Operators, bonds and free Type Ratings
 

For obvious reasons it's common to see operators asking for bonds in return of paid Type Ratings and I wanted to highlight the following issue: Many business aircrafts are not directly owned by the operators and belongs to private owners who gave their asset to be managed and operated under an AOC. Most of the time manufacturers are including free Type Ratings in their selling prices of brand new aircrafts. I know at least one Dubai operator asking for such bonds while not directly supporting the training costs. I'm just wondering how legal/binding it is to put such bonds when operators are not paying anything for some type ratings... might be usefull to check who's actually paying for your training before signing...

Its a case of, If you want the job then you accept the bond.
If you dont like it someone else will take it...guaranteed!

Owners these days are not stupid. If they have made the kind of money to purchase a jet, you can be sure that they are looking at the operators terms of contract.

We had a similar situation with the bond and upon checking learned that the aircraft owner is in fact party to and reimbursed the bond for his / her future or repacement crew training.

manufacturers are including free Type Ratings in their selling prices of brand new aircrafts.

No my friend there is no such thing as free type rating offered by the manufacturer. := This is just a sale gimic. The cost of type rating is included in the price of the airplane. So the owner who pays for the rating would want to ensure their investment is protected. By offering it for free to a pilot without any strings attached would not be a clever thing to do. At least that is what I beleive.:rolleyes: