I always wondered who was sad enough to have nothing better to do at 5am in the morning than to log in here. Still the blessing of sleep appears to be denied me today as I worry over an employee issue so I may as well do something vaguely constructive. My apologies if my arguements now are even less coherent than usual.
I think that ultimately it is shareholders funds that supply all investment but for the purpose of this post I will accept your reasoning that it is end customers. I think the arguement still stands.
The customer is prepared to commit his hard earned money to the airline. He expects I think fairly the cost of his ticket to be the lowest possible given the requirement of the airline to fund its direct costs its investment requirement and make a reasonable profit. If the investment is say a new aircraft, customer A will hope to see a return either directly to himself thru new services or indirectly as prospective new route will hopefully prove profitsble and hence allow fares to customer A to reduce. Either way customer A makes a return on the investment he has funded. Pilot training is I think the same issue. Customer has the right to expect to be given a chance to earn a return on his investment in the trainee pilot by ensuring that the pilot is around to
operate services for a while.
In essence the whole debate centres on one simple point. Does a reasonable employer acting reasonably have a right to require that an employee gives him a return on the large amount of money invested in him before disappearing to pastures new. I have to say i think he does and if you accept this arguement bonding is a necessary evil as the way the industry is at present there are always greener grass over the horizon to attract a pilot with a valuable qualification paid for by his previous employer. If you do not accept the proposition then there is no place for bonding as reasonable employer is not entitled to a return on investment. I have to say that I believe a pilot who accepts training froma reasoable employer then walks out after a few months is acting unreasonably.
IF you accept the above proposition then I think the arguements in respect of new type training in a previous posting stack up.
I agree that there is a place for some protection against an employer acting unreasonably and hence I think your suggestion of some sort of arbitration in contentious cases is a reasonable one and in my view a better one than asking the poor old customer to bear the cost both of pilots acting reasonably ( fair enough) and unreasonably (not so fair)