Pilot or Tube Driver?

[LH2]

Originally Posted by Alycidon

In general, one thing that does stand out is the high quality of the postings from the train drivers, in stark comparison to the often rabid and grammatically challenged rantings that blight every thread on this website, purporting to be from qualified pilots.

Interesting, I noticed that too.

Originally Posted by Full Left Rudder

However, remember that many pilots do not speak English as their first language. So grammatical errors can surely be forgiven to some degree.

Ask the train drivers to make their posts in French and I am sure we would see a few wee errors here and there ;-)

Bit of a non sequitur there.

[macdo]

ALYCIDON, at the risk of thread creep. I was in the last generation that were subjected to training bonds, as opposed to the slave labour regime that the newer pay-to-fly candidates have to endure. That said, most of the new FO's in our company spend 2 years on reduced income, before starting to earn about 45k plus duty pay. So, there is a period of famine, before better times, and in the fullness of time a Left Seat and a considerable raise in compensation. I can't think of any EU medium jet operator where, after training costs are repaid, you would earn less than 50k for a complete years work. Of course, there's the rub, so many folk are on contracts that don't give the whole year and struggle to survive. Even now, the closest we can come to the safety of working for TfL, is to work for a legacy national carrier, such as BA.

Lets not get bogged down in the grammar debate, its been done to death a billion times on every board on the web no matter what the subject is.

[fade to grey]

Interesting debate.
I think , simply, the airlines with strong union input will always have favourable terms and condtions. The rest ? well, it's a slippery slope.

I looked at joining one of the freight TOCs as a trainee driver some time ago but the £17k whilst under training was unsustainable.

Should have joined NR, my brother in law is off to discuss his final salary pension tomorrow...