Greetings HoltCJ,
A fascinating and frighteningly coherent post; I thank you for a most enlightening look into the legal process. I imagine a few employers out there are feeling somewhat uncomfortable by now. I have searched far and wide, by the way, for a reference to the term “encumbent” and have found it in only one place, the “Handyman’s Book of George Bush-isms”. Not wishing to beg artistic license, perhaps less CNN and more BBC these days would serve me well.
There is much food for thought in the comments you have made, and I will no doubt have many questions in the days to come, once the digestive process has been allowed to run its windy course. I would, however, here like to address the issue of bonding. Many airline companies, it seems, have established training operations that function as independent profit centers of their own right. I believe the sum of twenty thousand English Pounds was mentioned earlier on in this thread. A conversion to a new aircraft type costs considerably less than that; a Boeing 777 course, for example, can be had for twelve thousand dollars (those of you with specific knowledge kindly correct me if I am wrong) at a certain contract training center in the United States, assuming the candidate is appropriately pre-qualified. That is considerably less than half the above-mentioned figure, and for an aircraft much larger and more complex than the usual types for which these bonding agreements are entered into. Even when the higher costs of conducting business in Europe are accounted for, it remains a usuriously inflated sum. From the accounting department’s point of view, whether the pilot stays or leaves matters not, the employer profits handsomely. And so my question is, when dealing with bonding issues, do the courts see fit to examine the employer’s actual cost of training, and in the absence of disputed verbal agreements as experienced by your client, would any such process work in favour of the pilot defending with a counter-claim of this nature?