companies are in plain and simple terms... "TAKING THE PISS !!! "
Whilst its easy to highlight the difficulties in making money in ANY industry ("oh no we have such big overheads and fuel is expensive and oh look at the insurance costs going up and oh no we have to pay for hotels and eletricity for the office and woe is me as its such hard work with sooo many problems etc etc...") it doesnt seem right that the guy running/owning the business asks his employees to cash flow his business. Put more work in, yes, and even raise the standard required perhaps.
The simple reason is that the guy who owns the business is taking the initial risk by investing in the business in the first place and will therefore reap the reward if all goes to plan... I dont see or hear any operators offering young FOs equity in their business in exchange for them paying for their training. Do you?
If the business guy wants to make money then he needs to know the cost and risk of entering the industry rather than following a policy of risk tranfer without reward transfer. I have seen too many FOs being exploited and losing large sums of cash with little or no return.
And whilst its a cute business move to invent an elaborate P2F scheme to exploit the high number of low houred, young and possibly well funded pilots it continues to undermine and erode the general conditions of the indutsry we work in.
Times are achanging and i hope that this kind of practice weakens out and gives way to a system of where merit rather than cash warrants a position.
