B - Sure the scheme doesn't have to be ideal for the trainee, but that it's this low shouldn't just be shrugged off. No ex cadet in the system will tell anyone it's good. The criticism are myriad but similar. Even the CEO of eJ and the Ops Director actively avoid mentioning "Flexicrew". When challenged directly they rolled out stock management answers of "they knew what they were getting into.". No on in the company gives a toss about the welfare of Flexicrew pilots. Rostering will try whatever they want to, the head of pilot management will send out emails reminding people that basically they have no rights in the eJ system, and to even get the remote possibility of a base transfer process has taken over two years and even so, it's rubbish and there's plenty of people denied the move. The company has just forced a bunch of contractors to move to Southend from Luton, Stansted and Bristol, irrespective of the difficulties and costs involved for those pilots. No financial support whatsoever. Pathetic, childish bully boy tactics picking on the weakest and the ones with no union strength. It's a gutless approach to people management.
Use of the word "all" is innaccurate, fair enough, but consider this. eJ is now a feeder airline to others who will take pilots from them at some point. This includes Monarch, BA, Emirates etc. Airlines further down the chain benefit from reduced investment because the trainee paid for everything themselves. That's probably no different past a certain point in the "old" or traditional way of doing things, to be fair.
However, eJ has radically restructured its pilot costs. The cost of the RHS must be on the floor, with almost nowhere left to go, unless they actively cut wages. Actually they are. By not giving inflationary increases each year to either their permanent pilots or Flexicrew, they are continually cutting pilot costs. So, this achievement feeds their cost management "success" and this in turn damages and threatens their competitors who, in turn, must follow suit. This is the race to the bottom. This is what this system enables. It's a key part of it. This affects all airlines in the medium to long term, in the medium and short haul market.
Though you say most other airlines do not engage in this practice, look at what their recruitment status is. Monarch - took a handful of cadets and treated them decently. Now taking experienced and TR's bus pilots on 9/3 contracts but how long will that airline survive? Anyone's guess. Thomas Cook, Thompson, not much doing there. BA - following in the footsteps of easyJet. Outsourced cadet training. Re-engineering their internal pay scales with a threat of using the BMI purchase to create another, cheaper SH/MH carrier etc etc.
The airlines winning this battle are the ones who are willing to get to the bottom the quickest, and they are doing this in a way that is unchecked by the government, the regulators, the unions, the pilots and the trainees.
The notion of not being forced... Once you've walked with a guy more than half way into a tunnel, which way is he most likely to head to get out? Some choices aren't really choices, are they? The real choice is whether to go into this to take all the **** at the end.
When I was in TR at CTC, I bumped into some brand new cadets who were doing their ground school at Soton. They were the first tranche to do that. I was talking to them about things and I asked them what they were told by CTC about the state of affairs. One guy, I remember exactly who he is, told me that Daphne had told his intake that they didn't need to be concerned about Flexicrew because by the time they came out, the deals on the table wouldn't be flexicrew any more. Well, guess what? It is! Flexicrew is in eJ until 2014/15, when the supply contract comes to an end. Then, no doubt, terms will be renegotiated downwards, just like they were last time.