can perform there duties to a high standard.
Airlines do value experience and yes they can speed up command upgrades this way if there is a need.
I believe there is no issue over an experience pilot complying with SOP's.
I know a lot of pilots in airlines that have spent between 7-10 years in GA before moving on to an airline, and some pilots who are still in GA. Either started their own company or are a career instructor.
Patience at a time like this is essential for someone in your position.
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This argument cannot be based on safety.
The issue isnt safety. Theres no evidence that cadets reduce safety.
The effect if Colgan in the US was incredibly valuable for the profession as a whole, although the reason wasnt due inexperience the outcome was very positive for the US pilot community
The inferred comparison that RYR/Ezy cadets are akin to BA/LH/KLM (and Aer Lingus for that matter) Is an amusing comparison, as the "Legacy cadets" have always existed in some form and there doesnt apoear to be an evidenced link to their existence and the lowering ts and cs. Id be interested to see any argument that the loco cadet role hasnt helped teduce terms and conditions for virtually all in the UK
With the recent news that one of the few remaining companies that has historically maintained reasonable terms and conditions for the workforce has had to change its strategy to a more loco angle, the fear is that the whole industry is slowly but surely been sucked downwards
The responsibility for all should be to maintain good conditions for all. To maintain the benefits that Aer Lingus, Thomson, Thomas Cook and (hopefully) Monarch continue to enjoy. And not allow the likes of RYR and Ezy to drag the whole thing downwards
I personally find the support on here for the current loco cadet route VERY short sighted, and suspect both loco cadets/ex loco cadets and also it is not beyond the possibility that those with a vested interest are posting under the cloak of anonymity.
The real issue is about the damaging effect the wholesale recruitment of cadets at the locos is doing to the industry, and to the future of the industry in the UK.
Whether a guy is a young blank canvas ready to quickly learn one set of SOPS that will burn so deeply it hurts or the guy who has oodles of experience and comes with perceived "baggage" each job is a privileged professional position and should be treated by the person irrelevant of their route in or background as such. Including the responsibility to work with others to protect the future (id argue this makes up part of "professional behaviour" )
So much tangential arguing and hidden agenda. The industry is a safe operation but it is prostituting itself. Just ask where will it be in 10 years... Just ryr & ezy paying €20k with no chance of a job if you happen to lose yours?
The effect if Colgan in the US was incredibly valuable for the profession as a whole, although the reason wasnt due inexperience the outcome was very positive for the US pilot community
The inferred comparison that RYR/Ezy cadets are akin to BA/LH/KLM (and Aer Lingus for that matter) Is an amusing comparison, as the "Legacy cadets" have always existed in some form and there doesnt apoear to be an evidenced link to their existence and the lowering ts and cs. Id be interested to see any argument that the loco cadet role hasnt helped teduce terms and conditions for virtually all in the UK
With the recent news that one of the few remaining companies that has historically maintained reasonable terms and conditions for the workforce has had to change its strategy to a more loco angle, the fear is that the whole industry is slowly but surely been sucked downwards
The responsibility for all should be to maintain good conditions for all. To maintain the benefits that Aer Lingus, Thomson, Thomas Cook and (hopefully) Monarch continue to enjoy. And not allow the likes of RYR and Ezy to drag the whole thing downwards
I personally find the support on here for the current loco cadet route VERY short sighted, and suspect both loco cadets/ex loco cadets and also it is not beyond the possibility that those with a vested interest are posting under the cloak of anonymity.
The real issue is about the damaging effect the wholesale recruitment of cadets at the locos is doing to the industry, and to the future of the industry in the UK.
Whether a guy is a young blank canvas ready to quickly learn one set of SOPS that will burn so deeply it hurts or the guy who has oodles of experience and comes with perceived "baggage" each job is a privileged professional position and should be treated by the person irrelevant of their route in or background as such. Including the responsibility to work with others to protect the future (id argue this makes up part of "professional behaviour" )
So much tangential arguing and hidden agenda. The industry is a safe operation but it is prostituting itself. Just ask where will it be in 10 years... Just ryr & ezy paying €20k with no chance of a job if you happen to lose yours?
