Training bonds - enforceable or not?
 

Hi all,

I'm sure most of us at some stage in our career have found ourselves in the clutches of a training bond. Through many discussions with some of my colleagues and friends from other airlines, it seems there are many different ways in which companies word their terms of such bonds. I was wondering if i could get your views on the legality the following:

• Bonding for 2 aircraft types at the same time (and whether you have ever challenged this)
• Non-reducing bond with time (and if you have tried to leave within the specified time frame)
• Whether or not an airline can enforce a bond if they have not stuck to/changed the terms of their contract

I'd love to hear from anyone who has any experience of leaving within the time frame of their bond and whether they were able to get out of paying the cost or otherwise?

Thanks!

I left my first airline within the 3 year / £15000 bond. They came after me for the remainder of the bond and I asked the for a break down of my training costs. They attempted , with landing fees, GPU, ground handling fees etc etc but would never divulge the hourly cost of the aircraft. My solicitor told them to go away and they did......

And then people wonder why some companies charge in advance.

Seems that some cannot keep to the terms they signed.

True cost of a type rating with hotel accomodation, three weeks of ground school and 10 4 hour FFS sessions would I think still be be about £10,000 or so. Any more is just profiteering. As to bonds. I joined my last company DEC and type rated and experienced. £4,000 over two years. Covered OCC and 4 Sim sessions. Can't complain at all.

Like any contract, it doesn't matter whether it is enforceable or not........all that matters is who is prepared to spend the most in legal fees.

Generally, repudiating a training bond is bad form and there is a good chance it will bite you in the backside later down the line, no matter how right you are. That said, I see no problem contesting an unreasonable bond as long as you engage through the proper channels and don't just bail.

I might also point out I did get my way with a non-reducing training bond once. There was a bit of legal wrangling for 3 years and we eventually settled out of court for a pro-rata amount which was what I had offered when I left.

I am not a lawyer nor particularly aufait with EU law but you can google liquidated damages. A bond is form of pre-agreed damages(damages = adverse consequences of your ending your contract converted to financial terms). There could also be a penalty clause in order to deter your non-performance but a company would have a hard time using such a clause to deter your leaving. The aim of the contract is to determine reparation for the company when you leave before they have extracted their pound of flesh. In this matter common law may well render any non-reducing penalty as void and would probably impose a pro-rata settlement as that is reasonable. Of course you should consult an attorney as these thing differ from country to country.

Under EU law you can be bond for training costs up to two years and it has to be pro-rata (decrease with time).
If you ask for a leave of absence the bond stalls until you return.

But it's my understanding that if the training is a sinequanon requisite for you to work for the company, the bond is not valid.
For instance I understand you cannot be bond for the OCC, or when you join a flight school for the instructor standardisation.

A type rating is a grey area and I guess it depends on the country, judge, and how good your lawyer is presenting the case.

Having said that, if I was working for an honest corporation and I left because I found something better I would honor the agreement.

I left a company (it probably wouldn’t take much searching through my post history to figure out which one) in 2012. Let’s call it company A. I paid off my remaining training bond.

When my airline collapsed in 2017, Company A were one of the first to phone me & offer a job. Can’t help but think if I’d left sticking 2 fingers at them and asking them to chase me, they might not have been so keen.

Despite appearances, it’s a small industry at times. Go careful.

So 5 weeks hotel assuming UK as you quote GBP would cost around GBP 3K. If an ATO can be accused of profiteering charging GBP7K+ for a TR I would be amazed

Bonds
 

arketip

Maybe if companies invested in people and accepted training as part and parcel of doing business then this would not happen. Expecting people to be liable for the costs of the very business the company went into to make money off is ridiculous.

The pilot already paid for his training to get a licence, the company must pay for training within their own organisation and if they cant afford it then they should not be in business.

Bonding and asking for pilots to pay for type ratings should be outlawed period!!

A tricky subject!

I have worked out several bonds and they have varied significantly in style.

The first one was quite clever: A three-year bank loan in my name was arranged by the airline and paid to the airline to cover the type-rating training costs, with the airline making the monthly repayments, stating from the date of the loan, while I worked for the airline. If I left the airline, the repayments from then on were my responsibility (they did have some protection, maybe their own insurance, that if the airline went bust the loan would be paid off so no more liability for me).

The second one was more thought-out: The bond agreement itemised the costs of all of the training with the date of commencement of the bond being the date that I got the type on my licence; the situation that Barcli mentioned could not happen there as their lawyers had already thought that out. (I needed to have a witness to my signature on the agreement and my non-flying friend who did so found the concept and figure to be eye-watering!).

In both airlines any new type-rating bond would cancel any existing bonds.

Subsequent bonds have been far less thought out and I am convinced that could easily have led to the 'get out' that Barcli mentioned. There are also some rather 'woolly' terms, such as when the bond starts, that could also be contested (neither of my first two bonds left that sort of 'fuzzy' loophole).

But this is a small industry. Think very carefully about the situation that thetimesreader84 mentions. (I have been employed by the same Flight Ops Director in two different airlines about 4 years apart, so you don't want to muddy waters behind you!) But that goes two ways too: I have had an airline manager say to me "We don't know the management at xyz, but we know about the management at xyz"! I knew two pilots who 'jumped' very harsh bonds (huge amounts for a very long time) abroad, they both ended up in jobs in major UK airlines and at their interviews each has 'come clean'and said that they had jumped this bond and in both cases had the answer "yes, we know"!! So it does work both ways.

srjumbo747

I would have done exactly that if the bond was reasonable - it was £25k for some groundschool, no sim , 45 min base check ( ok - empty) and 4 hrs flying the line ( obv not empty !!) in a 1950's turboprop......

Well I guess when you have signed for it you have considered it reasonable, otherwise why did you went for it? And then all of a sudden it become unreasonable. This way of thinking and behaviour is very common and this is exactly the reason why the bonds are there. A typical direct cost of type rating to airline is above 25k (name it $ or EUR) for a narrowbody jet when you really account for all the elements and here I am not counting the expenses of line training and pilot salary during the type rating course if applicable.

Did you not know it was like that when you signed?

arketip

Whilst I take your point that an agreement is an agreement, this is clearly predatory behaviour by the employer. Fortunately common law protects us from ourselves. A training bond represents actual damages suffered by an employer - a punitive/deterrent or profit motive should not form part of such an agreement. Vultures that employ tactics like this deserve to have their contracts taken on review.......I believe most of the employers of this ilk have moved to PTF schemes anyway, so probably a moot point.

My second point, is that there are many reasons for leaving a company, many of them induced by the employer side and there is no reason why they should profit off me for their actions. In my case, it was a command that never materialised. When the company recruits you, they make certain statements that will induce you to enter into a contract with them. In my case, had the company said to me that I would join them as a F/O with no prospect of an upgrade due to internal politics, I would not have entered into the contract. Whilst I will unhappily pay my dues, I will not support them making a profit off my training bond, because of their misrepresentation. Had I gotten my upgrade and willingly chosen to leave for a greener pastures, I would have no issue with paying the full bond. In my case I went back to the job I had previously........

1) Contract Law
2) Small industry
3) Litigation Lawyers are VERY expensive....circa £300 an hour last time I used one.

It might be hard to swallow but if it's really a move worth making my advice would be to just pay the money and move on.

RVF750

I'm doing a bonded type rating on a regional turboprop and I've seen the invoice of what my airline are paying the TR provider (my bond is a lot less though), it's over double your estimate, not including hotel accommodation, meal allowances and flights they're also forking out on

I do think it's poor form for people to bail out on companies who bond candidates rather than ask for up front fees, we are the first to criticise airlines who charge for the rating. Those bonding people should be commended, not left with a bitter taste in their mouths and managers determined to make every future pilot pay.

Kennytheking

What company guarantees you a upgrade? (not only in aviation)
Did they bond you for the upgrade that never materialize? Did you pay for it? Was the upgrade part of the written contract?

arketip

For a company to profit from a bond is predatory and illegal and should be challenged. You may not agree and that is your right. Fortunately the courts agree.

The upgrade does not need to be written into the contract. The employer misrepresented their position in the market, thereby enticing me into a contract that I would not have otherwise entered into. This is all covered under the ambit of commercial law and you can go look it up. I didn't invent it. I am not going to litigate this again in public. Suffice to say we reached an amicable out of court settlement.

I should add, settling the bond cost me more than I made working for them for 18 months.....I didn't walk away smiling from that deal but at least I stood up for my rights after they screwed me over with their shenanigans.

Small cog

This is exactly my point, Small Cog, as I said in my initial post. Could the company hold one to a bond if they had in some way, be it large or small, breached the agreement they had originally made with you

KeepCalm, do you know where exactly this legislation can be found?

A few years ago i was flying for a GA company on a small private jet. The management had no respect for their ppl and i was eager to get out ASAP. One day they decided to buy a new aircraft and without asking me first, they wanted me to do the new type rating and planned everything from starting date, flight tickets etc. Then a month before starting they were putting me the bond under my nose asking me to sign that. I refused because i never asked for doing that rating, i was just listening to my employer. They saw it a bit different and were pushing me to sign. In the end i was so fed up with them, i gave them my resignation and went somewhere else. Best decision ever!!

Dboy, exactly right. Companies are wrong to ask for bonding as it was their choice to use that aircraft to make money from it. If they need people to fly it, its down to them. Its called the cost of doing business and the sooner European pilots and companies learn this the better.

If you go into business and you cant afford to train your staff at your expense or expect them to pay for training as part of your business plan to save costs and possibly keep you in business then you do not deserve to be in business...PERIOD!

What will you do for arguments sake if you cannot get type rated pilots or any pilot you plan on hiring refuses to be bonded or pay any training costs? If you do not pay you are out of business so it makes no sense not to include the type rating as 'THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS'

Imagine telling the people financing your operation we will be fine providing the pilots we hire sign a bond or pay themselves, they will laugh you out of the room!

I seem to recall that Singapore went after one or more pilots who were instructors in their abinitio program many years ago. The suit went al the way to a court in California and they prevailed. It was considered a watershed decision at the time.

This issue cuts both ways as a well known technology company in California lost several pilots who had just received ratings in newly acquired Gulfstream 650's and the Falcon 8X. Both of these ratings come at a very high price, this making the holder of such a very marketable pilot when looking for a new job.

TinFoilhat2

I'm afraid I disagree. To charge people for a TR, or force someone into a new TR and bond them - your point is fair enough. But a simple bond of say 2-5 years in exchange for providing training is, and should be, completely fair. You're right that an airline should be able to factor in the cost of type rating a pilot into their business model, if that's what is required to fly their planes to make money - however to allow said pilot to leave after 6 months and being forced to pay another £15-20k to recruit a new one (only for them to do the same) is completely unreasonable. That money could be used to prop up the business, pay better wages to the pilots that currently work there, improve T&C's, or pay for better maintenance.

More importantly, if you have entered into a contract to be bonded for 3 years in exchange for zero training costs, then if you break that agreement you should pay what you owe. Why should my colleagues and myself be burdened with the financial responsibility because you decided to jump ship for a better job, despite signing a legal agreement to say you wouldn't? All of us, as pilots, should be of this mindset, because if we are happy for the airlines to pick up the training bill for little-to-no return in work, then they will go down the PTF route again, or ask for upfront TR costs. And we all know where that road ends up.

CargoOne


So if you get typed on the A320 with BA for example you cant use that rating with any other company, is that what you are saying?

Does not make sense to have that kind of approach either. Every time you leave 1 company you would have to do the type rating all over again.

Not necessarily, for example there could be an additional remark or a field in the license indicating whether this type rating is owned by the airline or by the license holder. If pilot is departing airline in a way agreed by his contract, airline shall ask authorities to transfer the ownership of type rating. Otherwise rating is cancelled and need to be done again. This will not protect airlines against the loss of investment if pilot decides to jump anyway, however the next employer would think twice.

I would say one thing, the world of aviation is smaller than you may think, you never know who you will meet at your new / next job.

I was Royally stung by a biz jet operator who made me redundant shortly after returning from the type rating course (due to the 2008 financial crash) and they demanded repayment of the training costs. My legal challenge was rejected on the basis that I signed the contract which stated that they could terminate my employment for ANY reason and the training costs would be repayable.

So the answer to the question posed in this topic, yes they are enforceable.

CargoOne

We already have too much bureaucracy. I could do with less of it, to be honest.

Some here are against bonds for type-ratings. However, there is a big warning: if you don't want bonds for type-ratings or try to find ways of jumping out of them then employers will insist that you arrive fully type-rated at your own expense before being considered for a job. If an employer is making you more employable by paying a lot of money for your type-rating, then it is quite reasonable for them to want some protection from you jumping ship and using that type-rating. that they spent money on, elsewhere.

However, read all the details of that bond very, very carefully before signing. The first two that I signed were very reasonable, but subsequent bonds less so and I almost breathed a sigh of relief once I had come to the full term of the bond because of some of the 'more questionable' aspects of them.

A friend who had sons in a completely different industry summed things up beautifully once: in their industry people were stopped from leaving by being weighed down by more gold bars in their pockets; pilots are stopped from leaving by having lead bars, called 'bonds', in their pockets.

CargoOne's suggestion is not quite so far fetched: we already have licences that are 'fixed' to an employer: the MPL.

But I fully agree with Banana Joe about wanting to avoid increased bureaucracy.

CargoOne

Not true, a lot of so called bonds are taken out of your salary over a 3 year period so you are in fact paying for it yourself, you just did not have to stump up the cash upfront.