Standead,
Very sorry to hear about that mate, but am glad to hear you at least dont have to worry financially.
In my 'other' life I own and run an IFA business and constantly come into contact with clients who believe they have adequate cover through their employers, but when in comes down to the crunch long term sick pay can often amount to no more than a year or 2, after which you can often be forced to return to work in a different (lower paid) capacity.
Employers on the whole very rarely offer comprehensive employee benefits packages these days, and tend to only be the very large international organisations (or in this case Flag carriers). Max benefits tend to be 4x salary death in service (not incl bonuses, o/t etc), full sick pay for 6 to 12 months (then at company discretion - see above), some medical (Bupa) cover if you are lucky, company contribution to pension scheme (finally salaries are long gone! - and the contributions tend to be around 6% of salary).
For the self employed / contractors, and those employees who wish top up benefits the cost can be supprisingly low (obviously it depends on age and any existing medical conditions). But as a contractor 37yrs old who wants all of the above I would be looking at no more than £150pm for the all the insurances (and that would include max sick pay benefits 75% of income up until retirement - guaranteed).
That just leaves the pension contribution. As a cadet going into RYR, after line training, I would expect income of around £60k pa. So lets take the 6% pension contribution of that. Which means that I would be on nett £56,400, take off the £150pm for the insurances, means that in order to receive max benefits I would be on £54,600 nett of all costs (let me know if I have missed some benefits out? - oh yeh food and drink at lunch time. Well lets say £7/ day over 20 days per month over 11 months = £1540). So we are down to £53,060.
(I am not going to take the line training cost and cost of uniform £250, and change of License to IAA £300, as this is a career cost. So if I was I would have to spread this cost over the term of my career as a pilot. Which currently is an unknown quantity unless I took the normal retirement age. But if I could find a airline who would pay for the TR then they give you reduced salary anyway.........etc, etc )
Now, can someone show me another airline who is going to pay a low houred cadet (200hrs TT) more than £53,060 (with the benefits above) in the first year after training? Because I cant find one.
Cheers