Originally Posted by
nowherespecial
P&A,
Are you kidding?
It's not a job guarantee, it is indentured servitude.
Lets not beat around the bush here, if you have up to $80k of your own for a type rating you can be free of all of this.
If you don't you are asking a potential or current employer to invest hugely in YOUR career with no guarantee you will stick around. That's what the bond is for, it's return on investment. You are both getting something out of this, it's just that the operator is also financing a huge cost as well.
You are an example of the reason they exist. Really? By expecting that the terms agreed to ahead of time are honored. The only time I have left early was when the agreed payscale was not paid. After trying to address the issue for a year, was there any integrity on their end? None! Any agreement is therefore null and void! As GG pointed out earlier on, it hurts a company. Even to a big operator $80k per pilot is a huge amount of money.
HeliMutt also asked a question about why not give type ratings for current staff. Simple answer is that you're then paying for 2 type ratings, one for your current pilot to change types and one to hire a new guy to back fill that newly opened slot. It's nothing personal, it's just cheaper that way. And the situation that results is C*C G****l, where word is out that the only way to get a type is quit and come back, or threaten to quit, to get onto a new type. Attrition was through the roof!
I have asked for a type only once, and in that case I was willing to accept their terms (and it was a quality operator so the terms were much more realistic that what I see now!). Because of circumstance I have been on jobs where the type the customer was using changed, or I have been approached to move to a new type so that the company could take advantage of the ratings I had acquired (on my own). Usually the concept of a bond is broached late in the game, when both parties are committed, as more subtle coercion.
I reiterate my point, bonds are used primarily as an attempt to enforce employment when the company lacks the ability to screen the candidates or the attractiveness to retain staff. Exceptions exist I'm sure.
A VP for a former employer (one of the better) answered my question about bonds by saying (I'll get it as close as I can remember):
We don't use bonds. The difference between recurrent and an endorsement isn't worth it. Retention isn't an issue for us.