A Worrying Trend ... Or is It?
 

With the success of airlines like Ryanair and Easyjet it now seems that low cost operators are now favouring the idea of making the pilot candidate pay for their type-ratings. This will normally be associated with a decreased pay scale for a certain period.
e.g. At Ryanair you don't recieve a wage until your initial 6 month period is up.

The question is, Is this a fair way for airlines to act?

The low cost airlines are making record profits at the moment and surely should be expected to fund the type training of their pilots. I understand that airlines have to protect themselves from pilots gaining a free type-rating only to then leave the company, so a bond agreement is not a bad idea. This bond however doesn't constitute a sponsorship, so why are airlines like easyjet making people pay a bond and then reducing thier wages aswell!!

My main concern is that in the past airlines have generally wanted a guarantee of payment for a bond if you leave from your contract, this was possible for most people. This is now changing to actually paying a large amount upfront, further adding to the large debt mountain most self sponsored pilots have accrued.

Now before you all go mad at me for looking a gift horse in the mouth, I really just want to find out others opinions on this subject and whether they feel that they could afford to go down this path.

i.e. If ryanair said you have a job if you can pay £25,000 to us now for the type rating, could you pay it?

I always look a gift horse in the mouth because there is no such thing as a free lunch...:rolleyes:

Who says LCC's pay you reduced wages???? That is not true.

Ordinarily If you are bonded you are on reduced pay to pay back the airlines investment in your type rating.....ergo....you are paying for your type rating...
So why not pay for your type rating now...and leave when you want...

There is no difference...either way You pay!

Prob30 - anywhere else in the world a bond is a contract you sign with the airline guaranteeing that you will remain in their employ for a certain period. You don't hand any money over and you ARE paid a full wage. In the event that you don't complete the contracted period you can be liable for the bond. However, to the best of my knowledge there has never been a successful legal case whereby a company has recouped bond money from a pilot who has left early. Courts have always found that the company is liable for employee training.

AH - it's very bloody worrying! Have a look at Easy's new setup for 500-1500 hour bods. Pay for your own type rating then we'll bond you for 5 years with your own money!

Well I sure as eggs can't afford 20-25,000 quid to do a type rating on 737 in addition to what I already owe, and it p!sses me right off to be honest, to see another big carrier going down that road of charging up front for a rating.

It's not true to say that you're paid reduced wages at normal carriers when you're bonded, they pay you the full amount. It's only Ryan and now Easy that have gone down this road. I only hope and pray that they change their tune in another year or two when wannabe's have a few more employment options.

On a related subject, why is it that the cost of a JAA 737 rating is triple the cost of a USA / downunder one? It can't be the cost of the fuel, like it allegedly is for flight training, because it's all done in a sim of course. :confused:

Prob 30,

Sorry, I don't seem to have been clear enough, I did not mean that LCC's pay a reduced wage as a rule, I was thinking specifically of the EZ Jet so called Type Rating Sponsorship Scheme.

You pay EZ £23,000 as a bond on your type rating training, which as I said I am not against. EZ refunds this bond over your bonded period of 5 years, meaning that if you stay for 5 years you become unbonded, if you leave before the 5 years then you lose any remaining bond payments.

All seems fair so far, many airlines ask for a bond, although most will get you just to sign a guarantee, not actually have to stump up the cash.

My big problem with this scheme is that aswell as paying a bond you lose a proportion of your wage!!!!

Straight from the EZ website:

First Officer who hasn't had to pay the bond: £29,766 per year
First Officer who has paid the bond: £24,766 per year

This means that someone doing the same job who is unbonded gets £5,000 a year more than you. So over the 5 year bond period EZ saves £25,000 in wages. How is this fair, you have paid the bond (fair enough) but you shouldn't then lose a percentage of your wage!!!

This is not a sponsorship, in effect you have paid for your own type rating and as a thank you from EZ jet, they take £5,000 per year from you which they then give you back telling you that it is a repayment of the bond. Seems that EZ jet is coming out after the 5 year period with a pilot that hasn't been able to leave for the past 5 years after PAYING FOR THIER OWN TRAINING, companies in other industries would not get away with this.

Very fishy and very, very unfair!!:(

Yeah but they give you a £1,000 a month back from the bond you signed and never paid for - the bank did.

Lets say you paid £60,000 for your own training then £18,000 for your own type rating.

You owe £78,000 to the bank. You have not received any living allowance during training at your own expense so lets call it a cost of £83,000.

Now if easyJet took you on straight away they might pay you about £7,000 a year more than their own Cadet entry pilot. Thats gross so after 40% tax and NI its actually about £4,000 a year better off if you didn't get in via the sponsorship scheme.

£4,000 doesn't even dent the interest on your £83,000 training investment.

The sponsored entry easyJet FO is going to take home better money than a normal entry turboprop FO in the regionals...

WWW

If you have to pay for your own rating and then start on a reduced salary, then paying for your own rating and finding your own job sounds like a better idea, since you would start on full salary! Obviously the job hunting after the rating would be the biggest gamble but your wallet will be in better shape!

Getting a Boeing or an Airbus rating and heading out to the Gulf or Far East could see you starting on a salary that would be significantly higher than Easyjet are offering non bonded pilots!!!!!

Ryanair pays a reduced wage to those low hours guys who pay for their own rating. The first year was 50% reduced and the second year was 75% reduced and finally reaching full pay on year three with the company.

Money is not everything but after getting your blue book it would be nice to clear the debts before the grey hairs set in! :D

WWW I fail to see how you can continue to justify this alledged 'Sponsorship' scheme. Where pray tell is the SPONSORSHIP?

I believe that Easy management have realised that we are at the bottom of the recruitment cycle. They state on their website that they have enough experience in the company to fill all of the LHS next year by FO upgrades. They are now in a position to look at some of the less experienced applicants to ensure an even demographic spread throughout the pilot body. What I think they are doing is using the current 'bleak' recruitment situation and attempting to harness some of the desperation that exists by offering a so called 'Type Rating Sponsorship'. Smart move by Easy management - they get to lock in lower salaries for the next 5 years. Easy are expecting to recruit close to 150 FO's next year. Lets assume that 50% of those end up paying for their own ratings. 75 x 5000 x 5 = 1.875 mil GBP saving on wages alone! And no training risk to boot!

The ironic thing is that the Airbus purchase deal involved type rating training being provided as part of the package.

Lets see now, we need a licence to apply for a job as an airline pilot. An airline needs Type Rated pilots so that they can fly aeroplanes and the company can make money. Why is it that everyones perspective has suddenly changed?

Correct me if I am seeing this in too simplistic a way, but surely a company that is run in an orderly and efficent manner budgets for training costs?

As a manager of a department in an IT company I had a budget for training. I would use that money as wisely as I could by training new members of my team in using various software packages to allow that person to do their job. Which in turn made the company money. I am no economist but I believe it is what is called Return on Investment. Some training courses were expensive (relatively speaking - obviously nowhere near the cost of a 737 rating) and employees who took courses that cost more than 1,000 euro were asked to sign an amendment to their contract effectively bonding them to the company for a year. No cost to the employee - no reduction in salary.

These training courses invariably made the employee more attractive to other employers, but a little bit of psychology comes into play, by making the employee feel valued, that I wanted to invest some time and money in them it created a sense of loyalty. This was a Good Thing. I just wonder how much loyalty airlines build up in their typeratings-R-us schemes.

The sad truth is, the more people who are willing to only see the small picture and sell their granny to buy a type rating now are going to screw it all up for the rest of us further down the line.

I really do wonder what is going to happen in a few years time, when all these LCC pilots flying 4 sectors a day and racking up the maximum CAP371 hours, are they all going to stay where they are or will the accumulated fatigue levels drive them to other opportunities, and other opportunities, I feel sure, will appear.

Aviation is cyclical as we are constantly reminded, so a little patience may well do us all some good, in the long run. Assuming of course there are those of us willing to wait.

If your financing plan involved finishing training and going directly into a job as a pilot on a jet, I fear you have been a little naieve.

A Worrying Trend ... It is.

Nah [email protected] will pay for a type rating if it is up for grabs, cos I know if I don't someone else will...and my bank manager will get mighty miffed if I start turning down oppertunities to pay back his £60K.

Well I am glad you see the big picture prob30. :rolleyes:

The big picture that I see is paying back my £65K. But taking your advice I will tell my bank man that after all I dont want his extra 20K for a type rating cos really it isn't right for me to be paying for the training because the airline should be paying for it... "Mr HSBC, you have to think of the big picture you see". So I will just hang out for another job more fitting to a man of my calibre that is right, proper, fair and just to all concerned - and not quite as well paid...

Is that what I should do? What do you think the repsonse would be from Mr HSBC???

I am now getting bored of going round in circles on this front so I will agree to disagree and i will stay out of any furhter debate, but will read with interest!! - But don't expect this paying for type rating phenomenan to go away quickly.

WWW - you are doing your tax return incorrectly. The tax man owes you money! You are not a 40% tax payer on a salary of £29,000. And remember, any money given to you by an employer will be subject to PAYE and NI, unless it is a business expense.

I don't know about others, but I couldn't sleep at night with training debts of the size that are mentioned here. I would urge people not to get into debts of these significance.

Since there are clearly a number of wannabes who are desperate to become pilots, and for as long as it is seen as a glamour job, then I guess airlines can do this. All airlines see pilots as a expensive resource. If you can staff your fleet with X% who are not being paid, and are no cost to you, then its profitable, and does wonders for the share price. I can't see it getting any better.

I can't see how people can afford the basic training (ATPL and CPL/IR level) and now have to pay for ratings, not taking a salary for half a year etc. No matter what course you are doing, this looks like at least 70-80K for costs in total. This seems now to be in the domain of those with rich parents, sponsorship, or those who are looking for career changes who are 30+ with sufficient funds.

very worrying
 

It strikes me that there are a lot of wannabees who are prepared to undervalue themselves and the whole profession, whether it be through working for "free" or by supplying their own type ratings.

I realise how desperate the situation must seem for those who have borrowed tens of thousands of ££££'s and are horrendously in debt, but are you aware of how long this debt will take to pay off, without taking into account that you will want to buy a house, settle down, have kids etc.

And if this trend continues it will even put those of us in their 30's out of it, cos the justification to spend ever increasing sums of money on a career change will become impossible to sell to their partners.

Hang on.

easyJet require you to deposit £23,000 to join the CTC operated "advanced handling" course i.e. a flash type rating and assessment programme.

They will arrange a low interest loan for you - unsecured - so that you can make that deposit even if you are stony broke.

You will then start the course, pass the course and join the airline. If you cock up the selection course it will cost you £3,000.

Each year for five years easyJet will give you an extra £5,000 to pay off your original £23,000 deposit. Until it is all gone. Therefore the airine has eventually paid for your type rating.

It is therefore a free type rating which comes attached to a bond of service of 5 years. Which as we all know is industry standard practice(ish). I guess the £3,000 you might lose if you fail the assessment is a risk you didn't have when the airline runs its own interviews, assessments and sim rides. So thats a downside.

Lots of people with a bit of experience get rightly peeved that airlines come up with schemes that mean you must either be a Full ATPL and already jet experienced OR have virtually no flying under your belt whatsoever. OR that to apply you must have come throught the Integrated training system.

Well lookee here folks!

Here is an airline that is looking for 737 type rated pilots. Will consider non-type rated experienced airline pilots. Has a scheme right here for non-typed pilots with no type rating and limited experience ( 500 - 1500hrs ) AND has a scheme for pilots with no experience whatsoever off the street fresh out of school.

They have covered ALL the bases.

You get into BA either as a Cadet or join from another jet airline. You can pitch at getting into easyJet from virtually any rung of the ladder.

Which is what many people have been banging on about for a long time now.

Looking at the reduced salary issue.

Lets say you join with 600hrs under your belt, maybe you were a flying instructor. Year one, £25,000 basic + about £6,000 a year duty pay which will be 70% tax free + profit share if there is any which there usually is. So thats £31,000 which adjusting for tax and ignoring profitshare = about £33,000. Any takers?

Year two. With 900hrs on the jet done in year one added to your 600hrs previous you unfreeze your ATPL and become a Senior First Officer. Basic salary now £32,000 + about £6,000 sector pay mostly free of tax (now at 40% of course) means an equivalent man in the street pay of touching £40,000.

Year 3 rolls around and now you get a length of service bonus of 5% on your salary and not much else changes.

Year 4 is here and lookee here 3,600hrs on the jet and 4000hrs+ TT in the old logbook. Hmmm, time to be thinking about a command assessment... etc.


Now does anyone really think thats a poor deal?

Lets say you morally object to being both bonded and on a reduced wage. So you do your own type rating, lets say an ATP - BACX are recruiting on that type at present. They take you on.

You will not make the money that you would have done had you pursued the easyJet sponsored type rating scheme. You just wouldn't. And you'd have to find about £10,000 for the type rating course out of your bank account. Which nobody will ever pay you back for.

Therefore there is no realistic way to get commercially type rated and into employment on better money than this scheme. At present that is.

For a risk of £3,000 I reckon I would have been mad not to apply for this were I working as a full time flying instructor still.


WWW

www

Very well unless you're over 25 years , 11 months and 30 days old.

Of course CTC are going to try to market this to all other airlines. Could become a widespread thing in the industry in a few years.

WWW

WWW you use the argument that it's better to be in this Easy scheme than paying up front at BACX and being paid less.

BUT what's to stop BACX and friends introducing a similar scheme. You pay for a F27 rating up front and we'll pay you back over 5 years. But hey guess what? We'll actually pay you a lesser salary so that in effect we don't have to repay any of the type rating AND we've got you bonded for 5 years AND all of the training risk falls on you. BONDED WITH YOUR OWN MONEY!!!

Surely you must conceed that companies introducing these sort of schemes are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. I find it difficult to believe that someone in an airline flight crew position would condone any behaviour by a company that lessens the conditions of new-hires in THEIR OWN COMPANY. Or is it a case of "I'm alright Jack"?

Would you continue to argue the virtues of such a scheme if every operator in the UK adopted such? It has also crossed my mind that as an employee of said company your motives may not always be as genuine as they appear. Command assessment coming up perhaps? Toeing the management line? I hope it isn't true.

Grivation - it already works this way. In the first few years with most airlines you are paid less. I am. I got 6 grand more after a year and 6 grand more after another year give or take.

Only the same thing as being on a reduced salary. The low costs don't have seniority as such remember. So coming in on day one with not an hour of jet time to your name and expecting the same money as a fellow FO with a couple of thousand hours just because there is no seniority increment isn't really fair is it.

You say you are bonded with your own money. Well its money you never saw, its money that the airline and CTC got a bank to lend them on your behalf. Which they then gave back to you.

Its only mildly different to being bonded for your training. If I left today I would have to pay my employer the balance of my remaining bond. I don't see how thats different to me being liable to pay a bank £5,000 a year whilst the company gave me an extra £5,000 a year to do so.

Surely you must conceed that companies introducing these sort of schemes are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

Conceeded. Never contested.

I find it difficult to believe that someone in an airline flight crew position would condone any behaviour by a company that lessens the conditions of new-hires in THEIR OWN COMPANY. Or is it a case of "I'm alright Jack"?

I don't see how it does lessen the condition of new hires. Their take home pay will be remarkably similar to historical levels.

As Moderator hereabouts one might expect me to post on the hottest Wannabe topic this month would one not? Especially as there has been a wave of whinging about it which I see as a little melodramatic. If we have an informed debate here with me saying its good and you saying its bad then at least Joe Wannabe gets to here the arguments - huh? (Remember thats the whole point).

It has also crossed my mind that as an employee of said company your motives may not always be as genuine as they appear. Command assessment coming up perhaps? Toeing the management line? I hope it isn't true.

Yeah thats right, its all part of a cynical master plot for my own evil ends. Wouldn't suprise me if it was me that came up with this whole shameful exploitation of poor Wannabes. What better way to impress the Chief Pilot than to be seen pontificating about the company on a website, er, not.

I know a bit about training. I know a bit about airline hiring practices. I know a bit about this new scheme. I'm sharing what I know - you can disagree with me, argue with me, refute and challenge me.

But don't insult me please.

Cheers,

WWW

Apologies - no insult intended.

If we have an informed debate here with me saying its good and you saying its bad then at least Joe Wannabe gets to here the arguments - huh? (Remember thats the whole point).

Agreed. As an ex-wannabe my only intention here is to ensure both sides of the argument get presented. Now back to it -

I don't see how it does lessen the condition of new hires. Their take home pay will be remarkably similar to historical levels.

Yes, but there is more to any employment package than just the money! Easy have in the past employed plenty of guys/girls in the 500-1500 hour bracket. They have given them a type rating and the full F/O's salary. This new scheme is asking for upfront payment, bond period and less (although not a lot less) take-home pay. In my mind that's a loss of conditions.

Hmmm, yep. I would prefer to be taken in with my 600hrs an type rated by them and bonded. Rather than the new scheme.

But I would be more miffed if they were only going to accept either:

a) <50hrs full ab initio sponsored guys off to Kiwiland

OR

b) 1,500hr >9 tonnes or 737 rated


Which was a bit of a problem in the industry as I saw it. You either had to have no experience or loads. If this new system allows them to avoid that problem then I for one will be cheering from the sidelines.

Cheers

WWW

We're all over complicating what is a really simple issue.

Like most things in business, it all comes down to economics. Why should the airlines pay for type rating, or any other training, if employees are willing to pay for it themselves? There's really very little point in taking a moral standpoint on it, along the lines that they should pay because they will benefit. So will you!

I run a business and pay reasonable money each year to train my team - around 8% of our turnover. Some appreciate that, some don't. Some leave the day their training finishes. Some stay for years. If they offered to pay for it themselves, I'd let them.

As long as some are willing to pay for a type rating, and if that's all that stands between them and a job I wouldn't blame them one bit, then the rest of us will have to accept it or go and do something else.

The airlines have long been criticised for bad financial management. On this, I think they're actually operating quite sensibly.

I have been waiting to jump in on this issue for a while so here it goes.

With the industry not being a pilots market over the past 24 months, airlines seem pretty much able to do whatever they wish in regards to employment. As an experienced pilot moving to the UK, some of what I am reading in regards to this is a little frightnening. Asking for someone to pay for a type rating is not right. Asking to bond someone to a type rating is. I think there is a big difference. Here in Canada it is against the law to charge for a type rating and bonding arrangements are quite common. In fact where they stop this nonsense is not allowing airlines to type train pilots unless they are going to be employed. With my former employer I was bound by an agreement which I signed upon employment to protect the company due to my being trained on 4 different aircraft. This makes sense as we all know that a type rating or a PPC is fully transferable to another company. After a specific period of time my obligation was erased. No money changed hands and no reduction in pay was incurred due to my lack of experience at the time.

Where I think people miss the boat on this issue is if you give your word to a compnay and sign a contract, you are making a promise. In keeping this promise you are obliged to serve out your term. If you break this you will not only be in breach of contract with the employer but in my mind possibly looked down upon by other operators. As big as the industry seems to you new folks, it really is a small world and people that P@#! other people off are not easily forgotten.

In my case I do not meet Easy or Ryan's terms as I can tell. Easy wants 500-1500 and I have more, and Ryan wants 1000 JAR 25 which I have none. Where I fit into this I do not know.

In my mind these jobs should be filled with experience and not money as the issue. Here in North America you do not fly a 737 etc. with 200 hours because there are people with more experience to do the job. They move up and you grab the job below. From an operational standpoint this makes sense to me, as a Boeing for someone with 200 hours is not the "Right" fit. I may ruffle a few feathers with that one but no matter how sharp you are, how quick you learn, no matter where you trained, it is a MASSIVE learning curve and simply takes time to overcome.

When the industry starts to roll again and from my guess it will in the next 12 months, airlines that are making certain requests at this time may be forced to move the goal posts again. This includes charging for a type. It would also be nice to see BALPA get involved in this and maybe try and protect young pilots from being taken advantage of. No need for alarm here, just a few thoughts.

I in no way am trying to take anything away from anyone or any orginization. Common sense must prevail here and hopefully the industry could one day come to a standard on this issue. The old saying you do what you have to do is always in effect, but there are limits, and it is my belief that some of these limits are really being stretched.

Good luck to all and lets not all forget to enjoy the easiest gig going!!!

I think its a positive change
 

You know, I think this and the cadet scheme are really big changes. Its right to debate it here and I can understand people's caution, becasue this is innovation.

The cadet scheme is a real innovation. I’ve been around a long time, long enough to remember Hamble. I think this has quite a few things in common.

The second innovation is easyJet’s recruitment policy. I’ve seen many discussions and criticism here about their policy of requiring 1500 hrs + an ATPL & preferring type rated people. This is a radical change – as WWW says, they now have something for everyone. Personally, I think it reasonable that the more you bring to the party, the more you get from eJ.

The sponsored type rating is just that. It’s quite reasonable that a low hours unrated person should receive less pay than a direct entrant.

I say hats off to easy, and CTC McAlpine who ever they are!

It’s about time for some change in our crappy training industry: there would be none if we waited for my employer to come up with some.

I think easy & JMC, and CTC & good old Sir Robert McAlpine have some real guts to do this now.

:D