Goffel - your post made me think again about what I wrote, thereby my decision to rather delete the post. I do agree with you that Solenta gave many youngsters a bright start in the aviation industry, but it somettimes felt like they were exploiting them in unnessasary ways. It angered me senseless to see good friends of mine having to put up with the crap most of the time. The biggest problem for the guys on the ATR fleet was mainly imparted from Solenta's biggest client - DHL. They were the culprits who felt nothing for the guys and abused them around every other corner. I guess the anger was then played down on Solenta because they were the ones paying the salaries.
In a nutshell, Solenta is an EXCELLENT stepping stone. Many many guys have left Solenta and joined some of the best airlines in the world - including major international carriers. But as long as they allow the guys to work under said conditions, they can not expect loyalty from them - i.e 8 week tours, non-market related salaries (not trying to match what domestic regionals are paying, being on contract should earn you more than a few bucks more), expecting pilots to fly with out-of-date navigation equipment, no proper Jepps on board an airliner type aircraft.
Other than that, the training the guys received was very good and the standard of flying due to SOP creation, matches SA airlines back home.
Yes, Solenta IS a good company to work for in some respects but they could be excellent if they would sacrifice a little from their own pockets and impart happines down to the crew going out to make the money for them up in darkest of Africa.
SOLENTA, why can you not match 5 week tours like ET does and pay the guys the same at least? You will see a drastic improvement in the level of loyalty and happines from most guys and even see less guys leave.
By the way Gunz, I apologise for having shot at you. I deleted the post.
Cheers.