easyJet/CTC Cadet Pilot Slavery Contract

[cjd_a320]

Current debt recovery pricing is 47 to 53 pence in the pound..

Underwater CTC'ers need to get advice and act accordingly.

[Leo Hairy-Camel]

Ryanair announces Faro tomorrow.

Right now the only way to achieve that dream we all had is to become a CTC cadet.

Dear, dear, Norman. Been at the eggnog already?

CTC isn't the only place to get ahead. Ryanair will hire 400 cadet pilots next year alone and none of them will be flogging warm coffee and cardboard sandwiches. Some of them may well be based at our newest base of FARO, to be announced by our CEO whilst there tomorrow.

Stop naval gazing, bellyaching and whinging for heaven's sake! Come to Ryanair and leave the Orange people circle jerk themselves to death while you gather jet hours and a command in three years.

[FANS]

Hard to ignore the sales pitch

the level of lending was irresponsible and should never have been offered
(or accepted!)

I've always wanted to be a pilot, at the time, I couldn't see anyway I was going to turn down the deal that CTC offered.


Terrifying. The more they say, the worse this all gets. CTC must be laughing all the way to the bank.

[UAV689]

thats so true about calling them cadets - imagine what the paying punters at the back would think when the captain addresses the cabin calling them a cadet, there would be mass panic if he said

" Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you aboard xfactor air where I am joined on the flight deck by Cadet Stacey. She isnt quite through to the final permenant job contract stage yet, if her landing agrees with you you can call 0845 999 999 and dial 01 for Cadet Stacey to be offered a job"

Maybe that is the answer, all captains when flying with a cadet introduces them as such, perhaps the punters leaving in droves demanding the cabin door be re opened will open peoples eyes.

PS - no disrespect to the actual cadets, I know you all have licenses and 100% qualified - I just think if thats what the company calls you thats how you should be introduced to customers.

[Caudillo]

It's grand to see everybody productively comparing the chips on their shoulders whilst Rome burns and the ship founders. Congrats ladies, excellent situational awareness.

Lambs to the slaughter.

[FLEX/MCT]

Never in the field of aviation has so much bitterness been directed at so few by so many!

"Just the same as it is hard to ignore the slick pitch from a time-share salesman?"

Not really the same is it? Considering there was a 100% placement record until recently - you were practically guaranteed a job.

And as for those of you saying we should experience the other facets of aviation - if thats the way the mop flops, so be it. I was prepared to do that - I think you will find most cadets are - but we were offered a fast track to a great job. I defy any of you to turn such an opportunity down (with the caveat of NOT knowing what was coming just as the current folks did not).

wind check there is no need for an attitude like yours - why gloat? The argument still stands for if they made the wrong decision or not but for gods sake we all make the wrong call every now and again. You dont have to be sympathetic but whats the point in sticking the knife in while people are down??

[UAV689]

the awful thing is in 10 years time this cycle will repeat itself.

All those that are currently getting raped for free will be experienced pilots and lose out to the next bunch of victims when the market again goes tits up.

what goes around comes around - you dont get nothing for free.

[Tiger_ Moth]

Perhaps those lucky enough to be in a secure job at an airline should stop laughing at these cadet's misfortune and show a bit of unity.

Cadets can't stand up for themselves effectively because they are offered deals like this latest one individually and with hardly any time to make a decision and if they refuse it (and a lot of them did) CTC just go to the next one until they have enough people. If it had been offered with a weeks notice to everyone they could have got together and rejected it, but this was catered for in it's delivery to them.

The main culprit here is Easyjet management. CTC cadets are the unfortunate pawns. Easy's game plan is clearly to divide and rule their pilot workforce. They want more and more contractors with ****e ts and cs until the vast majority of their crew are like this with no rights and a million people behind them to take their place if they don't like it.

You pilot's with secure permanent contracts (hard earned or otherwise) attacking these cadets is exactly what easyjet want. You are catering to their plan nicely. You say these cadets are ruining your terms and conditions but it's management who are the architects of this as they know ctc cadets are between a rock and a hard place and can't refuse such deals (although many have actually refused this).

It would be far more effective to direct your energies to BALPA to try to combat this in whatever way possible, rather than having a go at these pawns in the easy management's game.

I think a strike against seasonal contractors would be a good start. Sounds extreme but management are not reasonable people. This would force easy to start offering more reasonable contracts. Only catch is the people with the power to strike are in secure employment, they're ok, so they're not going to: and that is exactly as management have planned it.

I'm sure we will see many more "innovative" schemes to further divide and rule the pilot workforce in the years to come.

All pilots should stand up to this now, together as best they can, instead of making scapegoats out of these unfortunate pawns.

[cTcPilot]

Another option for people is to apply for sponsorship with europes largest regional freight airline "West Atlantic Cargo Airlines" who have a base in CVT and GOT.

Im ex-ctc but I have a few freinds who went through the Atlantic Cadetship and I wish I knew about it before borrowing all that money!

If you go to the Multiflights website (The Airlines FTO)! I'll also have you know Multiflight where selected above Oxford, Cabair and CTC to train the airlines cadets. You must at least have a PPL to apply. One of the chaps I know had his CPL and IR complete before joining. I believe they pay for your training, provide you with a cadet salary and a house while you are a cadet and you will also work within the airline when not training.

Back to the topic, for those who can afford it! Go for the easyjet job! For all the others, I know DHL are looking for low houred guys for there Leipzig base and if you are new with a 73 or 75 TR. Jet 2 are also recruiting! And Ryanscare of course

[silverknapper]

To silverknapper, who suggested that someone should "stand up to their debt like a man": have you got any suggestions?

My suggestion would be...........get a job. Hardly ground breaking.
Go work 40 hours a week in asda for £7 an hour. And work evenings delivering pizzas on top of that. Or in a bar. And spend days off working in the local off licence. After all it's what a lot of us did to become pilots in the first place - those of us who really wanted it and not just took a liking to it because it looked easy and hassle free and we got to sit in a nice shiny jet at the end of it and tell girls we were pilots.You just have to have the balls to want to do it and not hide behind lame excuses like the big bad nasty bank gave us the money, big bad CTC are trying to make even more money out of us. Deal with it.
Bankruptcy is the cowards solution. Don't kid yourselves that you are teaching HSBC a lesson, or you are hard done by - IT IS YOUR FAULT.

[UAV689]

i do love all the strike talk, when on another thread everyone slates BA CC for protecting their conditions!

get a job. Hardly ground breaking.

Spot on. for 2 years I have worked for 7 days a week, one proper 'backup career' job and then busted my balls at a warehouse for 2 12 hr shifts every weekend, whilst studing for the ATPLs and still been able to give some sweet loving to the missus when i have a spare minute to keep 'er happy

it can be done, dont get sold a time share villa, sorry i mean CTC scam.

[flying headbutt]

"There is absolutely no point hiring experienced first officers....." until that is the experienced Captain, keels over, incapacitated, crap weather everywhere, way outside experience levels of our new hire colleague who has suddenly found himself promoted to Captain of said shiny jet which he is now flying single pilot ops! Russian Roulette anyone? Why do you think there is a backlash slowly gaining momentum in the US about hiring practices/experience levels in the airline industry? Unfortunately, it may take a smoking hole to stop the rot

[greywind]

My suggestion would be...........get a job. Hardly ground breaking.

me silverknapper's a genius, don't worry lads you can just get a job!

To service the stupid amount of debt we shouldn't have taken in the first place you need to be earning around £25K a year so that after tax you have enough to give to HSBC and leave yourself with something circa £2 a month to feed yourself and live off. That is well beyond a lot of people in the hold pool, especially when a new employer says so what have you been doing with your past two years?

After all it's what a lot of us did to become pilots in the first place - those of us who really wanted it and not just took a liking to it because it looked easy and hassle free and we got to sit in a nice shiny jet at the end of it and tell girls we were pilots.

It's what a lot of the people who went to CTC were willing to do, but they thought hang on I can join CTC and not have to put myself through all that, wrong or right that's what we did. We paid for all the training that everyone else pays for, we just didn't spread it out over such a long period and we took on what looked like a not very risky debt at the time.

You just have to have the balls to want to do it and not hide behind lame excuses like the big bad nasty bank gave us the money, big bad CTC are trying to make even more money out of us. Deal with it.
Bankruptcy is the cowards solution. Don't kid yourselves that you are teaching HSBC a lesson, or you are hard done by - IT IS YOUR FAULT.

I personally agree with you on this one, we aren't teaching HSBC a lesson, they won't care. I'm sure during this recession they've written off more debt than our training loans.

But all this has made me realise why I haven't been on here for a while, not much constructive happens on this forum without it degrading into a tit for tat type arguments of which I'm currently participating in. I didn't come on here to cry about everything, I knew the risks when I took the contract as did every other CTC cadet, but we're here to say right this has gone to **** and it WILL effect others, so what can we do about it.

[UAV689]

still if you want to pay it off you could - thats life.

People get laid off and make ends meet to pay the rent to keep the roof over their kids and they can do it.

Get a 25k job, get a weekend job, get an evening job. Christ become a train driver, they get 45-50k for working a 4 day week! and i bet if you pretended you might be able to kid yourself a virgin pendalino is like a jet cockpit..

Did you lot really think getting a 70k loan for a piece of paper would have no comeback?

This recession has been going on for over 2 years, i bet you entered CTC just as it started? should of bailed then, it really was obvious what was going to happen, and its going to be **** for the next 5 yrs.

Apologies for thread digression, but it is relevent, as CTC/OAA etc have well and truly caused this along with yourselves, pumped to many pilots into the market place, sold them all a lie.

[blackred1443]

reality isnt quite as glamorous


YouTube - CTC UK Phase Tribute - Bournemouth, UK

[siftydog]

Well, rumour has it that 14 have signed this stinking contract and many turned it down.
CTC and EZY have collectively sunk to a new low in forcing living standards back to the Victorian work house era. But no body forced anybody's hands in signing up to this crap.
It's a little known secret; EZY are kind of desperate for crew next Spring. That's right, they're going to be short, and it wouldn't have taken much collective will amongst the CTC hold pool just to all say no to this - a better deal would have been quite swiftly on the table.
Yes, we all get to the stage where getting that elusive first step on the ladder seems to be all that matters in life - I was there 25 years ago and probably would have sold my grandmother for the break.
But I wouldn't have knowingly dumped on every F/O to ever come to the Easyjet ranks behind me.
I'm prepared to stand by the next man in fighting this deal and turning it around from within, I think it merits a fight on pure safety grounds alone.

But sympathy? Hmmmmm.......

[poss]

Sifty I think the fact that most cadets were unaware of this deal until the guys that signed the contracts had done so plays a big role in this. The cadets offered this contract were given hours to decide, a very clever ploy by management to limit the amount of cadets that found out about said deal. No one was able to stand up and fight for better terms because hardly anyone knew about it.

[FANS]

FLX/MCT hits the nail on the head. Why on earth should someone, when presented with the opportunity (and for a number of years it was a near certainty) to get a £40k a year job, say: "Actually, no.

Because the airline world is very cyclical and there's always a reasonable chance that there is no job, and you have to pay back £70k. With no job. And from reading posts, people have had no back up plans whatsoever.

There's a huge difference between servicing £25k and £70k debt and that's the issue. People seem to have signed up and not understood what a huge amount of money this is to earn after tax. It's terrifying.

[Fuel Dump]

Very easy to blame zero hour cadets dreaming about handling a big jet. But there is a very simple way of forcing any airline to stop hiring cadets on unfair contracts: LTCs and TREs, stop doing training! Many of you say you are sorry for them, that BALPA has to react, bla, bla, bla. But you keep going there and being part of the scheme. But I know that this is NEVER going to happen (and Easy management too), because how can you live with 10K less a year? 100K seems so little to me...

[Leo Hairy-Camel]

LTCs and TREs, stop doing training!

.....and good luck with that.