good on you super pilot, I am sure all the P2F community would love for the situation to be different, but it is what it is.

you must have worked so hard to get you licence, and why sit at home with no job watching everyone else take the P2F chance and get it to the industry.

getting a job and making use of your licence is much more important than pride, if you sit at home and let the chance pass you by, someone else WILL take it!!

P2F is so much more than paying to sit in an aircraft, you gain an even deeper understanding of your equipment, you get use to how an airline works and what qualitys you need to posses, your learn so much!! its invaluable experince.

if your already in the airlines and have a steady job, its so easy to rant about P2F, but what about the guys with no job? what about these guys? no one should be left behind.

I bet there are a lot of Commercial pilots that cannot afford to P2F, these are the real heart breaks of the industry as they have very little chance to make it in to an airline.

The sad fact is pos_init is that people will always be left behind. Do you think there's a job out there as a lawyer for every person on the planet that gains a law degree?

Flying schools will take almost anyone willing to pay. Unfortunately these people think they are somehow owed an airline job as a result.
I just cannot understand how the pay to flyers think they will suddenly be offered a full time contract straight after they have paid an airline to work, it's madness.
It's pretty obvious the outfit I work for could hardly be called ethical, just thank Jeebus that they havnt started the pay to fly route. Yet......

People will be left beind full stop, this is the airline industry not a charity for dreamy eyed pilots.

yes you are quite right, its a creuel world isnt it.

the pilots that have jobs and are living there dreams should count themselfs very lucky.

the aviation industry is similar to other glamourous profession's such as a professional footballer.

there will always be lots of people chasing the dream! I just wish it didnt cost these guys so much money.

get a roof over your head of paid for! see the world a bit! and if there is still some money left learn to fly! :ok:

the flying schools are there to make money, and will tell you the moon is made out of cream cheese.

and again, flying is adictive, like a drug, and you somehow make yourself belive that you will be ok at the end of all the training, a bit like the feeling you get when you buy a lotto ticket! mayby just mayby!!

You know there is even competeition for the P2F jobs now, and some companys are starting to short list!!

I'm sorry I'm a little confused. Can we clarify what Pay to Fly actually is before we start laying into each other?

The fantastic offer which I declined was a 70% contract for which the 100% salary was £45,182 70% of which was £31,627 which was going to be paid over 12 months so £2635.58 per month. All sounding not too bad so far?

So I was to work for 8.4 months and get paid £2635.58 per month for 12. But they assured me that almost all 70% guys got picked up to 100% contracts on completion of the first 9 months but you don't get the £7906.75 back which they owe you for the time you should now be off. Additionally I was to pay for my type rating at £25,000 and be bonded for the line training. They generously offered a 30% reduction in my type rating costs because I was on a 70% contract.

So, and please feel free to jump in here and explain why I'm wrong, by my reckoning I was getting paid £23,720 for nine months work and was paying them £7906.75 + £17,500 = £25,406.75

Overall then that was a net payment from me to them of £1686.75 none of which was tax deductible which makes the sums much worse from my viewpoint.

This was not considered a pay to fly scheme, how exactly? I simply cannot afford to keep a family at that rate and hence didn't take the job. However a lot of guys I know did.

Am I a little jealous that I was not in the financial position to take the job? Well yes a bit.

Do I think that the aviation industry is a better place for this sort of thing? Not really.

You can only do your best and if that isn't good enough then perhaps you need to move on. Perhaps it's time I moved on.

Surely, the most important quality which a professional pilot has to posses is ability to pay airline loads of money instead of actually getting paid for working.

Currently, there is a surplus of wannabe pilots over available jobs. This doesn't mean that everybody will get employed, but the math is simple... If there are 100 unemployed pilots and 10 positions available, airline would hire the best 10 pilots from the list of 100. Or - in your case - airline management see that pilots with wet CPL are [insert more or less polite noun describing P2F pilots] and decides that it's best to allow 10 P2F pilots to pay for 500 hours and then exchange them for 10 new guys with wet CPL...

The sad truth is - not everyone who is finanically able to fund CPL is jet airliner material... CPL and IR pass standards are set relatively low - they are design to test if a pilot is safe, not if one has the ability to progress further down route.

No jobs then blame P2F pilots cos daddy paid for their jobs. You paid for your Flight school didn't ya, didnt you just took an opportunity from another kid who couldnt pay for cpl? If only theres no self sponsored flying school, there be less pilots and all sponsored by the airline, TnCs would be much better, stop blaming mate and kerp on trying.

P2F is one way to go and such guys shouldn't be judged for doing it. It is a difficult industry to brake into let's face it. At the end of the day, the men are separated from the boys at the sim ride at the interview. There P2F doesn't count as all majors don't allow P2F anyway. So guys should forget about it and relax a little. We all had to pay for type ratings at some point, just some guys take it a little further - maybe cause they struggle to fly well......just kidding.

Hunter86 - complete :mad:

The men aren't separated from the boys in the sim, not when they're paying for the seat, that's precisely the problem. It's unsafe. It will all come to a head when there's a big smoking hole in the ground and a public outcry that we let this industry deteriorate to this level.

I've never paid for an interview, cv, sim, type rating etc. Anyone who has or does is a fool and a danger to himself, his passengers, the industry, and my career!

Back in your box..

:ugh:

As an aside, I'm earning a whisker over 20,000 USD per month as an F/O on a wide body, and I put that down in part to the fact that I DID NOT SELL OUT like all the newbies coming into the industry now.

Do you really think that the P2F lot can ever dream of achieving these sort of earnings? Not when they're sending a clear message to the airline industry.... bloody fools.

:=

I don't know why we are looking p2f in isolation. Commercial flying is taken up as a carreer not merely for adventure. If you have spent a small fortune in getting CPL and industry situation has changed, you need to put in some more to get a start anyone who can would do it. Ethics and morality can only be expected cannot be enforced. People with money always are at advantage. They live in better houses , eat better food get better health care. Lament is justified but it is a fact of life. I don't think anyone would give up flying because of principals.

I actually find it hard to believe that an FO can earn 20 k$ after tax - unless of course it's before tax in which case it's only useful for substitution of measuring a certain male organ...

You may not agree with me, but salary isn't everything. For example, you get offered a large salary to work all the time straight to the limits (and sometimes beyond). Wouldn't that be considered as a sell out by somebody who earns 10% less, but has much more civilised T&Cs?

I will say that we as pilots should stop the P2F, but the highest burden lies with the SFI/TRIs and line training captains. If they say no to training people who are not being paid, surely then the P2F concept cannot exist?

Hang on a minute FlyingStone.

1. Your theory about training captains checking these numpties is rubbish for a start. Pressure will be applied as and when necessary by the company, and checkers will be brought into line, or shifted.

2. I earn 20,000 usd a month (total package), pre tax, which is 16% in my neck of the woods. So, I'm walking away with about 17k usd a month (salary plus housing allowance/equity).

Pushing hours, t and c's? I work 12 days a month, 18 OFF, about 75-80 duty hour a month.

Guess where I live in SE Asia!

I'm not afraid to wave my willy around. More of us should. Maybe then these idiotic new joiners would realise what sort of package (!) they should be demanding.

In the meantime, stand by for some smoking holes in the ground...

SFO anyone?

Examine yourselves, and be ashamed. Idiots.

Clam

You keep asking where all the P2F jobs are and that because there doesn't currently appear to be many of them that somehow they do not affect the industry.

You need to rewind a little, Ryanair have been making people pay €20,000 odd for ratings, basically buying a job, which then in turn has such low T&Cs that those people will pretty much do whatever they are told because they need a salary, check out the Ryanair threads, and I fear people in those situations are bringing about unsafe situations because they don't have the strength of character or job security to say NO when they feel things unsafe.

That's a direct result of P2F or buying a rating.

Also the CTC scheme was the same, buy a rating, but then no operator would take you with no time on type, the thinking was then, I'm already in for 20k, I might as well buy the 500 hours of line training otherwise the type rating is lost.

You say people are desperate for the jobs and they deserve a chance and shouldn't be criticised for paying, that's not how a job works, a job pays you and if that job requires training, the operator will train you, by all means bond the individual to protect that investment, but there is no defence for buying a rating or hours other than you want to buy an advantage, that's it pure and simple.

If no one did it, it would die out, but because of all the deluded reasons you convince yourself as good and relevant for doing P2F, it will never stop.

How many doctors or lawyers or dentists pay for a position with a company after they have qualified, why are pilots any different? Its simply because people want to leap frog others and are prepared to pay to do so.

It is nothing short of a disgrace and P2F has destroyed T&Cs and changed operators opinions and business models of what a pilot is, it used to be someone who primarily flew the plane, now they are considered firstly as a way for the operator to make money from.

Pat yourself on the back for that!

Want to come back to Europe
 

Hello guys,

I am an expat in asia, have just about 2000h on a320 and would like to come back to europe.
Could be surprising I know, but, to be honest, I don't think the expat life is for me now.
The thing is, I know what I will lose, but I don't know what I will find. Anyway, even right now, my contract is a pilot contractor, so, not so stable neither.

My question could appear naive, but I have been wondering how is the market according to that experience ? (I have 3000h total, as 2000h on jet, as f/o)

I know it's tough in Eu, but actually I never applied since that, so I have no idea about the market with an experience now.
Apparently this topic does not seem optimistic...but, im still asking.

The thing is I feel not so happy now.
What about Easy jet for exemple ? Or SFI, is SFI in demand ? Of I don't seek only on 320 actually, Im opened for others position (corporate etc) as long as I could find something. I am in the point now that I seek more a lifestyle than a planestyle.

Open for corporate positions? How open minded of you.

Corporate operators generally want hours on type these days, just look around. There are few exceptions. We are the last bastion of civilisation, where most (not all) don't tolerate P2F pilots. Rightly so. Ex airline guys also meet some flack, as many would jump back to the airlines at the first chance. Operators like loyalty and usually reward it handsomely. They prefer to employ other corporate pilots with proven track records.

Don't think corporate is easy either, we can be away from base for a heck of a long time, generally flying with the same guys.

Good luck either way,

Don't do it in 6 months. How can you imagine that in 6 months your can grasp for good the knowledge required to fly a big jet after having flown 100 hours in a C172 ?
I think that this fATPL thing is ridiculous. You should first pass IFR knowledge and CPL knowledge test, then fly for several hundred hours before being allowed to take the ATPL knowledge test.
You shouldn't be allowed to touch the control of a CS25 jet without several hundreds hours of IFR flying experience.
Etc.