P2F
 

Anyone knows who and when started this cancer of the industry? I'm to some extent not surprised that it was not taken down quickly but also surprised at how it had been allowed to fester

I know a few who went down this road and they were successful..... But what's the point ? Why should you pay for 500 hours ? The guys who went through p2p did not enjoy it at all . The company treat them like s..... . Do you actually think you it will open doors during this hard times ?

The problem is, you can ban P2F in first-world countries by virtue of advanced labour legislation - but it's pretty much impossible to impose anything close to said legislation upon the third-world countries where a lot of those "programs" take place. And there are always some people who are desperate enough to go anywhere in the world and pay any money for the sake of getting some jet hours. It's another matter how their career advances afterwards. More often than not, it doesn't. Most decent recruiters aren't exactly positive about people of that background.

arrowcapitan

no i'm not looking for opportunities, and I'm against them. I did not pay for my hours and type. I got paid for my work, every single one of my hours and was pretty good pay.(Pre-COVID).

I'm wondering why was those businesses not taken down before the T&C of the industry got ruined and who started it?

I’ve been around long enough to see a few cycles play out. I don’t think you can put the P2F genie back; but we should work on defending and improving pay and benefits once properly employed.
aviation will always attract people prepared to do whatever it takes to get a foot on the ladder.
certainly in the US, pre apocalypse; things were looking very good for new entrants. Things will improve again.

It’s been around since day 1. If you pay for your licence then get a job, you’ve paid to fly. Had no one ever, ever done this then everything would be fully paid from day 1.

The only way to not pay to fly is join the military and then jump across into an airline that pays for the type ratings.

Emerged in the UK during the 90's when I recall a N reg operator LET-410 out of East Midlands had P2F for the then CAA CPL/IR / fATPL holders, in those days was a rarity although the ubiquitous EagleJet did have a 737 programme. It took off during the 00's, and just a few years ago their website had P2F 747 Captain vacancies advertised (wtf).

Hopefully this pandemic has killed them off.

If I ever saw 500-1500 TT 737/A320 with a Indonesian or North African operator, and a western name it wouldn't take me long to put 1+1 together., like a second, unfortunately though didn't a UK LoCo have similar?

For the UK LoCo, that was a one-off stint. It wasn't anything large-scale, 15 guys total or thereabout. Generally, the P2F plague isn't exactly widespread in Europe. If and when there are cases of it, they are usually with some small and not exactly well-known operators from Eastern Europe. Most of the time, the "line training provider" would be located in other parts of the world where local labour regulations (or lack thereof) allow for all sorts of dodgy setups.

The question is also where does it stop? To a certain extend I can understand a new pilot who has no possibility to land a job other than P2F. But now we have a guy in my company that paid his own TRI in order to advance up the chain quicker and join as a Direct Entry TRI. That is just sick imho

Bit more detail here
https://www.pprune.org/interviews-jo...fightback.html

PilotLZ

i would say that the P2F have gone through europe and found its way further south and east to asia & africa. The P2F companies are running out of europe afaik and only in the recent time moving out to east & south

I recall P2F being alive and well in the US of A back in the nineties. People would sit in the RHS of large twins, TPs and high performance biz jets without a type rating. An FAA CPL was all that was required to fulfill the insurance requirements of a two crew operation. The FO flew off the ATP and IR privileges of the skipper. It started out with the FO getting paid a "token" living allowance and then as its popularity grew it morphed into various schemes where you purchased hours for the privilege of sitting in the RHS. Outfits like Eagle then came along and upped the ante with large jets. It was all very murky and depending on your national authority it could work for some. Kinda like the people that hired twin pistons with one under the hood and the other acting as safety pilot but both logging hours under FAA rules.

The P2F was particularly attractive in Florida with all of the foreign pilots that were able to undertake UK CAA training and then cross credit to the FAA. This was before EASA came along and put an end to it all.

BAA training also guides you into P2F

Would that still be true though? I'm looking for such information in 2022. Any taker would help more than (s)he imagines...