PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Global Association of Trainee Pilots: Recruiting Here!
Old 29th Jan 2007, 09:18
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bjkeates
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
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Agree with Portsharbourflyer.

Nice idea and interesting, but it has a few major flaws, the biggest one of which is that you quite rightly say "there are always some who are prepared to pay into the airline's hands." Whether you form your own mini-union or not, there will STILL always be some who will go their own way and pay for the type rating. Competition is so intense that this is just the way it is and probably will be. People already with massive debt that they need to pay off haven't got time to be around complaining about big nasty airlines making wannabes pay - they need a job to start paying off their debts ASAP. If there is a potential opening and buying a type rating will mean it's accessible, you can bet there will be people who go down that road, GATP or no GATP.

Following on from that, your point 6: "...shall be pubicly[sic - !] named and shamed by our organisation and any memeber of our organisation shall refuse to fly with such a person in any capacity." Think about it. You've just invested a fortune including buying a type rating and completed your training, which you're now about to pay off because you've got a job. Are you really going to be worried about a bunch of wannabes - who, remember, are out of work while you're IN work - posting your name on a website? I don't think so. I wouldn't be. My line of thought would stretch as far as "who's the one with the job?" I'm not saying I agree with that point of view, but I bet that's the view many would take.

And refusing to fly with them? It's just not going to happen. You're a newly-qualified FO, you turn up to your aircraft with 200 people ready to board and you find out your captain paid for his type rating 10 years back... are you just going to walk away and refuse to fly? Union or no union, I don't think you'd last very long in the job. There'd have to be all sorts of negotiations to get airlines to even think about accepting the existence of such an idea before anybody could start simply refusing to fly on that basis. You can't just draw up a constitution, march into an airline's head office and say "we're here, this is what we stand for, get used to it." They'd just laugh at you. It'd take years, and a decade down the line (assuming you now have a job) are you still going to have any interest in a wannabes' union? You'll be fine and you've got your career and life to think about plus all the other issues with the airline industry in general; by that stage, I would have thought that the future for wannabes won't be particularly high on your list of priorities.

Also, I'd like to highlight your point 5:
"An audit system shall be introduced to ensure that jobs are awarded fairly on a merit based, equal opportunities basis. A situation where for example the son of an airline's training captain, with 200hrs and straight out of flying school is awarded a job in preference over a current flying instructor with say 1000hrs shall be investigated and reported to the authorities, with appropriate action taken as deemed necessary."

Who says it's all about how many hours you have? That student, straight out of flying school - son of a training captain or not - might simply be seen as far more suitable for the job. Remember, he's more than likely gone through a fair amount of pre-selection before he started his training where as an instructor with 1000hrs who has gone modular might have had none whatsoever. The impression I get from reading PPrune daily is that the jobs market is awash with FIs with plenty of hours and current ATPL passes who are seeking that first airline job - and many will never get it because they're just not up to the job. I suppose you have a point if the 200hr wannabe in question happens to be the son of a training captain, but I get the distinct feeling that your post is more aimed at the fact that the big integrated schools are churning out new pilots who are walking straight into jobs while the modular lot are left fighting over what's left. And what happens if the "authorities", whoever they may be, investigate and find that yes, the 200hr newbie got in ahead of the 1000hr instructor on the basis that they happened to know someone there? What's this "appropriate action" you advocate? The airline being fined? A GATP mob waving banners and flagpoles outside the airline's head office proclaiming how unfair their recruitment is? At the end of the day, it's not going to make a massive difference - that 200hr guy will still have a job, and the instructor won't.

Like I said, it's a nice idea, you make some fair points and if you did manage to get some sort of affiliation with BALPA it could be interesting as to how it pans out - but reading it now it seems unrealistic. You'll never stop people buying type ratings if they want to, nor should you be allowed to - people can do what they want. And how would you find out whether they did or not?
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