Originally Posted by
Officer Kite
Pay2fly programmes are also knows as 'line training programmes', whereby you pay a large sum of cash to a company in return for flying 500 hours or so on a particular type. Some companies that do this are small planet and pegasus, just off the top of my head.
This is not what smartlynx do. You pay your type rating and then join permanently, not for 500hrs or 1000hrs or anything else - you do not pay for an amount of hours, so it's not pay2fly. This is exactly what most airlines in europe do too.
You may have grievances with other elements of the contract, but that doesn't make it pay2fly. Is it the best contract on earth? No. Is it it the worst? No. But that doesn't make it P2F just cos you don't like it. If you want to invent your own definition of P2F then go ahead, but it's rather disingenuous to try to fool those who may not know any better whilst concealing the real truth.
I believe the only person making up definitions for pay to fly is you...
Are you money out of pocket before even flying a single minute for, or receiving a single minute of training from your new employer? You've just paid to fly.
Pay to fly started exactly like this, paying for your rating, and when people fell for that, people smarter than those paying for the ratings decided to make their business out of it and offered 'line training packages' and now 'self funded cadet programs' like the BAA Smartlynx program. If you need to consider it not pay2fly to justify your decision, that's fine. Just don't bring that bull to people who know better.
I'd still like to see what kind of 'conditional employment contract' they offer and if it is really permanent as you say. Even then, is it worth a €100 per day FO salary when you just plunked down €25k and are basically paying your own salary for the first year or so?
This should really go into a separate thread though...
Ontopic... Saw the plane on the apron today, could see the damage from quite some distance. Probably won't just buff out
