Chesty
You're quite right, we're all grown ups and no one held a gun to our heads. However, when I joined there was ZERO mention of any bond until I got the call offering me the job. By which point I had put a reasonable amount of time and effort into the process. It had been made very clear prior that the half pay was to cover the cost of groundschool. Not great but I knew about it before I applied so while I strongly disagreed with it, no one else to blame on that one. When I questioned the bond it was hastily brushed over as a mere £4500 to cover groundschool....Jet2 are trying to be clever stinging people twice for a significant amount of cash with very little input for TR joiners. Hence the lack of TR people knocking at the door now things are picking up. Everyone else has woken up to the prospect of the lack of experienced people on the market but J2 insists on carrying on wiith these insulting practices. Naive in the extreme. 70% contracts, half pay, no duty pay, unreasonable training bonds for TR joiners. below market rate salaries, zero perks / benefits (unless you're Leeds based where you can get a ticket on then'Flying Tiger' bus for a whopping discounted fare of £4.80 instead of £6, woopeee!!!)....a few may be tempted but it's hardly the way to instil loyalty and longevity into a work force.
Look how CC are treated, £700 training costs for a summer only contract! My point is that responsible employer invests in its employees and makes them want to stay. It doesn't hold a gun to their head with the above mentioned BS to try and force them to stay