Well that's bloody it then isn't it.
How long before the other major regionals M*cair, Rip roaring R*x and the like do similar. Not long. Qlink may initially have trouble sourcing pilots with their scam sorry scheme, but the pressure they would be exerting on other similar regionals to do the same would be intense. As a consequence they will all be doing it shortly and any choice made to progress within the industry will come at the cost of about 50% or your yearly earnings.
Skipp@rs, once renowned for finally being the step out of GA now bonds you for 7K for two years, plus you fork out 7K of your own for the endo. For what, to earn 32K a year flying sometimes unqualified labourers (who so far have spent none of the 50-60K on their job's as we all have), to mine site's earning at least twice what the pilots who fly them there earn.
The rest of the dominoes are lining up and the birds are coming home to roost.
It used to be a given, 15 even 10 years ago that you worked for in GA for a number of years. If you were lucky you got the award (which really is laughably inadequate but we seem to aspire to it). Then you got out of GA into the regionals or an airline. You'd done your time, worked crap jobs for crap people but you knew the trade-off was there. A secure job, good pay and no expectations to pay any more (isn't 50-60K enough to get qualified) so you accepted it, kept your mouth shut and did you bloody job.
Where is that trade-off now? People WILL pay for these endorsements to work for between 32-45K as an FO on a metro, bras or Dash, because it will get them out of the endless day-to-day existence that is GA and it's financial right hand man the inadequate award.
It has to start off at the bottom. Operators not paying the award must be forced to. Then the award itself has to be adjusted to reflect that what we do is NOT unskilled labour (we are paid less than an agricultural labourer or a clerk). Then perhaps people reasonably paid and conditioned will not be so desperate to part with vast sum's of money just to earn slightly more. At some stage we need the trade-off or we'll be 65, forced to retire and wonder why none of us ever got ahead of the 8 ball.
Just re-reading my post, waste of time really, it's never going to happen, these schemes may not flourish, but they will take hold.
Bugger this, I'm off overseas. If I’m going to be treated as white slave labour, I'd rather it not be in my own country!