easyJet/CTC Cadet Pilot Slavery Contract

[djfingerscrossed]

Close but not quite.

A small percentage will be able to look to their parents for financial help. They'll obviously be bailed out and in some probable comfort no doubt.
Others will work their off to avoid financial proceedings and they'll just about get away with it.
Others, despite their best efforts, will have to seek the protection of IVAs or bankruptcy.

fly_antonov - it's quite something to note your apparent enjoyment of an 'upcoming bloodbath'. I always thought human nature reverted to sympathy for those less fortunate.....
Don't take my opinion to heart I know there are a substantial number of people who favour the 'serves them right' mindset.

Adios - I'm also wondering where people are finding the money for the easyJet placement. It seems they are though with full TR courses. I can't say I blame them for accepting the deal if they have nothing else to go back to. What else for them to do?

[fly_antonov]

They chose to walk that path while they had the chance to take the necessary measures (like I and many others did). Now they should bear the consequences.
Let' s not forget that it' s the fault of those self-centered pilots that the industry has become what it is.

No sympathy for them at all.

I do feel sorry for the BD pilots who are made redundant for this mess, and for frozen ATPLs who did everything the right way and have little to no debt.

[one post only!]

fly_antonov. The CTC cadets who you refer to started training years ago before the industry and the economy nose dived. ITS NOT THEIR FAULT!!!! Why should they bear the consequences? The ones starting now however I have less/no sympathy for.

You blame these cadets for taking out loans and now taking on poor contract jobs potentially lowering terms and conditions through the industry. They have little choice as they are going to go bankrupt if they don't. They are doing all they can to pay the bills. The airlines know this and are taking full advantage. This is not a situation of their choosing. What other option do they have? To go bankrupt and just sit around on benefits?

Well I note that is a option similar to one you have taken. You are stocking up savings as you get over 900 Euros a month from benefits!!! This after a year long state sponsored course. You might go to uni soon and get a degree on benefits. All paid for by the tax payer!!!

I am not having a go but why is it ok for you to take money from a tax payer but its not ok for these cadets to threaten current pilots T&C's. Who does it make self centered?

Neither of you chose to be in the situations you are in. Despite your good results and hard work on your course you can't get on a course to get an aircraft mechanics license.
Well despite these cadets good results and hard work they are being offered very poorly paid jobs.

A lot of what you say is very true and insightful but please show a bit of sympathy for these CTC cadets. There is a difference between the CTC situation, OAA and the other pay-to-fly courses. This situation is not their fault!

[VdV]

Fly antonov = fail

[DiagonalLeg]

Surely the most pragmatic approach is to accept that both sides have to share blame. Extended bouts of hot air and finger pointing isn't going to help or change anything.

The situation the CTC cadets are in is the very definition of get-there-itis. The more they spend, the harder it is to walk away. A rational decision becomes an irrational, destinctive, one. The big players involved know this and are exploiting it.

In the end, entering a course such as this is a gamble. It was a gamble back then and it's a gamble now. If you've saved up your £100k or whatever, you've taken a big gamble with your own money. If you borrowed it, you've taken a big gamble with someone else's money. To try and pretend otherwise is daft. Sometimes the gamble pays off, sometimes it doesn't. That's why it's a gamble.

It's a big bad world out there and naive young people have always been exploited (and always will be).

[Mickey Kaye]

"ITS NOT THEIR FAULT!!!! Why should they bear the consequences?"

I disagree. They should of understood the risks they were taking when they signed up. If they didn't then they didn't do their homework correctly. Markets go bull and markets go bear.

[Zippy Monster]

But surely those who are now ready to apply for a "job" with their CTC training behind them would have started 1.5-2 years ago?

Not so.

Some people who are only now emerging from the hold pool and have just received their first contract offer, started training in July/August 2007. Two and a half years ago.

I agree with you re. the ones who have signed up more recently.

[Norman Stanley Fletcher]

How easy it is to be at the top looking down from an ivory tower dirinking posh wine and wishing the poor people would move as they are spoiling your view. As I read comments from the fly_antonov end of the scale I wonder how they ever became pilots. So many people here despise those pilots whose parents lent them the money yet would only congratulate those who became surgeons following a very expensive public school education. I have been a parent for many years and have had no hesitation in doing everything I have to get my kids a good education. Mercifully that has not extended to pay for flying training, but had that been the right move I would have done so (money permitting!). The bottom line is parents look after their children as if they don't then no one else will. Therefore a pro-active devoted parent gives his children more of a start in life than a single, cash-strapped parent who can barely keep their head above water. It is utterly 'unfair', but it is nonetheless what has happened since the dawn of time. You can hardly blame a parent for wanting the best for their child - that is one of the key things we are on this earth to do.

So do we now deny places in airlines to anyone who went to public school? Or do we check to see if some parents paid off too much student debt? You cannot really blame people for wanting to be pilots - we all did at one stage. I am personally very wary of this 'holier than though' attitude. Mercifully, within easyJet there is a more gracious view prevailing and I trust that there are still some others out there who can see the hideous plight of these new pilots. There again, I suppose fly_antonov was born in an orphanage, taught himself to read and write, sold plastic bottles to passers by to fund his university education and fought his way to the top of his profession with no help from anyone else. After that sponsors queued to be priveleged to fund his flying training due to his exceptional apptitude. If I only I had been so talented myself then it would all have been so easy.

[Zippy Monster]

Spicejetter, you're right. Of course, when the airlines are furiously cutting costs, freezing recruitment and making layoffs, CTC can quite happily pitch up at the door and say "you WILL take these cadets and give them jobs."

CTC expanded the course numbers from 8 to 12 per month back in mid-2006 on what was presumably the notion that hiring was expected to increase. You could argue that was daft, but you can't exactly blame the cadets for that decision. The problems with the economy weren't yet on the horizon. Then of course everything went pear-shaped, hiring stopped, and as a result there has been a pile-up in the hold pool of people from all these courses who would have had jobs to go to but suddenly discovered that they didn't. It wasn't just easyJet - BA stopped recruiting (they've taken a fair number of CTC cadets of the years); Monarch's last intake was 2008 and those guys got laid off at the end; everything generally slowed down, at the precise time the larger course numbers started to spill out of the MCC and into the pool. NOT the cadets' fault.

It takes between generally 15 and 18 months to complete the course up to the end of the AQC/MCC stage. So yes, there are people who have been sitting around in the pool for 2 years plus.

[Zippy Monster]

But these schemes, reserved only for the priviledged few, are actually counter productive and in the long run damaging for the future of their children.

One of the main points of the CTC scheme was that back in the days of the loan being unsecured, it was available to pretty much anybody. Not just the 'priveliged few'. In fact as far as I understand it, as long as you're willing to put up the security, that's still the case. There were/are plenty of people on the course who don't come from massively over-priveliged backgrounds. They're just normal, hard-working people who saw the course as a good way into the career.

The pay-to-fly crowd are destroying the industry

When these people signed up for the course, they were paying for their training. Just like most people have to, regardless of the route they took. Yes, they spent a bit more to go through CTC than they could have done down the modular route, but that's all they paid for. Until recently, the type rating was provided by the airline and the cadets went in on what was effectively a DEP salary reduced to take account of the loan repayments. Now they have been told they have to stump up for part of the cost of the TR. Even then, despicable though it is having the rug pulled from under them, they're still effectively paying for training. They are not paying for line hours - once on the line, they are PAID for their line hours, regardless of how crap the rate is.

But of course, it's easy just to see "low houred fATPLs" and lump them all together as "pay to flyers" without bothering about what's actually gone on.

Your views are correct when talking about people paying for schemes such as ATP/Fly320/whatever they're called this week, or Eaglejet, or similar; however, in the case of CTC cadets, you are complaining about the wrong people.

[Tiger_ Moth]

Fly Antonov,

You are making some very general statements about a large group of people and I don't think you have all the facts.

You say we knew what we were getting into. Well I started at CTC at the start of 2007 and everything in the airline industry was rosy then. Would you have turned down a place at CTC back then when they still had a 100% placement record and you'd still be earning £1200- 1500 a month after your repayments? I admit it is ultimately my responsibility and believe me I am paying the price but I'm just saying it wasn't a stupid decision to go ahead with it. Like someone here said: it was a gamble, but the odds looked good. What in life isn't a gamble? Anyway, I took the gamble and now I'm dealing with it the best I can.

I was unlucky to miss out on permanent contracts by a month or two when everything went pear shaped but then again I was luckier than some because after some time in the holdpool I got a TR and some flying.

You seem to dislike CTC guys because you view them as being spoilt rich kids who think they automatically deserve a place in the RHS of a jet. That is only true of a very small minority of them, the majority are a good bunch. I am not spoilt or rich, I paid for my PPL myself whilst working on weekends and holidays when at school and uni. My parents don't even own their house or a car. When I applied to CTC it was speculatively: I didn't really think I'd get in but I did. If I hadn't I would have gone modular after 4-6 years of saving up doing another career and I would have made it happen that way.

When I was laid off last Autumn things looked grim. It was not expected that me or my colleagues would be needed back and no other airlines were hiring. The bank was not meeting us halfway and it looked like bankruptcy. I was very fortunate to find a bush flying job in Africa which I was very excited about (re: previous statement that we don't all think we "deserve" a place in RHS of a jet) and was all set to go when I unexpectedly got called back to my airline very recently. Africa has been postponed and I'm going back as this is a last reprieve from bankruptcy for me and even now it's not clear what's going to happen. I am doing everything humanly possible to deal with my situation.

I don't really understand why you will be clapping at the "upcoming bloodbath from the sidelines" or whatever you said. What's so good about stuff like this happening to people? Maybe you're just not a very nice person...

Anyway, I wish you all the best Fly Antonov, I hope you fix your attitude but I also hope you find a flying job. Don't forget, we're all pilots, we all have the same dream. What's happening now is not other pilot's faults, it's the situation.

[fly_antonov]

I started flight training in September 2006.

I had the choice to go integrated or modular.
My parents were ready to back me on a 85 000 euro loan.

I chose to go the safe way. Somewhere in my mind I told myself that if a 9/11 or similar situation were to happen again, I could stop anytime, anywhere. It did happen and I did stop.

There is no excuse. In 2006, the situation was not much different than it is now. There was a shortage of captains but no shortage of frozen ATPL' s. Airlines were stealing eachother' s captains but the line for fATPL' s was already endless.

Some lucky guys got hired, many of them were made redundant again recently.

Going integrated was pretty naive back then already, the cost was already 50% higher than modular and it was full time, so now way one could work to pay for the flying.

I decided to go modular up to a point where it was reasonable and decided to wait until there were reasonable chances of getting in without paying for a type-rating.

ME-IR CPL are the most expensive courses, but their advantage is that they can be done in less than 5 months, so I decided to stop and wait right before that stage.

Until now I spent roughly 15 000 Euro. Though I have no debt and my savings account is growing, I am leaning towards taking a different path and I' ve convinced myself to abandon professional flying for now.

I feel that there can be bigger challenges in aviation than to become a desperate fATPL and then just another first officer or captain for the rest of my life.

A guy I know became an industrial engineer, worked several years as technical manager for an airline and recently set-up his own business with some co-workers.
Now he' s flying his own jets (organs transport) for his own profit while his mates who went the pilot route are still waiting for their command.

[q1W2e3R4t5]

A few questions for everyone

I've a fair idea of the offer being made to ctc cadets starting with easyjet but from talking to a few starters and reading posts here there seems to be a difference. Correct me on any of the following

once the type rating and costs are repaid the cadet then goes onto a 3 year flexicrew contract.

For the cadets this is what they believe will happen. What I always feared was that once the costs are repaid then they will be replaced by the next lot in the hold pool. These new cadets will take all the flying so ctc can get repaid asap and so it repeats.

How likely are the cadets likely to have any flying worthwhile after repaying costs.

Is flexicrew the same as the cadets being offered summer contracts to be told they are not required once it's over.

[Gary Lager]

What I always feared was that once the costs are repaid then they will be replaced by the next lot in the hold pool

I think many of us also fear that this is very likely. I also understand that the fact that cadets are only offered contracts which pay them per flying hour means that easyjet could have 1,000 of them on their books whilst only paying for what they use. So the fact that you have a 'contract' does not mean, by any stretch, that you can expect a certain amount of flying, summer or winter. I also doubt very much that easyjet will voluntarily turn off the 'revenue stream' that is cadets queuing up to pay another £30K for their TR/line training just because they have 'enough' - expect to share that flying with an ever increasing number of colleagues.

[systematically]

Sounds like a pyramid scheme (scam).

[rusty_y2k2]

I would love to know what is going to happen to all this when the european agency workers directive comes in to force in the UK in December 2011...

[djfingerscrossed]

The problem with that directive is that is still has a bloody large loophole in that a company can justify different terms and conditions between employees of the same position or grade. How they do this is not important because the simple fact is that they will justify it. Whether this is underhanded or not again doesn't matter. We all know it's possible to get around this.
The directive should have been geared to eradicate the possibility of different terms and conditions between employees with the same responsibilities. Good idea but tough to enforce.

[q1W2e3R4t5]

I thought the deal that the ctc cadets had did not mean handing over 30k for the type rating.

Was it not the case the cadets had completed the sim and were just awaiting base training for the course to be complete.

who paid for this training? was it ctc or easy? if this was the case thats why I would be worried about more cadets coming from the hold pool to replace the first group. once costs have been repaid why would easy give out flying hours worth talking about if they could give it to a new cadet and get the costs back from them so much faster.

what we end up with then is a huge pool of airbus trained, 700 hour flexicrew to join the existing bus pilots with twice the hours.

[kriskross]

Yup.......

[JW411]

I would imagine that you could buy an individual swimming pool to put in your back garden for around £30,000?

If so, it would appear that easyJet has now invented a scheme whereby every single hopeful pilot could just as easily buy their own pool in which to swim instead of wasting his/her money trying to swim for just about every other bl**dy airline in the country including BA.