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Pay to fly,

Old 31st Dec 2014, 11:50
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At 3:20 I heard 18 000 Eur/month. Very far away of all these slavery traders, like Volotea ,Ryanair,Wizzair,Enterair, Air Baltic,......etc.......etc.....

Now you know , why you have so many strikes in France.
the salary is for Air FRance at the end of the career as a captain position, and only rare get it now because new contracts are lower anyway...

so we can not really compare AF with Ryanair or volotea etc...
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Old 31st Dec 2014, 13:53
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Airline slant

Hi John,

You've already been replaced by automation. Hang up the stripes and shoot the breeze at the bar. Unfortunately I think you've been beaten to the punch by the MPL.

You seem to consider the sum total of your required knowledge as that which is used daily. I disagree and feel the value in having an in-depth foundation of knowledge is immeasurable. Whilst I quite agree that we need to know the limitations of our knowledge and also our sphere of responsibility.

Also, I'd urge you to consider the role of commercial pilot beyond the scope of schedule CAT flying. The operational variables met in other areas of CAT can, and regularly do, require more of the theoretical knowledge hopefully accrued during the theoretical studies. The backup afforded to flight crew is not as structured, and may be supplied by third parties. Purely and simply it isn't possible to write a Ground Ops Manual that would encompass the majority of operational variables encountered and the pilots will be involved in areas whereby the theoretical knowledge covered in the ATPL studies is often required. I'll grant you, Polar Stereographic Charts aren't something I frequently require, although I know guys flying for BAS, and the requirement for them was commercial licence.

Last edited by Journey Man; 31st Dec 2014 at 15:14. Reason: "stereographic" suffered an auto-correct...
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Old 31st Dec 2014, 15:05
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Questions - are there too few suitable fatpl holders and wannabe cadets to meet the required airline standards?

Could the average 6th former meet the required standards, excluding upfront cash?

I don't see why rhs salaries should go up to provide further supply.
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Old 31st Dec 2014, 15:43
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John Smith is not worth debating with- he turns every thread into an anti-pilot rant. I have doubts that he is a line pilot - he must be a manager, and comes across as embittered cabin crew management to me. To suggest pilots need know nothing more than what is in the SOP and the manuals is dangerous indeed - if airlines and authorities followed his logic and wishes, then MPL cadets would graduate straight into the command seat of heavy jets with no issues. That clearly isn't the case - experience and knowledge beyond the minimum standard to which he aims (and I assume fails to maintain) are far from enough for safe or efficient aviation.
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Old 31st Dec 2014, 17:03
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There's an old story about an expert consultant who comes to a factory that is not operating. No one there can sort out why. Consultant gives the place a look and quotes to the factory manager:

"I can fix your problem for $50,000."

"Good Heavens, Man! We're losing that every two hours the factory sits idle! Do what you must!"

Consultant walks to a control panel, throws a switch and the factory comes to life, returns to the factory manager to say:

"That will be $50,000, please."

"My Dear Fellow, you merely threw a switch. Surely that can't be worth more than a dollar or two!"

"You're correct, of course. Allow me to present you with an itemized invoice."

Fee for actuating toggle switch: $1
Knowing which switch to throw: $49,999
Grand Total Services Rendered: $50,000

My employer doesn't pay me to throw switches, and I shudder at any aviation company that does. Any fool with a checklist can do that. My first employer (which was the government) trained me and compensated me to learn how to make decisions. In return, I provided them with a number of years of my professional life and learned to make (and later made) those decisions, returning every aircraft for which I signed in reusable condition.

When I chose to prepare myself for a career in the civil world, the less than $1000 that I spent for licensing up to ATP was not all I had invested (yes, the FAA system has its advantages). I had dozens of flight checks and thousands of hours over many years.

Every good (and bad) decision a pilot makes over a career influences that pilot as a captain. The bean-counters forget that at their peril. So do the flying public, fixated on cheap fares.

From a safety standpoint, in our view one of the things that we do in the basic design is the pilot always has the ultimate authority of control. There’s no computer on the airplane that he cannot override or turn off if the ultimate comes. In terms of any of our features, we don’t inhibit that totally. We make it difficult, but if something in the box should behave inappropriately, the pilot can say ‘This is wrong’ and he can override it. That’s a fundamental difference in philosophy that we have versus some of the competition.

-- John Cashman, Chief Test Pilot Boeing 777.
Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.

-- Ernest K. Gann
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Old 31st Dec 2014, 17:14
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Thats great. What if someone suitably qualified will do it for $500?
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Old 31st Dec 2014, 17:28
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Someone will come along and be happy to cut you out for $400. Human nature I'm afraid.

Like business, stack'em high and sell'em cheap.

In my 40 plus years in the business the most eager to cut you out were the ones, lets say were with the "financial means" to do so. Whether it be to attempt to buy you out, or could sustain themselves on the peanuts they would be happy to work for. Or just attempt to cut you out, period. In the genes?

There is always someone who will do it cheaper.
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Old 31st Dec 2014, 17:33
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Please do enlighten me as to when, in day to day operations, I am required to use my in-depth knowledge of the physics of flight, or meteorology, or general navigation?
Which category would you place the pilots of AF447 in John? What about the pilots on TK1951? More recently, what will you say about the pilots of QZ8501?

How many fatalities would it take to negate your thesis?

Commercial aviation today stands on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, made mistakes, and not been protected from them by the incredible machines we fly. There is so much latent safety in a modern commercial jet, the mind boggles. Much of which we don't even recognise or appreciate.

Your view of life in the flightdeck is a reductionist one, for sure. Sounds like you're giving yourself heart-burn.



The industry has done it that way, because (and this is where I do agree with you - no need for a huge degree of self-importance here), we're actually pretty good monkeys.

However, my understanding is that, recently, it is Loss Of Control incidents that now form the major proportion of air transport accidents. Whilst many of us at the sharp end of the industry have been talking about the "de-skilling" going on in the flightdeck for a while, it is only now that the issue seems to have gained an appreciable degree of traction.

So why is this?

I'm hopeful that, in the past, knowledge I have tried to acquire outside the "core airline curriculum" as a result of what I'd call "professional pride" will now become more and more mandated. In addition, I believe it will be important for the industry to try and re-design the machines we fly so that they allow us to keep current the skills which become so important when we actually need to "fly" the aircraft.
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Old 31st Dec 2014, 18:31
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I hope to goodness that I never have to sit next to john_smith in a cockpit, anywhere, ever.

I left a former career in which I was earning £35,000. I didn't have to pay for £100,000 worth of training and neither did I, at any point, have to work for free or pay to work in my previous job. So this ridiculous idea that working for free is "normal" and acceptable is utterly ridiculous. I worked very hard and had line management responsibility and influence on services affecting thousands of people. But I didn't work silly hours and at no point was I directly responsible for the lives of individuals, unless you count occasionally driving the team to a conference.

As a CAT pilot I am expected to know exactly what's going on with the aircraft I'm flying, the current and potential environmental conditions, to carry out safe and efficient operations and to be able to work with the cockpit, cabin crew and extended team to fix it when things don't go to plan. All the while trying to ensure that the paying customers in the back are as happy as possible. This isn't the job of a monkey and I am proud of the knowledge and experience I have, as well as the much larger amount I am still to gain. If john_smith considers himself to be no better than a monkey, and the job to be at that level, then I would consider him to be a liability and he ought to be outed in all senses of the word.
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Old 31st Dec 2014, 18:49
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Smith, if you genuinely feel that way, then donate your "excess" pay to some of the poorer members of society or perhaps the cabin crew, but stop whining about it on here. You clearly have an agenda and a wish to sell out your colleagues. Evidently I hit the nail on the head with my suspicion about you being a cadet with rich parents, or, you'd be needing that salary to repay training debts and a mortgage. Maybe you should consider that most of us have not had the good fortune, so to speak, of being born rich. As for your rapid promotion, perhaps it was your swooning ass kissing and will to work for less rather than your desire to limit your knowledge to the minimum that got you ahead. Regardless, I'd never want to fly with someone of your judgement or personality.
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Old 31st Dec 2014, 19:00
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So do those that dislike js, think salaries will go up or down?
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Old 31st Dec 2014, 19:25
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John, some do feel the qualification is more than it is. As a graduate in engineering, I know what a reasonably thorough degree entails hence why I find people trying to compare the qualification to something more in depth bemusing. I can empathise with you there, but not to the point of scorn.

Given the reduction in terms and conditions over the last decade it doesn't take a leap of imagination to suggest the scenarios you seem to eagerly await. But mocking people for not embracing this further depression in t&cs is akin to not understanding why the turkeys won't vote for Christmas.

What do you feel would be a fair pay for a new pilot over the course of their career up to the point where they've serviced the inevitable loan. Let's fix the cost at £90,000. Factor in loss of salary during training, loan repayments, a room share for three years, a two bedroom flat rent for the rest. Let's hypothesise that will cover a few years more bachelorhood and then the possibility of a partner.

Disregarding supply and demand, what would do you feel is reasonable recompense? Let's make the loan period fifteen years. Just to make it simpler.
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Old 31st Dec 2014, 22:33
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Hi everyone,
for information, for some weird reason, I was censored when I tried to relay the french TV when it show aired.
We were indeed showing our faces in it and shared it via:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsQIqv1PfTM
I was also saying we had the French union's attention on P2F (we did a few unformal meeting with them) and now it's the whole ECA that supports the petition against it:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/p2f_must_stop/

Swiss folks also have their TV report exclusively on P2F:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tAFHdM6W2E

Press articles, wiki definition... it's a great thing Italy is in the boat, and we'll come up with meaningful initiatives as the ECA is set to launch the campaign against P2F after the holidays this month!
(Timeline events available on https://www.facebook.com/cockpitseeker)
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Old 1st Jan 2015, 06:21
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The thing is people are still queuing up.
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Old 1st Jan 2015, 11:06
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EASA........... Following the part M fiasco Another fine mess.

EASA is at the very heart of this problem, when the EU decided on a pan European aviation authority it started talking to the industry and the big flight schools sent representatives to to push for highly regulated pilot training courses all done at ( their) pilot sausage factory's, unfortunately the small schools did not have the recorces to lobby EASA and so as always with the EU this highly regulated system was adopted.

Having tied up the supply chain the big schools then pushed the airlines into recruting only students from the big schools using quality of training as the reason, this was a good way of hiding the money that must be changing hands between the schools and the airlines.

In the old days you could do the fATPL just by having flown 700 hours, passing the ground exams and the flight tests. In practice most people did 150 hours and then an instructor rating to be able to get an instructor job to get the rest of the flying hours.
Once the fATPL was issued airline job hunting would start and when you got a job you got bonded for the cost of the type rating........ The type rating cost you NO money but you had to stay with the airline for about two years.

The result of the system was that the unsuitable people fell by the wayside and those who did not had a very good basic flying skills.

The EASA system seems to be training pilots with a lack of basic skills who have been flying perfectly servisable aircraft into the ground.

Conclusion...... EASA = backward progress in flight safety and greater cost to achive this.

As a bi-product they have also blocked any social mobility by pricing flying training out of the reach of those with talent but modest income.
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Old 1st Jan 2015, 11:11
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The EASA system seems to be training pilots with a lack of basic skills who have been flying perfectly servisable aircraft into the ground.
An example being?
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Old 1st Jan 2015, 11:17
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I'd like to ask as well. What experience do you have outside aviation (quantify it please) that gives you the ability to so confidently say you are doing a blue collar job for white collar money? How much skill and actual practice time do you have outside of aviation? Or are you comparing things to non-pilot friends, who because they do another line of work, give the impression they're really clever, skilled and professional?

When I'm not flying, I'm contracting in IT and invoicing an average of £10k per month. I have no degree and even my vocational qualifications are almost 15 years old (I'm in my early 30s). Granted, I'm good at what I do in the IT business but the job can be extremely unchallenging and boring with many months spent simply debating ideas and arguing with idiots in management. In practice I get to exercise very little skill on a daily basis and there's certainly no sense of accomplishment anymore as everything becomes a fudged compromise. What am I to conclude from this, that it's a blue collar job with white collar money? Blue collar workers are by definition unskilled. Piloting definitely requires some skill.

Be careful what you wish for mate, in the "real world" as an employee who is good at his/her field you will find yourself regularly working 60+ hours per week and taking your work home with you (one of the reasons why despite having some views very similar to yours, I'm still interested in flying for a living). Nirvana is putting up with life as it is and realising there is no such thing is perfection. You're a classic case of too much came too soon and now there's all left to be positive about within aviation.

As a bi-product they have also blocked any social mobility by pricing flying training out of the reach of those with talent but modest income.
...and those with a life to manage outside of flight training (not all of us can take 2 straight years out of life/work) to train to fly. Thus, directly shaping the age group and demographics of our pilot community (young, no strings, happy to service 10 years of debt because they know no better)

Last edited by Superpilot; 1st Jan 2015 at 11:59.
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Old 1st Jan 2015, 11:27
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JS needs to be careful what he wishes for, but its difficult to argue with his downward trajectory predictions.
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Old 1st Jan 2015, 11:29
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Bealzebub

The evidence is at the bottom of the South Atlantic and with the number of pilots who sit next to me who have never taken an aircraft past 60 degrees of bank.
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Old 1st Jan 2015, 11:36
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A and C s post is actually a very good summary of why ctc etc is the better way in , especially given demise of the many regional airlines.

Whether the quality is there or not, I couldn't comment but our very busy skies are safer than the 80s and before for the uk at least.
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