$100K type rating bond???
 

Hi fellow aviators, I had an interview with FlyPelican for a first officer position on the Jetstream 32 aircraft in NSW.

I was told on my phone screening that the training bond is approximately $95,000 over two years pro rata. I assume per the award I'd be liable for 50% of that so around 47k? Correct me if I'm wrong.

This appears to be an incredibly excessive amount of money for a type rating that is only useful at one operation in oz but would it be worth it for the hours in the logbook (told its 900hrs/yr) and then move on once the two years is up?

Any other info on the company and working environment roster etc would be greatly appreciated.

Just hang up the phone...before they charge you for the call as well.
Seriously, that does not sound like a training bond but rather an insurance policy against not finding pilots to crew their aircraft :ugh:

Nope, sounds like they want to bond you for the whole lot, and reduce it pro-rata over the 2 years. The Award requirement limits them to bonding you for half the cost... and if it costs $200k to train someone on a gulfstream they are doing something wrong or someone is getting one hell of a kickback.

That is a really bad deal, and I would not even consider it a genuine offer given the current demand for pilots in the industry.

It’s sounds excessive but if you stay the 2 years it’s doesn’t matter.

Ask for a breakdown of the costs.

Hang up like someone else said. There are other operators who will take you on with bugger all experience and won’t charge you $100k to do it.

Is there a J32 simulator in Australia? If not, it probably includes the cost of international travel and hotel stay for the duration of the type rating course, including those of the check and training captain who may have to come along to tick the boxes.

$100k sounds mighty excessive, the norm (for jets anyway) was always around 30k.

Depending where you are coming from experience wise it might not be a problem in practice. I mean, if you have only 500hrs on joining then you're unlikley to be going anwhere vastly greener inside two years anyway.

You could always turn it down and spend a few more months waiting for something else when you could have otherwise been a decent way through serving the bond.

Think the system is broken .

It’s a big country , the economy depends on aviation , Billions of dollars invested in regional Australia , tourists coming back , population growing and planes sitting on the ground, while managment try to find someone willing to fly their plane that will give them a bonus .

Watch the states to see where it will go for us .

I found Aussie pilots industrial eunuchs of recent. Sure it can go the way of the States?

flightsafety is charging $97k usd for an initial PIC GVII rating with the monopoly they have on the type right now.

Simply a data point for what is being charged these days.

Regardless of the value of the bond, just say for longer than 2 years and the bond will disappear, it would be different if you had to pay the money up front.

Easy was to get the MCC and ATPL flight test done to if you need it, which can be a headache from some if they need to pay for it out of their own pocket.

As far as the company goes, it was great about 20 years ago although they didn’t have the J32s then. Good lifestyle and easy flying although they were only doing PEL/WLM - SYD back then. Pay wasn’t to bad either for the work we did and Newcastle is a great place to live.

For a job that probably pays 300k+. You won’t be getting that flying a J32.

At the end of the day if you are inexperienced it’s probably not terrible if you spend your 2 years. The trap of course is missing a hiring boom at a Regional or QF because of your bond.

I got this info from a mate that was employed by them.

"They do all of their type ratings/ipc/atpl flight tests etc in an actual aircraft, no legal requirement for a sim as it's only a 19 seater. Expect to work max flight and duty if employed with a salary based on 38 hour weeks but generally you're working the limits of the regs for award pay. FO around 55K and Capt approx 79K"

That is likely where the excessive cost is coming from.

Fair enough to bond for DIRECT costs of simulator and aircraft base training, but if they are also hitting you up for travel, accommodation and training staff expenses, they are gouging you. These latter items are standard costs of being in the aviation business, where it is normal to have induction and on-going training overheads. If they can’t absorb these expenses , what else can’t they afford?
Whatever you do, don’t commit to anything that you can’t honour if you think there is even the slightest chance of a change in your circumstances

Say, 10 days in a classroom and 10 hours dual in a J 32 for $95,000? Wow, what a deal!

​​​As RealSatoshi said above, it seems more like an insurance policy for the company to guard against high turnover rates of pilots. At a guess I'd say they don't have any long term pilots given how quickly people are moving through the industry at the moment and this is their way of securing staff.

Ten hours?? Take off, climb, stall, emergency descent, approach, go around, visual circuit and land. Job done. Sign the book, start tomorrow.

Mach E do you still charge $75k upfront BAE 146 endorses for the mob out of Cairns?

Just say “no thanks”, and move on.

IT's a Jetstream, not a Gulfstream.

Not my decision to charge that, as I was a mere contractor delivering the Type Rating. Of course I took a cut, but hey, boats cost money to maintain.
In defence of the mob who charged up front for the TR, their starting salaries were about double what’s on offer for the J32. AFAIK, no one got stiffed on the agreed pay back terms, but the company got burned with a few epic failures who were given additional free training in an attempt to get them checked out.
What the deal is now, I have no idea.

Thank you all for your responses. It seems like a bit of a circus that's best avoided and a 55K fo salary is a bit of a slap in the face tbh.

Do I read right?….F/O salary is $55K?

Just by way of comparison….. $1000/week is 25/hour for a 40 hour week. Basically what you’d get paid flipping burgers or stacking shelves at Bunnings.

Why would anyone want to be a pilot?

Well you have to start somewhere!
All apprentices start the same way. At the bottom and train your way to the top!

Are we calling multi crew turbine an apprenticeship now?

It is if it's your first job and you start right seat.

In the UK cadets step into A320 right seat cockpits to start their apprenticeships - on less pay than the J31 job, too.

Aviation is the only industry that on the surface eats its own young. However, like most things there are two sides to a coin. I recently retired (again) from an operator that employed a dozen ex Virgin pilots. They all seemed nice blokes and I was involved in their training and induction etc. To a man they all seemed grateful for the lifeline, said they would stay and were happy. Fast forward 12 months, all went back to Virgin. Cost the company at least half a million dollars. So guess what? The company now bonds people. Pilots are once again their own worst enemies. It is a vicious circle that could be broken if pilots showed a bit of loyalty. At least give a couple of years to cover costs.

Sure, $95k is a lot of money but I bet you would sit in the interview and promise them you will stay for five years.
In my experience as an employer I have noticed a few patterns:

1/. Those who say they will stay forever usually have applications in with other operators as soon as they are checked to line.
2/. Those who commit to a time frame (18 months) and stick to it usually progress faster in their careers overall.

FlyPelican is a great first airline job. They are good operators working very very hard to make a go of it. $95k over two years? As others have said, doesn't matter if you are staying for two years.

Except that $95k is an obscene amount of bondage for a type rating which is of no use elsewhere. Potential financial stress awaits anyone naive enough to accept this deal (if it is as reported here). A $55k taxed salary would barely cover rent and electricity on the NSW Central Coast. A decent employment arrangement should have both parties reap some benefits from the liaison. This one doesn't seem to offer the employee much - other than a few hours on an extinct aircraft type.
As someone said, it appears to be their idea of a way to handcuff pilots during a perceived shortage.
Is bonding for amounts exceeding actual training costs legal?
How is such a bond secured?

You are probably right - which makes the bond amount even more ludicrous.
To reduce pilot turnover, a smart operator would have a bond representing true training costs, and provide clarity on those costs. Terms to equal or better the Award (which is not all that generous anyway), and offer a decent end-of-contract bonus with a juicy sign-on bonus for another two years.
There was a time when conditions in the commuter airline world in the USA were pretty ordinary - low pay, big hours, minimal annual leave etc. Life on a Dash 8 or similar here was much better. Now the Yanks have seen the light, while we seem to have gone backwards.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f225a9f921.jpg
Managed to get this from a pilot who has left the company so it may be out of date. 🚩🚩🚩

So they charge the Training Captain salary at nearly $30k, presumably while conducting line training... or is that because he is in the classroom and conducting other non revenue work on behalf of the trainee for 10 weeks? And during line training, for 10 of those 14 weeks that the trainee's salary is regarded as an expense, is the trainee not fulfilling the role of a First Officer on revenue flights?
The claim of $1500 for loss of a revenue seat to accommodate the safety pilot I assume means that they run at 100% load factor.
It must be said that they run a tight ship...tight being the operative word.

Mach

Daylight Robbery? How so? They are not asking for the money up front.

It's a cost in the training. If the candidate completes the Type Rating and quits the next day, the above statement describes how far Pelican are out of pocket.
If you quit the day after the TR, they then have to spend it all again.

...but the Candidate does not, you see. The risk is all on the Operator.

They are looking for someone who will commit to 18+ months and I don't think that's unreasonable. Any operator needs to maintain a level of experience in the organisation and a pipeline of suitable Command candidates.

You can say anything you want in the interview about how long you intend to stay (and many will just tell 'em what they want to hear).
To me there is nothing wrong with this arrangement (although the amounts for wages do seem to gild the lily somewhat, I calculate about $20k for 14 weeks). They invest in the Candidate, the candidate gets to fly some pretty decent equipment (better than a Chieftain or a Metro, anyway) and after 18-24 months they are home free.

I understand that professional pilot salaries at the entry level are modest but that's ridiculous, considering they're unlikely to hire someone with a fresh CPL and the amount a candidate would have invested already in their training. The minimums for a non-type rated FO from the ad I could find are:

• 1000 hours of total flying experience;
• 300 hours Multi Engine IFR PIC;
• Hold an IPC (minimum 3 renewals);
• Multi-crew Cooperation Course (MCC);

I hire people straight out of high school in Customer Service who are paid more than that! The average salary in Australia now is around $92k now. Surely pilots can do better than this?

Of course the risk is on the operator, as it should be. It's known as the "cost of doing business" and applies everywhere in all other industries.

Does anyone really think that someone who has spent a fortune and years to obtain a CPL really wants to work for some pissant outfit like Aeropelican for very long. Its a use-use situation

It would be interesting to see if these people claim $97,000 trainiing costs with the ATO for each new pilot. I would love to draw attention to that scam as exposed by 172 Heavy.

I am interested to know if anyone has ever paid a bond or any part of it. From what I understand it's very rarely enforceable through the courts.

Leafy, I am not disputing the right of an operator to bond pilots for reasonable training costs. But I fail to see the ethics of charging salaries when pilots being trained or conducting training are on revenue-producing operations - as are training captains and trainees during the line training phase. The non-revenue costly bit ends at simulator or aircraft base check.
The only additional costs could be the captain's training allowance - though that is really a fixed overhead regardless, because CASA require a certain ratio of training captains to line pilots - and is usually offset by the trainee being on probation pay rate until checked to line.
I absolutely agree that pilots should serve their bond out, or pay a penalty for an early exit, but terms need to be fair.

I'm actually with HL on this, for the most part.

If they'd asked you to stump up the $$ and have it repaid, or similar tot he Rex scheme, yeah, nah, hard pass. But if you aren't prepared to sign up with the company for a minimum two years given the $$ involved in recruitment, training etc, it's not an unreasonable ask that you don'tbaulk at repaying some of the training cost. I get the airlines are always in a state of flux and every new CPL and their dog want's to fly a shiny jet and would sell their grandmother to do so, but I also happen to be principled enough to not jump from job to job every 18 months if a company's given you a FT gig. Casual, perhaps, but FT in a twin turboprop gig? Nope. Maybe I'm a bit old school and out of touch though...

That being said, I do think it's a bit rich to ask you to repay your own salary if you pull the pin...

Take out the $60k salary amount, and you are back at £30k for a J31 rating - which is about par for the course these days.

By George well said! How are you doing by the way?