Originally Posted by
Skippy69
Everyone, let's take stock for a minute.
KA has launched the career of Hundreds and Hundreds of pilots over the years. It's a terrible incident that a young fella lost his life. Those of us that where charter pilots have all been in similar situations and in similar financial positions. It's part of the great journey that is aviation.
These companies are used by pilots and the company uses them. The financial incentive isn't what draws you to work for KA/ chartair/ Air frontier/ Broome AV/ GSL etc , it's the hours. They don't force you to fly or accept their terms when giving you your first gig... Many if not all starter companies have duty days, crappy wages and older frames.
Most incidents come down to pilot error, this is probably no exception, yet this guy wasn't lucky like the rest of us where when we did a skud run or maybe went into some weather we really shouldn't have to get back in time for the weekend, a party or in this case Xmas.
Don't bag on KA and their wages and commercial pressures, all companies at that level are the same.
This is the problem Skippy. Name me any other profession where people work for free, or under award just to 'get experience' so they can move on. What these non award complaint companies are doing, is 100% illegal when it comes to workplace IR legislation, the fact that people are willing to 'take it' is besides the point, it's still illegal !
It doesn't matter if a pax is getting on a 210 in the NT, or a 380 to SIN, they have the expectation that their pilot is trained, capable and properly paid to do that job and duty. The fact that people use these jobs as stepping stones is of no consequence, kids use jobs at Maccas at stepping stones too and Maccas pays people appropriately for the work they do, and in some cases recently when they weren't they were charged, and people were back paid.
The old saying of '
The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept', comes to mind here. If you are willing to overlook dodgy things, and do dodgy things in GA, what all of a sudden you get a decent job you suddenly become compliant? You are now compliant because you are working in a culture of compliance, pilots need to get a pair and introduce that compliance in GA.
It's your headstone not the dodgy GA operator, always remember that.