Originally Posted by carbheaton
How can you say that you think that the way forward is Bonding and be against SSTR’s. There exactly the same thing. One is deferred to the detriment of your earning potential while the other makes financial sense as you start earning decent dosh much quicker.
Er, I think you have not understood the way a bond used to work. When I joined a 757 job (not that many years ago), I was bonded for £12k over two years. I started on the FULL starting salary of a Second Officer and progressed to the rank of F/O after about 6 months upon unfreezing my ATPL. The bond was reduced by 1/24 for every month of service I completed until it was 0 after 24 months of employment.
I didn't have a reduced wage, didn't have to take out any loan, didn't have to stay at the company in those two years if I chose not to, but if I did leave I paid them back a proportion of the cost of my type training, which was fair.
So from where I am sitting I do not think a SSTR and a bond are the same thing. If I had needed to fund my type rating back then I would have had to borrow £12k and then pay it back out of the same starting salary. I suspect the cost of the type rating was actually significantly more than £12k, but that was the figure that pilots were bonded for.
You see the thing that people seem to fail to realise is that the company are making a profit out of using you to fly their aeroplanes. Never forget that. When it comes to SSTRs and the like everyone seems to negate that fact and just view it as the individual pilot who is 'getting something' out of the deal.
The whole reason bonds were introduced was to be fair to the employer who was investing significant sums in a pilots training. If they left after completeing the rating then it was right that they should pay back some of the cost to the airline, up to the point when it was deemed that they had repaid their 'debt' by way of productive work and revenue generation for the airline.
SSTRs are purely a way of reducing fixed costs, putting the burden on the individual to fund them. Nothing more, nothing less. Why? Because they can get away with it due to supply and demand. It is self perpetuating because individuals start to feel there is no alternative and airlines that don't charge start to see their competitors lowering their fixed costs and hence able to drop their prices more or make more profit, which then leads to them having to jump on the bandwaggon. Lowering starting wages even more is another way of clawing back some more fixed costs. Making people pay for type ratings AND putting them on a lower starting salary is fixed cost 'Nirvana' for the airlines concerned.
PP