Allright – time to provoke!
I guess the proper thing for init-Refpage to do, would be to go for a job with some low-life semi-legal company in Central Africa or Mongolia. A really ****ty SOP-lacking, tech log-tampering, high-risk job that pays less than mouldy peanuts, finally getting you that divorce. Just like one used to do in the "good-ooole' days". Then, after years of struggling his/her way up that painfully long and winding road, paved with sweat, blood, tears, false promises, hardship and bankruptcies - he/she will finally be awarded that glorious, well-earned position as Co-Pilot. Oh joy. Great idea. Brings a tear to my crocodile eye.
You hear these guys all the time, everywhere: I had to WORK my way up in life! Had me a dozen jobs, I did! Fifteen years of single pilot night IFR, flying recycled rubber penguin **** in a beat-up Zeppelin between Galápagos and Nairobi. "And you try and tell the young people of today that…and hey won't believe ya’ "
How many of you know someone who had to endure all sorts of crazy **** from different FBO owners in every possible shady corner of the aviation industry? I know my share of pilots who had put up with flying a Navajo for free and using their time off to drive a cab (owned by the boss, of course), and the dream was to get to fly a King Air in Rwanda. Because the Red Cross always paid your salary on time, and you would finally get some turbine flight time. Wow. Or was it really that much better to gain experience working for Kato, with a bonding for that Class Rating, while they were terrorising the Norwegian aviation community? Why would anyone in his or her right mind do such a thing just to be part of the transport industry? This business has always been anything BUT fair. It has ALWAYS been more about WHO you know, luck and the will and ability to bend over fast. And look at how the pay scales and seniority lists are made and followed. In which other business do you have to start from scratch, take a large pay cut and be treated like a newbie every time you switch jobs? If paying for a type rating is such an abomination, then why did any of us even consider paying for that CPL+IR? There is no difference between paying for one type of education or the other, since the Government (until about 1998-2000?) refused to provide even the smallest of loans to anyone going for a CPL.
Those days are now over. The days when only a relatively small percentage of pilots got their golden ticket to a handful of top notch airlines, flying business passengers and a few poor sods who had to pay through their noses in order to fund the Right Stuff's insane salaries and pensions. For most companies; not all. And by the way: Have you guys seen the new starting salaries in SAS? WAY below that of their competitor's. The world has changed. Also, the LCCs are flying passengers that would normaly not fly more than perhaps once a year. They have probably created more jobs for all of us. I don't see BA or LH expanding and slashing prices unless they have some competition...
Anyway you see it; it is wrong to blame individuals like Init-Refpage. You cannot blame a single refugee for not having the guts to stand and fight. If anyone has to take the blame it would have to be the unions. Only the pilot uniuons have the power to pull out of this dive. You do not have to agree with me Catans, but check your fire – you are in the middle of a classic blue-on-blue incident…