Define "full job". Define "Direct Entry". I think you are using terms that totally misrepresent the present situation at best. At worst, you make a very inaccurate statement.

Going to a CTC Open Day is likely to get you further information. That information is highly unlikely to be impartial and unbiased. The quality of that information is partially dependent upon the quality and precision of the questions asked, and heavily dependent upon the interests of those giving the answers.

Flexicrew is not "a full job". Nor is it "direct entry".

It is fixed term (three years), zero hours contracting.

It is not a permanent contract with fixed salary, benefits and full employment law protections. To get that you must land a permanent contract. In the UK, these simply are not available in easyJet.

As a Flexicrew pilot you are not employed by easyJet, you are employed by CTC. On a zero hours contract you will never be made redundant due to the airline not needing you. You will simply not be flown and therefore you will not earn any money. Try claiming benefits with that contract. Try paying your loan back with that contract in a low hour month, or string of them. Winter is cold. Colder when you can't pay all your bills. Try having a reliable second job on a random roster.

Possible changes in the pipeline at easyJet does not improve that situation. It simply paves the way for more and worse. The only way out is to get a job at a different operator or apply for a permanent continental contract if they become available again and you have the required hours, an acceptable training record and can pass the assessment process (which is into its second iteration).

Believing at face value what CTC tells you about its programme is naive. The serious posts on here about this programme, where it leads and the terms and conditions in eJ are generally easy to spot. And yes, they are broadly negative.

A major reason for this is because easyJet has decided to adopt essentially cut throat, short term, exploitative practices against its own employees across all European operations in a direct attempt to lower it's crew costs. It publicly committed to this strategy in the 2011 results announcement to the markets, in it's 2010 strategy announcements to staff and the markets and in it's 2008 strategy announcements, to name a few instances.

The rostering and lifestyle package that the management released is designed to achieve exactly that: more work for less money over the next four years, plus an increasing dependence on variable productivity/performance related pay which will force greater compliance and pliability onto the workforce over the years, while undermining the older pilots T&Cs with the newer guys T&Cs. The Company is re-engineering from the bottom up and the top down simultaneously. It is trying to force the guys at the top to vote in worsening conditions at the bottom by witholding their pay rise until they agree to a total package which shafts the new guys. In the medium to long term, the new guys' terms will come to dominate, and they will be so far behind the old terms that no union will be able to play catch up, least of all BALPA, the union that helped bring in the Flexicrew contracts, has achieved nothing in the last 2.5 years to stop or improve those contracts AND actually recommended a down grading of UK First Officer terms that it never revisited even though it was conned into the down grade.

easyJet growth is slowing down. The business is fairly mature. To get further increases in profits the options must include: cutting internal costs, some of the biggest being wages, benefits and pensions; better network management i.e. deploying aircraft on the highest yield, highest load routes, which inherently requires as much flexibility as can be achieved, a major block to which is people, their contracts and rights.

Trouble is, where else are you going to go?

Oh yeah, they know that too.

People need to digest what’s been said here and not believe the CTC spin. While the hold pool may be "empty" at the moment (despite there being people in it!!!!) it’s about to fill up again as the contract FO's used for summer 2012 will be returned to CTC at the end of summer and therefore back into the hold pool. They will probably be taken on again in summer 2013 when I bet the time to full time contract starts ticking from the start!

At EZY Commands are slowing down. Growth has stalled. There are rumours of things to come which may stop real term expansion in pilot numbers for a few years. Do not believe all that CTC tell you. Listen to what’s being said on here. It’s all good honest stuff.


Well apart from what Razor said about Capt’s/BALPA having no interest in defending cadets. Everything else he said was correct apart from that! To be honest razor it’s that attitude which p***es off a lot of skippers. Many will strike tomorrow to defend them and increase their terms and conditions. To get them in as permanent FO's. If BALPA could call a strike over it legally they would. We are hamstrung by UK legislation. At no point have they stated they do not care about flexiscrew contracts. Quite the opposite.
If people would stop signing these stupid contracts it would change. You cannot arrive at the airline now and blame Capts for this. That’s ridiculous. They knew/know the score. If you don’t its your own bloody fault. You cannot blame Capts for this. Its supply and demand. While lemmings keep throwing themselves at it then it will never change no matter how hard BALPA fight.

I suggest you blame BALPA and Capt’s less and market forces (or the people taking these contracts). Razor, when you started you will have been well aware of the situation. So you signed up knowing the score. How can you blame us for the predicament you placed yourself in???? It’s your attitude that makes Capts think, well sod you then. That attitude is starting to bubble up somewhat and is brought about by people like you. I would still strike to protect flexiscrew tomorrow if we could.

I suggest you turn your frustration towards the real source of the problem not your colleagues. As you probably can tell you have irked me somewhat....!!!!

La Amistad

In response to your post I apologise and recognise that the vast majority of Captains are on our side and are as frustrated as we are over the seemingly permanent spiral of decline in terms and conditions.
Although it is not an excuse my post was made on a day when I had overheard a comment in the crew room about flexicrew 'cadets' which I found at best 'frustrating'. I realise that most people don't feel that way and I shouldn't have vented on here. Apologies.

LOL Im still doing my AS Levels... I went to this open day but I have still got a good few years left of my education. I can evaluate how the industry is doing in this time and see if the T&C's at CTC improve.

I was highly aware of the smoke and mirrors, I was just simply stating what was told to me at the open day. I did speak to one cadet though who stated that he had already had a job offer with monarch and he hadn't even left to go to New Zealand yet. He did tell me the promised "High Tech" facilities are now suddenly unavailable and they have been provided with alternate "crap" housing.

May I just enquire as to whether BA FPP cadets were placed onto permanent contracts or flexicrew? Im sure its stated around here somewhere, but these threads are getting ridiculously massive now.

The BA FPP had absolutely nothing to do with flexicrew. It wouldn't have been nearly as competitive if it did.

I know you young guys will want to believe that it would all work out well going through CTC. If you are even considering it you must trawl through the last year of this thread at very minimum. It's not much effort if you're looking into giving CTC £90K plus a huge cut of what you should be earning should you end up on flexicrew.

Maybe CTC decided to tell him about the 20 cadets that just got selected this week for Qatar, as they were the latest to be selected and have been offered a permanent job etc...

This is indeed what happened. They also tried pointing out that the best jobs are with the middle/far-east airlines as they are expanding massively.

I just hope that they too are disgusted at the potential conditions imposed regarding contract work and start to offer some permenant/Direct Entry jobs to cadets.

Seeing as they're partly to blame for the conditions I wouldn't expect much pity from them.

Aside from 20 cadets going to Qatar and maybe some being able to apply to Cathay on their own behalf, what Middle-Eastern and Far-Eastern carriers are they referring to? It's all well and good saying that there is growth in these areas, but the lion's share of resulting jobs are going to go to nationals going through the airlines' own cadet streams (most Far-Eastern carriers have ab-initio schemes just for nationals, as do Emirates and Etihad in the ME), not CTC graduates.

La Amistad - Some captains care, some don't. How many there are of each, I don't know.

BALPA itself has used the "Cadets do it to themselves... if the lemmings line up, it's their fault... stop signing up for the scheme and it will go away" arguments.

What it has not done and refuses to do is go for representation with the agencies. It has wasted 2.5 years on this action when delaying the effort makes it harder to do.

It does offer support to individual contractors but it has no bargaining power. This is as much to do with its own choice of actions as anything else. It is not trying to get bargaining power.

What it is now doing is going for what looks like an easy win. But at incredibly high future cost. It is trying to actually seek the legitimisation of pay-per-hour contracts INSIDE easyJet, and it is pursuing a strategy of negotiation with the company whereby current permanent pilots may have to vote in such terms while they simultaneously vote for their own pay rise.

Such few words have been written in response to direct questions and criticisms about this scenario as to make BALPA's position on the Flexicrew matter seem lacking.

The trouble is, cadets are the ones with the least knowledge, the least power and the most to lose. They ave a part to play in this, but they are not the only key players.

Real information about how crap the situation is in easyJet is only coming out here in recent times. And it's only a few who post it.

It's easy to know what should be known when you're on the inside, and I can say now that even those on the inside don't all know the full picture.

Hi does anyone know (previous Cadets) if you have to arrange and pay for your transportation to and from clearways and hamilton airport everyday, is there a shuttle every day or do you have to pay for petrol?

Depends, there is a bus that shuttles back now and again, although you're given a hire car from NZ day 1 until the next set of cadets arrive from the UK - this can be around 3-4 weeks. After that period the hire car goes to the next set of cadets to arrive and you need to sort out your own car. Usually a group of cadets will buy a 2nd hand car together.. Average price range cadets pay NZ $ 1000-4000. Although this depends on what you're looking for.

A lot of cars are bought from cadets finishing in NZ by cadets who have just arrived.

You pay for your own petrol.

I'm afraid so, there's only 1, possibly 2 left I think... And they're only really used by either staff, or to transport the Japanese cadets to and from training / shops etc...

To be honest, having your own car (OK, between 2 or 3 of you) is great as you share costs, and if you're prudent you can pick up a cheap deal and not lose too much money, and in some cases make money when you sell ! Sometimes a group of cadets will buy 2 cars between them, and sometimes an individual cadet will buy a car to themselves, it depends on your budget but it's not too much of a headache; plenty of cheap rust buckets about :ouch:

Petrol isn't as expensive as the UK, tax and a w.o.f (MOT) is relatively cheap unless your car is broken, and insurance is very cheap compared to the UK.

Well that's changed a bit since back in the good old days! I suppose an allocation of one car and one minibus per CP for the whole time in NZ was never going to last in this age of financial uncertainty.

That said, that Platz (a Japanese second-hand import on a Yaris chassis, for those who are interested) was by far and away, and without a shadow of a doubt, the worst car I have ever driven by a long way. :p

I remember the days of the Toyota Corolla.......2 per CP, and that's when the CP had 6 to 8 people on it...... Those were the days!

Yeah due to CP's now starting every 2 months rather than every month, they can be larger groups compared to the old system; sometimes CP's can hold over 20 cadets. But after ground-school at Nursling each CP is split into two groups, and travel to NZ a month apart.. So having 1 or 2 hire cars depending on the size of each group for the first month in NZ works out OK.. And then when your mates arrive, you go out and get a nice 1993 Nissan with bundles of "character". :eek:

You wouldn't believe what we got given in the "old days". Highlights included £5000 each from easyjet as a contribution towards living costs that in reality was spent on copious amounts of god-awful beer and strippers to come out to the compound near Ardmore when it was a cadets birthday, and of course the weekly CP grocery visit to Wendy's Burgers. We got 2 Corolla's between a course of 6 and we even got a laptop each. To be fair we didn't do future cadets any favours - the laptops situation was "reviewed" after one too many needing their hard-drive reconstructed after being totally corrupted by copious amounts of dodgy porn that were downloaded on them - one of the lads from CP12 (allegedly) won the medal for the most dubious content - I won't go into details...

We also finished off the Corolla era with some pretty impressive driving efforts, the best being the cadet from CP 20 I think who wiped out 4 cars in one go in the Peachgrove car park after his "foot got stuck on the accelerator" while he was "heading out early on christmas morning" to "go to church". So to all those cadets now having to buy rusty Japanese death traps, I salute you, and on behalf of the offending members of the many CPs' who boldly went before you, I apologise!

Yeah, the good old days sound like a lot more was given to the cadets for the initial financial investment.

In today's climate, you want to make sure that when you buy a car, you get a permitt to park in the Clearways Car Park to avoid the threat of being "clamped" by the powers that be. The problem is something to do with too many cars per CP :ugh: Well either provide cars to the cadets or build a bigger car park :rolleyes:

I'm not surprised that the laptop give away was 'reviewed'. However, no matter how much RAM, or flashing lights, or apple logo's you've got on your laptop these days, the internet connection at Clearways is ridiculous. Or at least it was when I was there. It was somewhere between either completely off, to slower than dial up. And the 5mg limit per cadet a month is laughable.

I was on one of the first CPs into Clearways. To be fair, despite the fact we didn't have it quite the same as BMRR's era (£5000 from the airline?!!), we still had it pretty good overall. There were a few design faults with Clearways and evidence of certain bits being done on the cheap, but generally it was a nice place to be and many of the problems there were caused by the cadets themselves thinking they were 18 and in first-year university halls again, and treating the place like a dump. I remember visiting the place during my second stint in NZ, and it was totally different to the brand new, spotlessly clean facility I moved into when it was first built - and it was still less than a year old. Some people just didn't know how to behave.

That said, ever since the place was built the internet connection was a joke. I can't remember what the bandwidth limit was, but I do remember that the package they had at the time was nowhere near suitable for 96 rooms (as it was then) and they were paying a ridiculous sum for excess downloading, which caused no end of stroppy e-mails and threats to cut people off. In fact, at one point they disconnected everyone from everything except e-mail and 'Tracker', and then wondered why the flying schedule ground to a halt every morning because nobody could do their planning the night before! Even before then, most people were left with no internet from mid-afternoon onwards because the router was put in a small cupboard with no air-conditioning and kept automatically shutting down, and not rebooting until about 1am the next day. I think it did improve after we left, but not massively so going on what One9iner says!

Clamping their own cadets' cars in their own car park at their own residence is a new one though - that is hilarious. And not altogether surprising.

Not sure if the clamping ever happened, but threats were made... Think a "2 car per CP" limit was trying to be enforced when I was there. Some CP's would have a few cars, and the car park became very full. I didn't see the problem though.. People buy a car, they expect to be able to park it where they live !!

The internet issue - we were continually assured that investment was being made to improve the service. It never happened when I was there. The 5mg limit was enforced however, you would be cut off with only access given to CTC email and the ops website if you reached the limit for the month. Not great when you wanted to skype home, although skype was a comical experience with the internet connection anyway.

Like all things, nothing is ever perfect, but the way in which some of the 'problems' were managed was hilarious.

Would any present NZ students like to tell us what it's like now?

My mistake . 5GB:ok:

CTC vs PTC Assessment
 

Has Anybody completed the CTC and the PTC assessment? If so how do they compare? Are they the same level of difficulty? :confused:

Flybe to have partnership with CTC? Looks like it from their website. :ooh:

Does anybody know the T&C for the CTC/Qatar placement. Does the "old" standard 6 months at 1200£ tax free and no upfront type rating payment apply? Any indications of QR taking more than the first 18 pilots ?

I have been in the CTC ATP pool for more than 3 years....:eek:

QUOTE:Would any present NZ students like to tell us what it's like now?

Right how long have you got.

The ground school in nursling is a joke although the instructors are good.
The CBT isnt fit for purpose.
The organisation is atrocious.
The housing in Southampton is sound.

In NZ you get a car for 3weeks usually 3 per CP.
You'll be lucky to get into Clearways unless your a Jap student, Royal Brunei or if you have an airline. What they don't tell you when they sell you it is that they have a Brothel/Crack Den of a place called Peachgrove where you go until a place opens up in Clearways, which is possibly 3-4 months down the line. Its about 10 miles from the airport, cockroach infested and you share this place with drug dealers and other folk (sadly no hookers). The only good point is that its walking distance from Hamilton Centre. Whilst in NZ you spend a lot of time doing nothing so buy a bike, guitar, ball and cup or whatever else amuses you as it can get intensely boring unless you have enough money to do things or drink heavily(which isn't cheap).

But when all is said and done the flying is amazing and very well taught, the scenery is to die for whilst up and flying is what you came out here to do not a holiday.

At the end of it all if CTC get me a license and contracted employment well it was all worth it, if its flexi-crew then It may of been worth it, we'll see.

Go into it with your eyes open, do your research, don't fall for the sales pitch!

Blimey, don't let some of the older CPs hear you talk about their beloved Peachgrove with such disdain! A lot of people held it in great affection when I was there... :)

Does anyone know if they still use Dey Street? Because Peachgrove was/is a palace in comparison to that dump, where I ended up for 3 weeks while Clearways was still being built. I've a feeling they don't any more - what an utterly depressing place it was.

So I was reading through this post and there seemed to be a lot of negative stuff on employment with easyJet as an outcome from CTC becoming a part of flexi-crew etc.

I was wondering what happens with the Jetstar program after you graduate do you become a part of flexi-crew or do you actually get employed by Jetstar.

Also what things are involved in the Aptitude Test and what tests on the Internet would be most similar to the CTC one?

Thanks

Can I take out a possible modular route at ctc wings?
 

Hi, I am eager to know whether it's possible to take out a modular pilot training route at CTC Wings as I am currently training to obtain a PPL. I have had a look on their website but I can only get 'Cadet' or 'ATPL' option. And another thing I'd like to find out is what are the chances of getting a job as a Airline pilot straight after graduating with all the licences. I'm still 16 but I am very keen to find out about this as I'm doing my PPL.

Hi,

I realise that this has probably been covered in this post or in any other posts but i cannot find any using the search function but can someone enlighten me to the difference between being employed by EasyJet and being part of the "Flexicrew" for EasyJet?

CTC and Qatar T&C
 

Could somebody tell me about the T&C for the Qatar deal with CTC.....information is highly appriciated :ok:

Please send me a PM if you have information.

Thank you in advance.

Anyone starting CP100 in September ?

These questions may have already been answered but could somebody clear them up?
1) You have to take a bond of £70k, is this repayed or not?
2) What is the employment like after finishing the course...is it contracts or full time etc...do you have to pay for type training
3) Is CTC better than going modular or OAA etc?
Thanks :)

1) Forget the use of the word bond.

You pay the course fee. If you take out a loan for this fee of £70k+, you repay it in accordance with the loan agreement.

2) Employment after finishing the course is dependent upon the situation when you finish the course. You will have no guarantee of a job, which is true of most courses.

Others can update on the situation today.

3) Best course is to get a tagged scheme, e.g. BA. This question is for another debate.

Welcome to the forums, expect your post to get moved into a different section as you've posted in the "Cabin Crew Wannabes," which isn't really what you are after.

As for CTC and/or becoming an airline pilot you do not NEED to go to university or have a degree. CTC take applicants from 18, but you need to have shown some get up and go in other respects, high grades whilst holding down a weekend job to earn money to pay for flying lessons for example but be a good start. Join an air cadets near you and do as much flying as you can - gliding or powered.

Again, physics isn't essential - but a solid grounding in basic maths and science generally will help with learning along your training. Buy a couple of PPL books (your local flying school can help) and start looking over physics of flight and law to get an idea of what you will need to learn later on.

Good luck - I won't mention the cost, I assume you know it's going to be over £100k already.

Ohh..Flybe doing part sponsorship agreement with CTC and it looks like Qatar is doing a FFP with them too.

Interesting...

Peachgrove was The place to be when I was about. Staggering distance home from town! What more could you want????? These young ones today......:}