Originally Posted by
JOSHUA
So easy for any one us us to preach when we’re already established in an airliner seat, earning decent bucks. Take yourself back to the early 2000’s when jobs were scarce and sat with a fresh licence, all you wanted to do was sit at the front of an airliner and start building those hours to further your career. If you don’t take the job, someone else will whilst you’re sat there hoping/dreaming and still having to pay to keep your licence current.
The regulators and pressure from unions (supported by those of us already established in the industry) is the only way any of these poor t&c’s/pay can be addressed. Otherwise, one can only hope the supply of cadets due to to excessive costs and lack of funds, will dry up - then perhaps improvements will happen......
Early 2000s were not that bad, if you talk about the really early years. Got my first job in autumn 2000 after a six month job hunt right out of flight school. Could choose between two jobs, one with a Fokker 50 Typerating which i had to pay for, however, after 5 years in the company i would have gotten the money back including interest. And the second job was on a 737, type rating fully paid for by the company including accommodation, business travel to the training facility and back, hotel for the first four weeks at the base to give me time to house hunt, some small training pay and full per diems. And that was not the best job out there by far, Lufthansa hired several hundred ready entries that year, as did their regional Cityline and of course others like Hapag Lloyd (nowadays known as TUI-Fly). It went on into the next year and even continued for a few weeks after 9/11, but then came to a very hard stop.
Needless to say, i never paid for a type rating, always got paid for a job and don't think anybody should do that, but i know it is the accepted norm for many new-hires today. Which is why i do applaud ryanairs move to bond the cadet instead of let them pay, which i hope will put pressure on their competitors to do the same.