Please see slightly amended version taking on some of the suggestions.
Also, here are the addresses is sequence so you can copy and paste straight onto your e-mail:
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected]
Anybody have any contacts in the media?? I could see the Sun/News of the World etc. loving some of this......
Dear Sir / Madam,
Rt Hon Sadiq Khan MP, Minister of State for Transport
Rt Hon Lord Andrew Adonis, Secretary of State for Transport
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Vice President EU Transport Commission
I write to you regarding a morally disturbing trend within the world of aviation. This specifically affects Airline Pilots and more specifically those who have recently graduated and carry a mountain of debt (frequently upwards of £70,000). An increasingly number of airlines through their agencies, instead of employing graduates, are charging vast sums of money for new pilots to build up their flying experience. Ordinarily a pilot would be building time on a small single engine aircraft. However it has gone unnoticed in the world of politics and regulation that airlines are literally selling off the right hand seats of flight decks! Yes, pilots can now build up their experience by flying a 150 passenger carrying jet. This phenomena is known as Pay2Fly or (P2F) and costs individual pilots in the region of £25,000 per 150 hours.
Lets remind us, under the rules and regulations of the UK CAA, in order for a UK registered airliner to fly from A to B it must be crewed by two fully qualified pilots. Ordinarily, as the employees of a large UK organisation, they both have to be paid a minimum wage according to British Employment Laws.
However, in the P2F scenario, the inexperienced pilot is not paid at all. Instead he is charged vast sums with the airline claiming that they are providing "training" at a cost and that too to another company (the Training Organisation) who decide to send their own "trainees". This assures that the outsider and accountants sees the whole affair as a wholly commercial transaction.
Here's where they have managed to delude the public, who might have otherwise spotted the illegality of it all... Most people would assume that if it is training then the airline is within right to receive payment. However what they fail to see is that "training" is for the unqualified.
In order to be a co-pilot of a passenger jet such as the Airbus A320, a pilot must under go further training after his graduation. This to gain what is known as a ‘Type Rating’. As a type rated pilot one is fully qualified (but inexperienced) to fly a specific type of aircraft and requires no further training according to the regulatory body's (UK CAA) rules and regulations in order to do so. Sure they require supervision for the first hundred hours but that's not the same thing.
Clearly then, line "training" cannot be used as an excuse for an airline to say that they are providing training services. Especially when they have no desire to employ the person. It is not a form of "training", it is the airline selling right hand seat time for the individual pilot to build experience and therefore avoiding the need to hire a fully paid employee who they would have to otherwise pay a minimum wage. This is happening at the British Carrier BMI who continues this practice despite announcing pilot redundancies. This practice also exists at several UK airlines.
If the airline claims they are truly providing "training" then the new pilot is not qualified and should not be operating a large aircraft with fare paying passengers. There are lots of wrongs with this practice. In my opinion it is wrong from an employment law perspective and also a safety risk. Pilots carry a huge responsibility. Yet airlines and their shareholders seem not to care less if their employees are on a daily basis making their debt situation worse by not earning money whilst entrusted with lives. The industry suffers from poor regulation at the Personnel Licensing level with regulators not having the desire or funds to pursue this great wrong. Experienced pilots are being furloughed whilst inexperienced ones are being offered “work” if they pay. This cannot be right.
The Air Accident Investigation Branch has cited poor aircraft handling skills of such a pay-to-fly cadet as a partial cause of the 5th July 2007 accident to airliner Airbus A320 G-DHJZ at Kos. From his training records released in the accident report, it would appear unlikely that this pay to fly cadet would be occupying a pilot’s seat were he not paying to be there.
I urge you to comment and act on this situation in order to protect jobs and in the interest of safety.
Kind regards,