Life after Lion Air
 

To all of the Lion Air pilots that have paid for their line training through agents , I ask you this ;

Have your colleagues successfully moved on to other carriers ? If so, does your pay to fly experience come up during interviews with other airlines ?

If you aren't being given take offs and landings how confident are you in your skills ?

Are they upgrading you guys or do you have to pay again for PIC "Line training "?

I'm not trying to be condescending , I'm just curious to know what the plan is after having paid so much money ...

with Lion's poor reputation on safety and training.. no airline will touch these poor guys.. they far worse with the Lion stamp on them compared to a zero hr CPL holder.
Lion Air stds on quality / safety / training are very poor and dropping everyday. And this does not help these young boys & girls :ugh::mad:pay to fly is a bad disease spreading all over Asia.:=

Have seen a few got on with Scoot apparently but had to pay for half of that 777 rating (no surprise - that PFT is well known). :ugh:

I guess if you can get significant landings/takeoffs in a 737-900ER at Lion Air over a few years and not put the aircraft in the water off Bali, you might have some good, marketable experience for your next career move... :yuk:

I can vouch for the Fly Dubai pilots, a fair few are ex Lion air.

And consider this point of view before judging any person at any airline, take a look at yourself in the mirror, say you are the best pilot in the world, just because the livery on the outer skin of the aircraft says Lion on it, does that really make you un-employable and a terrible pilot? come on!

It's good to see people moving on from Lion Air, I don't agree with Pay to Fly but you guys did what you needed to do !

On the flip side , I was in the sim with one of these pay to fly wonders not too long ago not only could he not fly the airplane with the auto pilot and flight directors off , he didn't know SOPs or had any idea of how to do approaches. So my question is this, what exactly do you do during you line training ?

Many companies have stopped taking pay to fly people , it's unfair to those of you who actually have the skills to succeed elsewhere but we find that the majority of these candidates come with limited knowledge and a poor attitude .

So they are giving take offs and landings to FOs? What is the CRM like? Do you shut up and follow orders or do you work as a crew to resolve issues ?

Your OP has been aptly replied but it seems that you don't want to accept the reality like many others on this forum. Come on , change the things you can or accept the things you can not, but use your brain to know the difference.:rolleyes:

It's bad to see people moving on from Lion Air, I don't agree with Pay to Fly but you guys did what you needed to do to **** other pilots over! And your friends, family and anyone trying to make a decent living in any profession.

@samju? Accept reality ? I will never endorse pay to fly , these agents are going to be taught a lesson, it's just another accident waiting to happen.

The OP was more targeted to how other airlines look at your pay to fly choices, I know that EK looks down upon it but I wanted to hear feedback from those of you who have gone through it.

I was also interested in your line training / employment experience, You've paid $70,000 plus I would want to get my money's worth and get good TRIs during my sectors that will actually teach me things.

After several bad experiences, the company I work for does not hire Pay to fly " pilot" passengers anymore...:ok:

Paying to work is a choice, and that choice more often than not is one that shows a lack of long term vision and a severe lack of responsibility towards your collegues and profession.

Ps. I work as a trainer for an EASA carrier with the best conditions in Europe for B737 FO's.

If co-pilots are not allowed to take off/land, what if the captain suffers a heart attack/stroke or just not feeling well enough to perform? What then?

Repeat after me.... A-U-T-O-L-A-N-D:ok:

or plainly call "I HAVE CONTROL" and reject :} (TO that is…)

Lion Pilots do share the sectors with captains.

Look a 250 hour fresher is never gonna be fully ready for the likes of a B737 straight out of flight school.

I am certain that the first 12 months must be very hard on these guys, & I am certain that a few would drop out, but after this time I sm sure these chaps are confident operators of the machine.

Wether its right or wrong way is not important, im certain that these pilots have more important career goals other than to keep the readers of pprune happy.

Bad habits do catch up someday.....
Worth a read..Apparently the Colgan pilot, As well as the Pinnacle CRJ cowboys were P2F from Gulfstream airlines.

Airline that trained Buffalo crash pilot fined $1.3M - USATODAY.com

The name or the livery does not matter, But the bad ethics of these companies can kill the unfortunate SLF on board

Also, the Comair flight out of Lexington that took the wrong runway at night and crashed at the end of the runway had a former Gulstream P2F pilot in the cockpit.

@ Zondaracer and VT-ASM, can you describe if these were P2F as well or are they trained in 'your' category' ? :}

UPS Crash A306
or
BritAir CRJ7
or
ANA A320 Tailstrike on G/A
or
Air France A330 hard landing
or
Emirates Tailstrike and RWY overrun on Take Off
or
Air France A330 crash over the Atlantic

All mostly human errors I see.... doesn't really only hurt the 'P2F' guys, any more? Guess your not that immortal really Zondaracer or VT-ASM.... :eek:

That said, most guys in Lion got paid for the flying and only did the Typerating course before, same same as Ryan or Easyjet or Volotea etc.

Not taking away that the Bali incident was with a hardcore P2F guy (paying the Indian agent a fee to work every month during his employment) but his captain was not....

So...now to the point.. Lion Air pilots are from different make/build/flight school backgrounds... (WOW!) some in Lion Air will never move on, not pass a screening ever, stay in Indonesia and be a F.O.

Others did pass screenings, did new Typeratings, did well in groundschool and moved into other airlines :
- Turkish Airlines , about 40-50 guys joined (or are joining) THY in the past 8 months
- Scoot has 10+ guys
- Qatar has a fair share (15+) of Ex-Lion guys as F.O. 777 or F.O. A320 operating
- Hong Kong Airlines / Hong Kong Express has about 10+
- FlyDubai has 10+ on 737
- Jet2.com has 10+ on 737
- British Airways 6+ on Widebody second officers mostly
- Primera Air 3+ on the 737
- Oman Air 3+ on 737
- ArkeFly has 8+ on the 767 and 737
- Etihad 4+ on multiple widebody's
- Norwegian has 10+ on the 737's
- Emirates is having Lion Air guys
- Cathay Pacific 2+ as S.O.
- Air Baltic 4+
- Ethiopian 2+
- Garuda had 10+ guys, but had to lay-off/fire expats two years ago.
- Insel Air
.......etc....etc....

I you can fly you can make it... if you can't you get picked out and get stuck. P2F or not...

i would hardly call that list you made of people who have moved on a success, most of those airlines are crap and not worthy of aspiration at all. youre gonna regret spending $70K to work for free, it will take you years to earn it all back :=

Most of those airlines are crap?

The list from dragonflying did mention airlines like Qatar, Emirates, Etihad, British and Turkish. You are calling them crap?

For who do you wanna fly? Virgin Galactic?

Just :mad: the :mad::mad: up and read on :ugh:

@Dragon flying something
 

Quite an impressive list you got there..
The guys are P2F on the listed carriers as well ?? :}:}
No ? Jeez ! come on !
S:mad:rew up the industry more ! Spread the word !!
Well next step...(Not too far)
Airlines ask you to buy your own plane and work for free...:}
Bingo ! :D
I'm sure Lionair's got folks who have gone in the hard way. No offence to them.
But as attested in my previous posts, P2F has got to stop. :ugh::ugh:

i am not throwing stones at lion air, and i am not trying to be nasty. its the P2F gig i have a problem with. please put this entire idea in financial perspective. spend $70K on "line training" for a few years, on top of whatever you already spent to learn to fly, and then support yourself for the duration of this "training" and you are looking at well over $100K spent, maybe getting close to $150K? and now how about the typical self funded TR most LCC seem to favor, better find another $30K to spend. you are heading towards financial ruin.

i have spoken with guys here at my airline who did that and even with the money we make, they will be paying off massive debts for quite a while. flying a 777 and living like a backpacker!! :yuk: better hope you dont lose your license/medical in the meantime.....

Are you guys actually sharing sectors ? What are the commanders like? Do they let you make decisions ?

The decision making is what I am most concerned with. I will never fly on Lion Air.

Pay to fly will stop , it's an accident waiting to happen , the general public and the media will become more aware and regulators will soon ban the practice.

For those of you who have done well and moved on to other carriers, kudos to you, for those of you who are paying agents in India and have managed to scrape through your training please go get remedial training and improve your attitude!

Fly safe and don't be arrogant , there are so many other deserving people , instructors , bush pilots , commuter pilots and hard workers that are equal in every regard . You are not God's gift to aviation, you just had the financial ability to pay a middle man!

And thereby, making a mockery and a joke of this once noble profession. There used to be a time when pilots took pride in utilizing their skills and experience to fly, for which their fare paying passengers entrusted them with their lives. P2Fs are a joke and a shame to the industry.

So including the ones that went to or are going to Turkish, only about 140 people from Lion Air have gone on to take jobs at other carriers? Considering the scheme has been around for 4 odd years now that isn't a good result. I have been told around 500 people have come through on different programs and around 250 are still there.

I know that the poster is trying to say that you can move on after Lion but I don't count Cathay as moving up! Some of the other airlines I wouldn't want to work for either. As mentioned before Scoot, make you pay all over again so are you really better off

The guys all madly trying to get out from Merpati and the glorious MA60 are learning fast that no one wants them with the questionable safety record, training and useless type rating they have.

Well said dragonfly and thanks for providing the list . Clearly shows that it is non related to pay to fly pilots.

Those who do p2f , some are excellent pilots, just that they have no opportunity to be called up by an airline for whatever reason such as not being local when they are fresh out of flying school.

They took the risk despite all the naysayers and today have move on to world class airline as mention in the thread. Bear in mind that they need to pass all the sim,test and interviews before they are being offered which prove that they have the required standard.

Because they know if they did nothing, they can hang their blue license as a memento and give up their piloting dream and have to change career, burning all the cash they have paid for during CPL. There is no turning back. Getting a job today is so competitive.

Remember and I say again, they took the road less traveled and with their valuable NG hours, they call the shots now and can chose whichever airline they wish to apply.

And pilotchute, the 450 pilots in lion are not only Fo but expat captains as well. Most of the Fo are long gone and a lot are going to resign in the next few months.

P2f or non P2f, everyone has the same interest....to fly. From all sides there are good ones and bad ones. Why should we downgrade a fellow aviator just because we do not fly some big shinny jet. Move on folks....

pilotchute

Whoa! I sense some bitterness there...

Good to see there is life after Lion Air:ok:

Cathay is not moving up? Speechless.

Well if I spent 80 thousand pounds on a CPL/IR and then 50 thousand USD's on a type rating and line training at a very average airline, I would want to be in the RHS at my next airline.

Cathay for a while there only required a CPL and 250 hours to be an SO. If I had spent the sort of money mentioned above and with 1500 hours NG in my book went and worked for Cathay, I would say I dropped back a step.

I applied to Cathay and got through the interviews but have given up on them for a while now. I'm not bitter I am just saying if I had 1500 NG hours I wouldn't even have bothered applying to them at all.

Get it?

Nothing wrong with P2F.

As long as the training is of a high standard. In fact if the financial risk is on your own head pilots will be more determined.

I can't help feel some are threatened by P2F pilots.

P2F is here to stay and no amount of fear mongering is going to stop it. P2F is going to be the norm even on legacy airlines in 10 years. Training will go from being a cost centre to a profit centre for airlines. Money talks, B***sh** walks.

Every person who has the desire and ability to fly should have the chance to be an airline pilot, not just those who can get by the gatekeepers in Human Resources.

I think you need your head examined !

Nothing wrong in P2F?

If this was so great why don't airlines do this directly as opposed to going through sketchy agents ?

Good training ? Here's the thing pay2fly and good training do not go hand in hand, most of the time they just want to get you done and couldn't care less what you learn.

Go get a job the real way , go to the bush, go instruct , go pass real interviews and most of all don't feel you can buy your way through.

PIC pay2fly? You agree with that too ? It's by far one of the dumbest ideas of the 21st century .

It's on the way out , you are going to see more cadet programs , you may get carriers asking you to pay for your type rating but paid line training and employment should and will stop.

Obviously these guys have a terrible reputation amongst their pilot colleagues. Just make sure you let them know how you feel about their career decisions if you ever share a cockpit. One big reason so many pilots are afraid to cross a picket line is because nobody wants to be known as a scab for the rest of their career. Someone who will pay Lion Air 70k to sit in the cockpit and then spend a few years getting bent over by that outfit in order to get jet time quicker than those who do it the right way doesn't deserve much respect imho.

I heard that P2F pilot has been part of management team, training department for some time.. they say he brown nose all the way up to managment and they made him Captain in break record time (within 1 and half year of joining as FO).

Are we talking about the same Mr. T? Apparently, chief of training thinks this Mr.T is very good at his job..

No wonder indonesia aviation have stopped giving out license to expats..:ugh: with TOP GUN ace flying around. I heard he is not loved by the expats to. many have complain that he a S***T capt.

Chief of training thinks he going a good job.. because he is doing the job that no one wants.. glorified office boy. CHief of training dont need to come to office, and see the angry expats and indians.. he can stay at home..

Chief of training, Mr. D , and his 3 deputies, is doing it for extra money. Has the power to decide who's the capt, who's the instructors..etc..
Not even near as a safer place yet..
Stay away at all cost..over 90 jets they operate, with not enuff pilots to fly.
Time bomb is ticking..
There have been more than twice the aircraft went to stick shaker in flight!
N1 didnt react ,the speed was too slow. Luckily, the altitude still high, to recover...:ugh:

Pay to fly, pay to command, pay to instruct , pay to management ! Where can I sign up for the packages deal ?

..Might see a rape case in the future..if CAPT T... doesnt do his job...

tODAy... I heard that a Indian FO molested a flight attendant (grabbed her breast) on the way home to Taman Anggrek in Lion transport. Lucky the driver was there stop the molestation.

What i heard is that this FO see all FA as prostitues and treat them as such. I wonder what his wife think about a rape case..

the 3 Indian NG operators will not touch these P2F guys... so these kids are now in the fire with debt hanging on their heads.. :ugh::=

@ jack for your kind information 7 Indians got through assessment with jet airways and 2 joined spice in a last 1 month. So kindly get ur facts right and then post on this forum.

Cabin crew getting there breast's fondeled by the pilots, tell me something new