Devils Advocate
If you re-read my post, you will notice that I do not give an opinion, I have merely informed the readers of this post of a magazine article that they may find interesting.
I can however see why IFALPA find this troubling. There are major differences between the Astraeus/Bond Aviation scheme and the others you make reference to, the word recruited playing a big part. In the case of a typical sponsored cadet, they are taken through a long interview process to assess their ability and potential. Then they are trained, employed, type rated and line trained at the company’s expense. OK, for the first few hundred hours they are inexperienced, but they soon gain that experience and then progress to become skilled pilots for years to come.
In the case of the Astraeus/Bond Aviation scheme, the primary goal is profit. IFALPA’s concern appears to be that people will be in the RHS on their ability to pay up, not their ability to operate. Then after 100 hours they are let go, to be replaced by someone else without ability or experience and so on causing a rolling turnover of inexperience.
I’m not saying that I think the scheme is wrong, but I think IFALPA have some valid points that must be considered.