Airlines that have its pilots pay to fly

[FRogge]

I would definetely call the RYR Line Training P2F... even the BRK contract stated a price for line training, but we were offered a reduced rate of 40e/sbh. Plus that you have to pay for your own hotels, meals etc. when you can be every week in a different base... I've even heard that some guys doing LT this winter had gaps of up to 2 weeks in flying (without any salary of course)

[FANS]

John Smith's views are broadly spot-on, albeit delivered somewhat bluntly.

I just don't understand where this utopia is that he's going to in 8 months?

[Bokkenrijder]

@ JS

I paid for my training through an unsecured loan, with absolutely no help from my parents (who wouldn't have been able to afford to help anyway) What I am is an ordinary line captain with a realistic take on things. It's not my problem if, as I suspect, you're too ignorant, pig-headed, or a combination of both to see the writing on the wall.

The big problem is that because of the cheap credit in the past, there are too many pilots with a blue collar background (and I don't mean this in an accusatory or insulting way) who have very little idea and grasp of The Big Picture. They swallow the usual propaganda of "investing in oneself" and management nonsense like "we have to stay competitive so you have to make sacrifices" like a giant blue pill because that's what their upbringing has taught them.

The "just shut up, do the work and keep a low profile" is the prevailing mentality what you see on factory floors and assembly lines all over the planet, and this is exactly what managers want, so I can understand why people accuse John Smith of being an management pilot.

They think that P2F or P4T is like the entry price in order to be in the white collar club. It's not! They will never be part of the white collar club because they decide to pay for their own white collar uniform and training and thus degrading it to a blue collar job.

Denying the deterioration in T&C's, wishful thinking that things will eventually stabilize or perhaps even improve, and thinking that as long as you don't rock the boat you can keep up the facade for the outside world (and the blue collar family members) is a foolish strategy.

[Captain Greaser]

56-58 stealing jobs

Tespanel, one of these days you might be glad to be sitting beside a 56-58 ex Legacy Carrier pilot when the hits the fan. You can't beat experience,,,,and no I don't condone paying for flying. Ryan Air do not carry out this practice. Easy Jet certainly have

[Cliff Secord]

I do agree with the point John Smith has raised above. Getting into UK flying now has become the remit for either the well heeled, those with means of securing loans or those from a background that can support the financial requirements. It has effectively barred anyone entering who is young and from a less affluent background. Try asking for unsecured credit when your parents can't release any equity in their little house. BA certainly have attempted to address this issue with their FPP program which I think is a good thing to recognise the financial prejudice that exists.

I certainly do not agree with the notion that "blue collar" workers have lowered the terms and conditions. Class seems no barrier in lengths of desperation people step to when determined to enter the profession.

[Mikehotel152]

BA certainly have attempted to address this issue with their FPP program which I think is a good thing to recognise the financial prejudice that exists.

What? BA haven't changed their spots since the days they were into flying boats.

Their cadet scheme is simply designed to get the best candidates. That's always been the case.

[Cliff Secord]

What spots are those? I never said at the detriment of quality did I.

As I understood it the fanancing arrangements were/are such that not coming from a well heeled background with collateral need not be a barrier. I'll admit I don't know the arrangements in detail but read their website and the point that the financial barrier exists in financing a flying career was referenced by BA themselves.

Maybe I read it wrong or misunderstood the scheme. Quite possibly.

[too_much]

Just to be clear RYR is not P2F

My definition of P2F is Eaglejet international out of Miami whom sell 300/400/500 hours line training completely unpaid for circa 70,000 EU

Your Ryanair & similar are not P2F at all they are just lessor terms and pay.

Any Tom dick or Harry can come up with the 70,000 and go fly a jet for 300 hours line training even if they are completely unsuitable to be an airline FO

I think it is this that gets people's backs up and is causing the problem...

[Bokkenrijder]

I said:

...cheap credit in the past

I was talking about the glory days of P4F during the era 2001-2008.

The same low-interest-rates-no-questions-asked policy that fueled massive housing booms in the US and Europe also significantly lowered threshold for for people who, IMHO, otherwise would never have been able to finance a start in aviation.

Nevertheless, regardless of what background people come from, what continues to baffle me is the short sightedness, the immense financial risk-taking and the huge amount of wishful thinking that is displayed in making the decision to even start a career in aviation.

I wonder what airline managers, chief pilots and authorities would think if we would display similar behavior in the sim or on the line...

[rogerg]

In WW1 you were unlikely to be able to be a pilot unless you could already fly an aircraft as the RFC did not have any ab-initio flying schools. Was that "pay to fly"?

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Many shades of grey

Many people here state that such and such airline does not practice P2F but that another airline does. P2F has many ugly faces and takes different forms. How does one draw the line to say what one airline does is P2F and what another one does isn't ?

I must state that I work in Canada where paying for type ratings does not exist at the airline level and where P2F does not exist. Certain airlines have bonds, where you must re-imburse your training costs if you quit before working a certain amount of time for your employer, but no one pays up front for his training. In Canada and in the US, airlines do not hire low time pilots as SIC of airliners. One starts on Cessna's Beavers, Aztecs, Navajos, move up to Turbines on a Caravan, a King Air, a Pilatus, a Beech 1900, a Dash 8 and ATR-42 and smaller commercial jets before moving onto a large passenger jet on scheduled flights. There are exceptions, and some rare people sometimes skip a step or two of the ladder, but that is how it works for most.
So no 200 hour pilot in Canada or the US is going to pay a A320 or B737 type rating out of his pocket, because that will not get him hired by an airline.
No one is going to pay a type rating and 300 hours of line flying out of his pocket because no one is going to hire a 500 hours pilot who spent his 300 hours of line flying as PNF for LionAir.
My first jet was a B757. When I was hired on it, I already had about 6500 hours of flying under my belt, all of which I was paid for, except the first 250.
I have 7 type ratings on my licence. I never paid for any of them. My employers paid for them. I hope the business model that has taken root in Europe in certain other parts of the World never makes it to North America for I don't like it one bit.

Now about the different types of P2F.

Where some well established flight training facilities advertise a B-737NG type rating course for as little as $12,000 USD, what can we call it when RyanAir charges $33,000 USD for the same course, when you are not even guaranteed to be hired ? Is the training of pilots a profit center for RyanAir ? Are passengers offered cheaper flights thanks to the amount of profit the RyanAir pilot training center was able to generate on the backs of hopeful RyanAir pilots ?

At Travel Service, in the Czech Republic, I was told that new hires have to pay for their type rating. I do not know the amount they have to pay, but I think its hefty. Then, once they are hired, they are paid 660 Euros a month for the first 18 months, after which time they are paid 1200 Euros. In Canada a Beechcraft 1900 First Officer, about the cheapest scheduled flying job one can find, earns 1700 Euros a month. So when a pilot in the European Union, after being forced to pay his own type rating is stuck with flying a B737-800 full of paying passenger while getting paid 660 Euros a month for 18 months, can one consider that he is "paid to fly" or is this P2F as the others who do it more openly ?

I have heard of airlines who provide a $1000 per month salary to their pilots, but only after another contracting company, or a flight training company had charged the same pilot $50,000, or often much more, to secure that "job". Is that pilot "paid" or is it P2F ?

In the 17th and 18th century, many armies were led by officers that had not gained their military commissions through merit and experience, but paid for them. There was a price to become a Lieutenant, a Captain, a Major, a Colonel, not only to join the military, but also to get promotions once you were in. The richer people were always in command of the poor. This practice of selling military commissions has ceased in most modern countries now. Anyone care to take a wild guess on why this practice has ceased ?

[too_much]

With regards to the likes of Eaglejet etc it is them whom chase airlines or whomever they can get to agree to take line training on.

They then market these schemes to the pilot community

They are without doubt the root cause of P2F

Twindiling T&C's within the industry can only really stop if we are completely United which is unlikely to happen.

However if these LT providers could somehow be eliminated from existence then it could well stop conventional P2F from continuing.

[Three Lions]

P2f in its purest form in the UK hasnt existed now for over 5 years

However in its hidden form ie. over paying for a course and then starting on a salary well below the going rate, and that remains below the going rate for a number of years has been viral ever since then.

Its easy to see if you look hard enough

[too_much]

Sure but with so many hopefulls out there they would be insane not to take a paying job in an airline....

As I said above T&C's I personally believe cannot get better because there is not enough unity within the low time community, those guys are just going to keep on accepting what they are given, none of them will take a stand after investing 100k +

Most will probably say to themselves I will just struggle for a few years the get the 250k job in China after 3-4 years.

The way to win wars is to take out the bad guys whom are causing the biggest attack and at this time that is eagle, line training.net, skies, Baltic, MSD, CFA, etc

[Three Lions]

Disagree. The biggest culprits are in the UK.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

No relation between safety and P2F. Really ?

Some people have stated here that there is no relation between aircraft safety and P2F. That is one of the most ridiculous statements I have read here.

Imagine this:

Air Traffic Control school in South London is accepting applications. If you pass the medical exam and all the course exams, (and pay 150,000 pounds), you be provided with an Air traffic Control Licence and be guaranteed a job at London Approach Control Center. No interview, psychological or aptitude exams required. For only 100,000 Pounds, you can also get a job in Newcastle tower.

The Royal Navy is accepting applications for it future F-35 pilots. No exams, no aptitude tests, no contests. Just a physical and you pass all the courses The cost is 1.5 million pounds.

Jokes put aside, look at the last three accidents that LionAir from Indonesia had. The last two had low time P2F pilots at the controls. A bounced landing with tail strike and other damage, the other crashed in the ocean after proceeding beyond the MAP when they were not visual. The third to last, a runway overrun, had the PIC at the controls but a 750 hour P2F SIC in the right seat.

The recent Air Asia accident? That French pilot was hired with no prior commercial flying experience. It was his first flying job. Why does an Indonesian airline put a zero experience 40+ year old pilot at the controls of an Airbus 320 if its not P2F? Were there no inexperienced Indonesians to put there in his place?

Would any of these accidents have occurred with two experienced pilots at the controls ? There is a direct relation between P2F and accidents, its just that it has so far been covered up.

Some will bring up the AF447, which was not P2F but still involved a 250 hour pilot that was hired and put in the right seat of an Airbus 320, later upgraded to the A330.

It is not by accident that 2 pilots are required in the flight deck. There is always an experienced captain who is ultimately responsible for the aircraft but his second in command is not just there to fulfill a regulatory requirement. He is there to be a second pair of eyes, a second pair of ears, and especially a second brain, because the experienced Captain can make a mistake, he can misinterpret a clearance, he can be stressed or under duress, or have a sick child at home. What kind of backup can a 250 hour P2F SIC provide such a captain when he is in error ? Will he even dare ? Will the captain listen to him, considering his known lack of experience. My employer hires new pilots that have a minimum of 4000 hours. When my brand new SIC tells me something I listen, because he is not a new pilot, he is just new in my company. He had thousands of hours of experience flying other aircraft before joining me in the flight deck of my Airbus 330, or B-737 or whatever I was flying. I am not afraid of leaving this new pilot alone in the flight deck to go to the washroom. I can leave him at the controls while we do any kind of takeoff and approaches (except Low Vis Take off and CAT II and III because of regulations).

Who think will eventually put a stop to this ? The insurance companies. When they finally understand what is happening, how much it is costing them, and begin to specify what kind of pilots they will require in the aircraft they insure. They have done it in the past to certain companies, they will do it again when P2F is finally fingered as the culprit in a number of expensive claims. I am doing my share and hope some insurers read this and go back and look at what they have been spending and why.

[JaxofMarlow]

Two excellent and spot on posts Gilles Hudicourt. For some reason the experience of pilots involved in incidents is never mentioned in the UK press reports of accidents. We have had a couple of runway mishaps here in the last month or so.

[Mikehotel152]

No safety concerns between P2F and safety? Who said that?

Theoretically, it could be very safe. But that's because theoretically a person with a lot of natural ability could go down that route.

The reality, however, is different.

Because the CPL is a basic flying qualification and ATPL exams are easy, any person of average ability can gain the required licences to apply for a TR plus 500 hours course. All they need is money. So, yeah, I'd agree with Gilles that P2F is a safety concern because airline imposed recruitment standards are too low.

Yet, I'd venture to suggest that the likes of AirAsia and Lion would be having over-runs irrespective of the use of P2F cadets. The reality is that the environmental and cultural conditions in that part of the world are demanding and there are a lot of poor pilots flying for those operators for whom the use of P2F is merely a slice of an otherwise poisonous pie.

Thankfully, the likes of the European low-cost airlines are not in this category because they are able to sift through all the chaff in order to find the wheat. To back this up they generally have good initial and recurrent training regimes and robust SOPs. Their safety records speak for themselves.

[truckflyer]

Gilles Hudicourt:

Unfortunately the basis of your argument is wrong. I too agree P2F is the cancer of this business, however to claim that the people who do P2F are not made to jump trough the same hoops are wrong.

Many of the P2F schemes I have heard about, don't simply allow you in just because you have a licence and the money!
You still need to pass normal selection tests, normal sim sessions, OPC, LPC, Line checks etc.

The P2F has simply made you bypass the rest.

I have heard of P2F guys being chopped for not being good enough, failing to meet required standards. One of the guys I heard about was doing it for Lion Air via Eagle Jet.

So the argument that they are given an automatic pass inside just because they have paid is not correct.

You could claim the same about guys "buying themselves in" via flight schools like CTC, morally there is not much difference, as they are massively overpaying the flight school, but with a "guaranteed" job at the end of the line.

The maths does not work out very different if you consider what CTC cadet pays and gets paid in his first "guaranteed" job.

Some of these flight schools have now cornered the market, making it very difficult for pilots to get inside unless they have experience.

I would think a modular pilot training incl. TR and line training P2F, would probably cost the same as a CTC integrated pilot training with a job attached to it incl. the first 500 of line training with partner airline.

So attacking one minority, does not really hold grounds, unless you put the whole industry under scrutiny.

And with the increased popularity of the MPL with some airlines, you are opening a new can of worms!

[Kelly Hopper]

Well, could it possibly be?

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/airasia-je...--finance.html