Agreed with PAPI-74, its a raw deal for someone with experience to have to foot the bill for a big SSTR payment when they should be able to naturally progress up to that stage, having worked and earned the potential privilege of flying a larger machine. Its not unsurprising that he feels slightly grieved by the thought of having to pay for an SSTR while sitting next to the 200hr guy just out of school (there is no substitute for experience I am afraid, and I am not being dis-respectful to the 200hrs guys either - we have all been there too)
The kicker about the EZY TRSS deal is (if I recall correctly) that once throught the scheme, and the 23K shelled out, you are fixed on the TRSS initial salary of £31K for the first 5 years. Now that, IMO, is almost as much of a sting in the tail as the 23K itself...