Callsign Kilo: I for one am prepared to work at lower end of the market scale as an inexperienced employee, if/when I am hired after completeing the training. But no way would I work for less than industry average for the position. Thats exploitation, and most corporations carefully study the industry in calculating renumerations to avoid allegations of expolitation.

At the end of day, am I right in saying that you are much more likely to be "exploited" if you work for a loco?. When you say the "airlines play on this" are you refering to all airlines or just the "undesirable few".

I want to fly professionally, but not to the expense of my self-respect as an employee. You need to feel valued and be payed sensibly - its common sense - is it really getting that bad out there?

Bandit650,

Good points and I agree, in fact I don't see much in aviation that is unique to aviation except the impact that the pilot can have on the business which is where collective bargaining becomes important and where flying for free is potentially so damaging.

I'm still (unfortunately) in IT as a consultant and am charged out at at three times the amount of my Indian colleagues and still doing, in theory, the same job. But I have the knack of being able to add 'value' (note the single quotes) at multiple points in the process primarily due to, as you say, experience.

The pilots lot, from what I can see I hasten to add, is not quite so flexible (chief, training and operation cross-over excepted). Apart from flying punctually and efficiently (the minimum requirement for the job) there is not much a pilot can do in the course of his normal duties to improve the commercial situation for an airline. An IT bod can have a bright idea and save the organisation £2M in one go (the fact it is usually the reverse is another issue). By and large, when a pilot needs to make exceptional decisions, it tends to result in negative stuff like diversions, delays, etc - they are made on safety grounds not commercial ones. On that basis, as an individual first officer, an individually negotiated contract as is usual in something like IT, must be difficult (FR for example).

After much recent pondering it seems to me that the notion of working for free is an individual decision, rather than the concept of wanting to join an industry based on what it has to offer in terms of T&Cs. Whether this strand of individually motivated T&Cs will undermine those higher up the chain I'm not too sure. At the moment it seems to create a two tier system with a T&C barrier at the appropriate vaguely useful experience level (end of line training?). A bit like an inversion, once you've climbed through the bump it is all blue skies...or so my personal theory goes :\

Although im not in the same position as most of the people posting here I can certainly appreciate where Scroggs is coming from,in any job with a high degree of training and time spent getting qualified be it lawyer, pilot, engineer etc (sorry as a B1 licence holder I had to throw that last one in there) the only upshot I can see from people being ready to work for free is that it will cheapen your proffession and undermine all your hard work and time spent aspiring to a respectable well paid job.
At the same time with the industry being in the state it is in,as mentioned before on this thread, airlines can afford to be picky but it doesnt help the newly qualified fATPL holder who needs to keep his hours up (ie get a job) but cant get a job because he doesnt have enough hours - Catch 22 anybody?
In maintenance we are already seeing the result of people willing to work for less/cheap labour rates on a grand scale with the outsourcing of heavy maintenance to cheaper providers in cheaper countries - is that relevant here?Maybe not on the surface but hopefully it may provide food for thought.
Just my two cents worth...Good luck to all of you who are job hunting.

Although Scroggs and a few others made some good points ,the best post with much needed common sense came from an engineer(vs69):ok:

Superpilot This thread is not about Ryanair. It is about the principle of working for lower than the fair market rate. Ryanair may have examples of this, but it is far from the only one. However, the point about FR not being subject to UK employment law (though it is subject to EU employment law) is a salient one, and may apply to many of the companies that our wannabes may be attracted to. The fact remains that you cannot repay a debt of a hundred thousand pounds from a poor or non-existant wage, whoever your employer is.

geraldn No-one has a monopoly on wisdom!

Scroggs

''No-one has a monopoly on wisdom!''

Granted, i never thought otherwise, it just seems funny to me that it had to be a non pilot to come up with the best post.

Many thanks for the sentiment geraldn, it was just something I had been following with interest and as I rarely contribute thought I might pipe up as a relative outsider on the subject.
Scroggs - never a truer sentence spoken!Daresay I will bump into you in the forward galley mid cup of tea one of these days

Working for free???
 

There certainly have been some brilliant posts from many countering this idea of "working for free". As mentioned by High Wing Drifer yesterday, the current state of play is surely driving away some of the best and most suitable candidates for professional pilot positions.

Even being left with only a break even amount of money at the end of the month (let alone massive debt) for long periods can have serious personal and social effects (relationships etc. etc.). If we are dealing with the possibilty of a generation of professional pilots that are heavily in debt, and who are, in being prepared (or through an erosion of conditions) to work either for free or for very low returns then surely the industry is on shaky ground. Combine issues of profound long term debt (and an inability to get out of debt due to poor Ts & Cs) with fatigue and increasing pressures such as tight turnarounds etc. and some not-so-nice possibilties start to emerge.

If some people here are determined to work for free or at rates seriously less than the market rate, why not suck up your single-minded ambition (which seems to me to be centered solely on flying jets for major airlines) and search out a flying position in which you can donate your flying skills to causes other than the M O'Leary's of this world? (these people are certainly not working for free) Surely this would be more rewarding? Maybe get out of flying altogether and work for a decent charitable cause.

The flying world seems vast to me and is not limited to flying 738s around Europe. Maybe some reassessment and some new horizons are in order for the "work for free" posters here.

EF.

BTW - if anyone does happen to know a "work for free" FI in West Yorkshire could you please PM me. I am about 10 hrs into my PPL and it would be great to cut back on costs. Come to think of it, s/he could come and pick me up from my place and drive me to and from the airfield. After lessons we could go to the pub (their shout of course)... Wow, I'm kind of liking this idea. :p

Honour is a gift you give yourself, and following a long career, if still alive, it is all that is left. For as pilots you don't design, build or improve anything. How much honour do you finish your career with when you started out by working for free?

It's about professional conduct just as much as wearing shiny shoes and tucking in your shirt. If a company chooses to use your services for free (NOTE that I'm avoiding the word 'employ'), do you really want to work for a company that can see no other way to grow their business other than to pay their workers nothing?

The purpose of a career is to make as much money as you can by doing the least amount of work possible. Any ramblings about "living the dream" will die off after the first few years, that's life.

Analysis of risk is evident in every aspect of my daily life, the way I drive, the time I spent deciding on which mortgage, the type of house I live in. A career in engineering has taught me how to measure & balance risk … exactly the attributes I thought made me suited to being a pilot. But, alas, this thread has made me realise that those who appear to succeed in today's aviation world are the ones who have no aversion to risk, don't know how to quantify it and have no cares for their future or retirement - I'll bet that many of those 100k in debt couldn't even state their APR if asked.

If working for free is what it takes to get started in aviation then I simply won't do it, I'm better than that - I'll put my CPL to good use instructing at the flying club at weekends while I have a proper career during the week. I'll be content knowing that my future is secure.

If you work for free then that is exactly what you are worth as an individual: nothing.

My ATPL means that I can fly for hire or reward. That means money. Hours aren't a reward. I can't take my log book down to the local shops and expect to buy food with it.

I respect my licenses and the effort it took to get them. I am a professional pilot and will not work for free.

I don't ask the apprentice hair dresser to cut my hair for free. Why should I?

I don't ask the plumber to sort out a drain for free. He'd walk out.

If I asked an accountant to sort my tax for free, it wouldn't get done OR I'd be suspicious of the care and attention paid to my finances.

People think that they can accept the rubbish conditions for their first jet job because then they can get hours and move to BA or Virgin Atlantic. Think again, the conditions at BA aren't what they used to be, probably because new pilots have happy to accept rubbish conditions for their first jet job. This means that BA have had to compete with low cost/low wage carriers which has a negative effect on their own salaries. Note, Virgin Atlantic still have a higher hour requirement for their crews so aren't as susceptible to the pay for rating/pay for hours deals.

Yes, a jet job is desirable for many reasons. It took me 18 years to get one.

This Is Not About Jets Its About Opportunites
 

Redsnail I remember you when you used to work on sheds in fact and have followed some of your career and fully support all you have done and would love to follow in your footsteps but cannot as there are NO other opportunites out there. Your post though appearing to disagree with me actually proves my point. You waited 18yrs for your chance I have waited 4 for mine but this is not my chosen route I would have preffered some light charter then TP work but there isn't any.

I think some of the more vociferous respondees should actually go back to my first post on this topic. I did not actually advocate or even show a desire to work for free. I stated that IF and ONLY IF it was the only way to get into the RHS ANYWHERE then I would do it because there are no other opportunities available. ANYWHERE = Chieftan, Seneca, King Air i.e really anywhere.

For clarification, the statement is nothing to do with getting RHS of a jet I just wanted (past tense) to get ANY flying job. If Flybe had interviewed me and asked me to pay for a TR and offered me the chance of a contract/job/trial at the end I would have signed in blood there and then.

The only reason this debate seems to have gone down the route of
becoming jet oriented is because High Wing, Scroggs, et al have made it so.

As for HWD and the others that seem to think that you just borrow the money for the type rating and then try and get by on £750 per month from FR don't be churlish. You borrow your usual monthly salary so say £3.5k take home per month for 12 months and then add the cost of transport, plus accomodation, misc and add all of this together this comes to over £50k investment and then you take home £55k per year so are back to your original salary. So you actually borrow £42 plus the type rating £18k i.e. £60k
To add to the £60-80k you have probably already built up from original fATPL course and the lack of money from the salary difference between a living wage and an instructing for a few years and there is the total probably nearer £120k of debt. So how do you pay it back? read on.....

People stop pretending £100,000 is a lot of money. You cannot even get a studio flat for £100,000. One of my best friends is a barrister he like all barrister's worked for... wait for it free!!! for his pupilage and funnily enough now earns the wage commensurate with the job. My wife a chartered accountant who did not quite work for free but got £11k as a trainee for her first year. She too had debts from university etc but didn't baulk at the opportunity strangely enough she now earns a comensurate wage for her job. Deloitte, Pricewaterhouse Coopers etc amongst toerhs pay £20k as a training salary now. Why? They could not get enough applicants of sufficient quality through the door. When this happens in aviation then our wages will reflect it, for now they don't its called a free market. Back to the money...

Any 3 bed semi average £250,000 (in the south before the screams start) can expect to grow by 40-50k in equity every 3-4 years so after oh say 10 years of paying an extra £500 per month on your mortgage you have made the money back in equity alone. This is hardly what is described above as crippling debt now is it. Then all salary can be devoted to school fees, holidays and pensions as required. This is not the scenario being described above.

Lets be honest the guy who sold you your last mobile phone takes home £40k a year, the guy managing McDonalds take home £35k it is not difficult to make enough money to pay back this sort of debt and this is with a 3 bed semi. So unless you really need the 5 bed detached with pool in Gerrards Cross I think that my wife and I are not quite on the poverty line yet.

You can spend £30k on a new car, £5k on a decent skiing holiday so let's not pretend that £100k of debt for a lifetime qualification is so massive an investment that I and others shall be hanging around King's Cross with a sign saying get it here to raise extra cash.

I am sure from my posts that it is clear that I wish to have a long and full career in aviation I have no intention of spending my life working for nothing but Scroggs et al believes that I am on some campaign to get thier Ts&Cs demolished. The chap who spoke about standing shoulder to shoulder should then agree that he should be standing shoulder to shoulder with me and others now to get fair selection rather than a pecuniary based system but until that happens if anyone has a better suggestion for getting a job please do tell us all and end this debate.

Scroggs I did not make the system, I reiterate that you are senior enough in it use your voice to change it. I just take what is there and I as I keep saying have a right to take every opportunity presented. If this means that I need to have Redsnails career path or work in the North Pole and work from larger to larger aircraft then I AM HAPPY TO DO IT. There are however NO OTHER opportunites out there. So address that. NOT that I am willing to take the only thing available to me. I have just as much (no more, no less) right as you to earn a living from flying.

Seems a pretty good deal compared to working for Flybe, had they ever interviewed me, for £22k for 3 yrs by which time the only winner would be the official receiver.

Sir Pratt and Jonty perhaps you would like to elaborate rather than just posting a sneer. If you email or apply you get no reply and or nothing followed by no interviews. So hence doorstepping is the next logical step, though you seem to believe that you know the finer points of negotiation I would like to see your first attempts a negotiating in Bosnia with a rifle in your face. Like those who cannot see the difference between passion and the ability to fly safely you run the risk of colouring your judgement by assuming that I have the narrowness of thought that you are exhibiting with your raposte.

May I suggest that you spot the difference between the two and actually counter my argument rather than make blanket assumptions and statements like "I can see why he hasn't got an interview" Can you? what are those reasons? Share them with the forum so that we can all benefit from your wisdom. Can you tell from where I went to school, uni and what regiment I served in that I am not worth interviewing because my views on the industry aren't on my CV. Don't talk such tosh. :ugh:

vg6 "your" idea may be to do as little as possible I actually enjoy work hence if I find myself finished then there is something that I can do to further increase my knowledge, progress or learn more to be better not go home. If you want an easy life rather than continuous professional development get a job which requires no learning and development do not lecture me on my responsibility and certainley I can assure you at the least you have an equal call to quote to me about honour but unless you really are of a very unusual background for these forums then I doubt that you are in a position to tell me or any who has commanded units in operational theatres about the nature of honour as your work ethic shows in your comments.

Next....

Ah VT,
You say you've followed some of my career. Fair enough. :)

After I finished my instructor rating I got a part time instructor's position immediately. When I was ready for a full time flying position I shifted every thing about 3,000km to go for that opportunity.

I waited about 5 months for my full time flying position. Was it on a B737, no. Was it on a Dash 8? No. It was on a C207. $A20,000 pa.

For my jet job I travelled about 10,000km from "home" to get it after flying a Shed for a year or so. Oh, and to get that flying job I took a job in Ops.

No opportunities? If you want to fly for Ryanair, fine but please do not fly for free.

"The chap who spoke about standing shoulder to shoulder should then agree that he should be standing "shoulder to shoulder" with me and others now to get fair selection rather than a pecuniary based system but until that happens if anyone has a better suggestion for getting a job please do tell us all and end this debate"


Yes vortex, I am the 'chap' who said that. Standing 'shoulder to shoulder' with your work colleagues means more to me than working for free in order to achieve a job, especially after spending huge amounts on training.


Work and support your future colleagues. People offering their services for free may have a negative effect on future and existing Terms and Conditions, contracts etc.


You are worth more, than offering your services for free to ANY company. I sympathise with you, 100%, but there are many, many other people in the same boat and with type ratings etc etc etc. Have you exhausted all avenues that may help you, secure a position?


Could you enlighten me, on why you think, you have not been successful?

...anyone know of a roofing contractor I can get to fix my roof for FREE? Thought not, only pilots are dumb enough to do that...:rolleyes:

Harry, flying for hire or reward, still with some self respect left.

I have also been looking for the first job for some 3 years now with no luck. But given the choice of work for free or not - id rather stay doing what i do now than work for free. That attitude of work for free just stinks to me !!

VT, commercial aviation is not the law or medicine. It is not suffering, and will not suffer, a lack of applicants. There are thousands of you wannabes clamouring for every 'starter' job. That is precisely why you are having to pay for type ratings and so on - the employer doesn't have to, because it's a buyer's market! That's also why certain 'jobs' exist that ask people to pay for the hours they fly, and others that simply pay unsurviveable salaries. There is no equivalent of the barrister's pupillage stage in aviation; reduced terms at the bottom of the pile will result in reduced terms at the top. Not for me, but for you, if and when you get there. Why? Well, I've covered that before. It's the way this particular market works, and has been working for the last 20 years or so. The days when this was a well-paid profession are over, and yet people are still crawling over each other to get flying jobs at any cost. You are a commodity, and your stock is reducing in value - much of that reduction is down to the irrational way that people covet this job and will do anything to get in.

Your financial illustration confuses me. You say that £100k is not a lot of money and then tell us that taking £22k pa from Flybe would have resulted in 'the official receiver' (I take it you mean bankruptcy?). That sounds like an unsupportable debt to me! Your £100k investment must be made to give a return, and that means you have a vested interest in pay and conditions in aviation slipping no further. Taking a low-paid (or no-pay) job is no way to do that; you just exacerbate the problem both for yourself individually and your peers. By my calculation, you need around £1400 a month just to repay your debt (10 years @ 7%). That represents a taxable salary of £21k before any other expenses are considered - including that house! To service your debt and cover your family's living expenses, you'll need at least £35k pa. That's not starter pay in any industry! £100K is a lot of debt when looked at in those terms. Did you do these calculations before you started down this road?

I don't know; the more you 'explain' your position, VT, the less I understand it! I suspect it stems from an inadequate or incomplete understanding of this industry on your part - and you're not alone in that. There are far too many wannabes who believe that they will be able to walk into a £40k+ job at some point, yet are prepared to work for little or nothing at that same job, not realising that by doing so they make that £40k job even less likely to happen!

Scroggs

"as a result the only people who would get the job are the ones who really want it"

:ugh: or those whose mummies and daddys paid for their training? It's idiots like this who will work for free that screw up the t & c's for everyone else!

Scrogss I shall make the financial illustration clearer.

Person X and their friend person Y have debts of £100k each and live in an avergage properties worth £250k. The properties have no equity as the orginal mortgage of £150 has been added to by SECURED borrowing of £100k so that X & Y can go from Zero to SSTR level and/or pay a bond.

So total debt for X & Y is now £250k each. Equity = 0 each

Mortgage payments = £1500pcm Secured borrowing payments = £1000
Total SECURED Debt per month = £2500

It is clear that more is needed re food, transport, bills, clothing, etc but we shall ignore that for this example as it does nothing to clarify it we assume that there is another income to deal with this. With me so far.

Both X & Y previously worked as underwater basket weavers for £3500 pcm

X goes to work for Flybe for £22k i.e. will therefore take home c. £1300 pcm. If X works for Flybe for 3 years to get 2000hrs TP exp and then trades up to BMI/Thomsonfly, etc on £45k
Year 1 = 15,600, Year 2 = 18,000, Year 3 = 20,000

Y goes to work for Ryanair. Now Y will take home £750 pcm for 3 months, £1050 for 3 months, £2000 for 6 months and thereafter £3000 pcm. Y now has 2,500hrs JAR25 experience to boot.

Year 1 = 17,400, Year 2 = 36,000, Year 3 = 45,000

At the start of yr 2 Y can pay the same mortgage and outgoings. that he/she originally could X on the other hand will not be able to for ANOTHER 2 years.

So after 3 years they are both fine with respect to salary however in the 3 years it has taken X to get back to a living wage X has lost the family home and gained a personal understanding of the Insolvency Act 1986, 1994, 2006 updates included.

Clever Y on the other hand worked for next to nothing for a year because he/she included in the £100k debt a provision to make good the loss of earnings incurred in taking such route.(i.e. borrowed another £20k as a salary substitute) :D Clever Y also hedged their bets so should the route not work out they could go back to underwater basket weaving for £3500 pcm and not loose their home :D

It gets better because Y could sustain the loss for long enough to get to a self sustaining income Y benefits from the rise in equity of oh about £40 which further bolsters the recovery and is spent further reducing the debt/increasing the equity.

Even if Y had, wait for it, worked for free for that year, Y would still be better of at the end of the period because they retained the property and thus the ability to capitalise on the equity.

So back to the question. Did I do the sums before I took on the debt, errm well yes. As you said £35k MIN is about right in fact I would say it is closer to £40 to break even if you take into account having a life as well as the absolute minimum. You actually make my point for me very well by doing the sums for me!! You are right it is not starter pay in very many industries but unless you have not noticed I am not a starting at £35k I start at £17k and it is a year to 18 months down the road that we get to £36 and then another before we go back to a living wage the difference is that it is a reasonably sure bet to get there (as long as you keep your job) if not then back to under water basket weaving.

So we finally agree on something i.e. that working for Flybe et all gives you an unsupportable debt. That is why people say what the hell and take the SSTR route with FR especially seeing as Flybe don't actually seem to actually have any form of queue/list filter system other than ex-Scabair instructors.

flyboy1818 I agree with you completly on one hand. The apprenticeship idea is pretty good would certainley cut down those without the stomach for hard work and dedication. I am certainley under no illusion at all about how the aviation industry works.

On the other hand as for your good lady self. I cast no aspersion over her but she obviously does not work in London, or if she does her boss is laughing all the way to the pub because the basics for many phones sales roles with any experience over a year or so are frequently over £25k. There are innumerous sales jobs for phones, telesales etc which will happily earn you over £70k in you really want them.

Go to totaljobs, monster or jobsite type in sales and with the exception of brand new starters you find me a job under £20k in London/Home counties that any likely pilot would not qualifiy for (i.e a level, degree or equivalent educated) Our cleaner gets £11 per hour!! get real yourself!

Hopefully the financial madness of not going the SSTR route have now been clarified. Next complaint to be resolved?

Scroggs as you correctly point out times are changing and there is not guarantee that £55k Captains basics will be available IF I get their but if as you suggest I get there and it has fallen further then that's life. The world does not owe me a living I will get over it, adapt and retrain again and again and again if I have to but for now it does and until it is gone forever I have the same right as YOU to try to get there. Are you scared that I am willing to do more than you for the same money or that profession is becoming worth less.

We will get paid whatever the market will allow. If that happens to drop £30k for captains on promotion in the next decade then indeed it means that the future will not see me skiing in Verbier every year. I really am not so scared of the prospect that I am not going to find out so that you can..... I'm game to see what the future holds maybe it is you who is so worried about what the industry owes you that need to lambast me for taking the ONLY opportunity I had available to me.

Harry Wragg. Self respect yep know what that is it's that feeling I get when I realize the lucky escape I had from Exeter or Belfast for 3 years in the morning before I go flying like you for hire and reward:) The feeling you get from knowing that you took the most prudent and sensible route to protect you and yours future :hmm:

I can't help notice that v6g, Sir Pratt and Jonty have gone awfully quiet long night stop perhaps come on then get amongst it ladies and gents at least support Scroggs thank you for the PMs of support by the way keep them coming but I wish you would all post them in the open. You know who you are :oh:

While I am against working for free and also symphatise with VT's position I have tried to be neutral in this and can fully understand what he's gone through and its not too hard to see why he made that decision. I know a lot of people wore than would like to admit going through the sstr route.
Even easyjet does it in a different way for cadets. With CTC you get 1k a month for six months.


I decided to train to be a pilot to fufill a childhood dream and was under no illusions about the sacrifices involved. If I wanted to make money I could have stayed in properties which is how I was able to pay fopr this course in the first place. However I have managed to keep my total debts excluding mortgage to 22k.


As scroggs as stated it is unethical to offer your services for free however in capitalist societies like ours there's something called market forces. To those who want to fly to make money I will advice you to look at other proffessions like IT. You can train to be a server engineer and earn over a a thousand pounds a week with less than two months training. Better still if you want an easy way to earn money go and become a roll out enginer (Software installation) you are looking at 4k a month and all you have to do is put disc into brand new computers and follow simple steps something most people on this forums can do.


If you want to do the above wait a couple of months after microsoft vista bugs have been fixed and a lot of city banks want to upgrade thier computer systems. You can work for seven months and afford to take the rest of the year off.


I am mentioning this becauce the above industries value thier business and will go to extra ordinary lenghts to make sure it runs smoothly. A computer crash in morgan stanley will cost them millions in a matter of hours and in the airline industry planes sitting on the ground without pilots to fly them will be a disaster for any airline company. While I fully appreciate scroggs point of view and understands his disgust with what he sees happening compared to what it was when he joined. Those in the industry are in a far better position to change the terms and conditions than those of us coming into it.


I will really be worried as a captain constantly flying with first officers who have a huge amount of debt that is sometimes enough to cause pshycological problems in an individual. A lot of people here mention 100k in my eight years of working in mental hospitals I've seen people have a mental breakdown with a lot less debt. This includes bank managers, doctors, senior nurses, yes! being admitted into mental institutions.


Having not been selected by ryanair myself I am prepearing to go Africa where you dont have to pay to fly and you actually get your type rating paid for. I have a lot of friends flying there and they earn more as first officers (Flying for British oil companies in west Africa) than a lot of turbo prop capts here. You also get the fact that life is cheaper(not literaly). No way will people over there work for free the Government will not stand for it let alone the workers.


I have applied so far to a couple of companies and have five rejection letters with my name on it . Like VT said some dont even bother replying like flybe and bmi baby and not just to me but a lot of others. You then find out later that these companies went to meet an integrated school to ask them to supply them with twenty pilots. From my obseravtion its no longer enough to be a good pilot you need deep pockets to get your foot on the job ladder except you're very lucky to go to the right school and know the right people.


Its a good thing that a lot of flying is now automated I can imagine a
situation whereby a first officer will have to take controls in an emergency but his mind is pretty occupied with financial problems and he's not able to concentrate. It will be interesting to see a panorama documentary on the state of this industry.


However like someone mentioned earlier I will like to see what is done in North America and Canada done here you cannot apply for commercial job until you reach a certain number of hours usually over a thousand this will weed out those who have no stomach for hard work and those trying to rely on bank of parents to shove them into jet jobs. A couple of companies have raised thier hours for cadets and first officers becauce they had problems with training low hour pilots. A friend returned from Canada recently where his friend run a flying school and was told nobody there will hire you to fly a kingair until you had at least 1200 hours. He was told that by then at least you know how to land a plane.


I dont know how the lobbying industry works in this country if theres any in aviation I think reasonable people at the CAA should stop this practice of cadets working for free. Not only is it unethical it is unhealthy giving the level of debt incured during the training something that is not yet apparent until God forbid a crash happens and an investigation uncovers the background and discovers how the current working conditions have contributed to it.
Vortex thing I wish you all the best and like the old saying goes If you can't beat them you join them.:ugh:

Monkeys won't work for free, they get peanuts. Seriously though when people ask me should I become a pilot I always tell that you may have to spend 70k in order to earn 18k pa. Thats the reality. Anybody who wants to become a pilot, do your research, don't believe the flying school hype !!!!!!

Regards P.

I started flying at 28, It will be five years to the day as of 20/04, I will then be just about to finish my 737 type rating, I have sent 1000's of CV's, knocked on many doors, lost girlfriends & moved countries for work, and since completing my CPL/IR I have not been out of work.

Nobody should sell him or herself short, take what you can and make yourself available, almost everyone I know is now working (as a pilot), either through someone they know or through perseverance.. You must be willing to go that extra mile!

The above has been said before but the amount of people who think they will walk into a job amazes me everyday, if someone finds out I’m a pilot they almost immediately say 1: How did you do that... 2: I can do that! It's not that easy!!

YYZ

Here it is for all those new boys and girls out there.

If you buy your FATPL for anything more than £30k you have wasted your money. If you are smart and play the system right, that is all it should cost you!!

For that reason, if you have a £100k debt then you are a mug because you will have to pay it back and you could have got away with paying a lot less.

This then leads onto the desperation to get that first jet job so you can pay the money back and hence the desire to "work for free" so you can pay it back ASAP!

If you hadnt clocked up such a big debt then you wouldnt be so desperate to get the experience to get that job that pays so much!!

Lastly, whats wrong with flying singles, instucting, towing gliders, taking photos, flying light twins when you have the hours etc etc then turbos etc etc.

People have forgotten what flying is really about and the arrogance and percieved ability that some of the new jet pilots (of my generation), coupled with a complete denial about what working for free does to Ts and C's just frightens me!

OSOP

P.S. There will be an accident at some point with a 250 hour f/o in the RHS and only then will people wake up to the reality of what is actually happening today!

conditions of pilots
 

Okay I have been an airline pilot for 22 years and worked for the most part in the charter market or at least non -major airlines. I have seen our conditions erode each year whether it be in pay or days off or in overall conditions. I think it is in part that we as pilots have let the operators gain control, if that is true or not what is a fact is that other people are determining our futures without our input. it is time to change the trend and become united in some form or manner. Every ATPL holder no matter from where who holds an ICAO licence should have a minimum starting salary . Should have a maximum duty period not ambigious to a company or country operation. A passenger bus chaffeur in europe has stricter rules. If ICAO can organize the operators that are members then why as Pilots can we not organize and defend our lively hood.:confused:

After 22 years you might have discovered that the ICAO doesn't issue licences to any "ATPL" holders.

typical
 

You missed the point which is typical . You are to busy picking on the obvious and not the subject . ICAO has organized airlines we need to organize as ATPL pilots.

Isnt that what IFALPA is for? Or do you mean organising in a different manner?

I don't think I would see this in any other industry, or at least not to the extent that it exists in ours. It's not passion, enthusiasm, or ambition - this is obsessive behaviour, plain and simple. Where does one finish and the other start? Name me one other profession that people spend as much on training for an ATPL in the full knowledge that less than half of them will make it, please? How many times have you heard "it is my dream", or "I have spent X on this and can't believe I haven't a job?" Others glory in the masochistic fashion in which they finally broke into the industry, everyone has their war storys, and you praise spouses for putting up with what people should not have to put up with, saying they understand and support what you're doing, they knew this when they married you, etc.

Have you ever noticed that it's always someone else who's ruining the industry? And you complain that the industry takes advantage of you? Is it the flying schools fault that they fill you full of crap about how many jobs are out there, or is it your fault for not questioning it because they are telling you what you want to hear? Is it Ryanair's fault for treating you like dirt, or is it your fault because you are rationalising somone taking advantage of you?

You can't complain you don't know thanks to people like scroggs who tirelessly make sense, but know they are talking to themselves. I had an intelligent, talented schoolfriend who ended up a literal basketcase because he was obsessed about being a lawyer and never made it. I had another schoolfriend who left a good job with good prospects to join the army because he had some ad-induced notion of running around the Glen of Imaal with rifle in hand and the sun glinting off his helmet - he lasted 2 weeks, and came home jobless. The best you could say for those 2 guys is that neither ran up a huge debt or hurt anybody else in doing what they did, as they were both single.

Please don't take this personally, it's meant to be a counterpoint. There is a big difference between a wannabe and a lemming - I think it's sad that some of the best pilots had enough cop-on given the circumstances to stop at a ppl and just enjoy it.

With fees I would say the figure is close to £35k.

Do consider though, the likes of BA will not hire a newbie unless he/she has been through an integrated course (in other words BA will not hire you unless you are rich or willing to live in poverty). Now most pilots don’t believe for one minute that modular students are inferior than integrated but apparently this is what a “study” of new recruits back in the 90’s “proved” at BA.

This is why far too many people (nutcases) out there pay £60k (in reality 100k if you consider interest and lost earnings) for flying training that can be achieved at half the cost. Also this is what BMI, Excel and a several others supposedly want….well that’s what it says in the flight school brochures anyway! Integrated training is big business.

Flightschools tell you everything you want to hear! It's mostly crap!

I nearly went down this route of working for free for 150 hours, then I thought better of it. SOMEONE CAN PAY ME FOR LINE TRAINING THANKS!!

DON'T DO IT!!

Went fully modular in my late 30s, got job with FlyBE, left few hundred hrs later and now with BA. My modular background hasn't been mentioned once.

People seem to be confusing a number of issues here. It is all very well "wanting to be a pilot" but how many people actually check that they have the aptitude for the job. Sensible individuals will research such details before coughing up large amounts of cash. When I trained their were plenty of people doing their CPL/IR's who had loads of money but absolutely no chance of ever being professional pilots.

And that is what we are talking about, professional pilots fly for money, if you do not, then you are merely an enthusiastic amateur.

If you have the ability, aptitude, and meet the strict personality profiles you will get a job. Otherwise, all the type ratings in the world won't help.

To be a professional pilot means to behave in a professional manner, I do not fly because I love flying. I fly because it maximises the return on my skill set. It is a return on capital employed, namely me.

Nothing wrong with day-dreaming, but a lot of people in here seem niave bordering on mental illness. It is a job, like every other job it has good points, and bad points, Scroggs is the voice of reason.

If you want to fly, get a well paid job and join the local flying club. A professional pilot is paid to "operate" the aircraft, very little "flying" takes place. It is a very dull job.

And before you jump in with "i'll do your job instead", you can't, much as I would like to play for Real Madrid, and I would do it for less money, does not mean I will be replacing David Beckham any time soon.

Harry

p.s. VT, are you sure you are 35, you sound more like 15 to me...

I guess one or two of us must have slipped through the cracks:}

Off the Thread
 

Gnirren,

What is wrong with the Poland ?

SpokoKolo

Harry Wragg saddles up one last time...
 

Quote:

---

If you have the ability, aptitude, and meet the strict personality profiles you will get a job.

---

Harry Wragg do you mean the same ability, aptitude and strict personality profiles that make the British Armed forces one of the hardest selection and training grounds in the world?

If you want to enter into a battle of wits I suggest that just to be gentlemanly both us are equally equipped. I suggest you get down the store and buy some wits as clearly yours are not with you! Failing that you could actually learn to read before charging into the fray without having read the whole thread.

You quote Scroggs as the voice of reason, is this the same reason that in another thread supported WWW in saying that planned bankruptcy seemed a bit like a cunning ruse and one up against the system.

I have my debts, I made them and I have always paid back every penny I have ever owed thus not burdening the rest of society with increased interest rates to make provision for unrecoverable debt. (I am not saying that I agree or disagree with the principle I am saying that I personally have higher standards of responsibility to those who do not have a choice)

We all have a choice I have made mine and you do not have to like that I have made it or even agree with it but you should accept or at least understand my fundamental right to make it based on my well tested, well proven and demonstrable attributes with respect to flying. Not on what you do or do not believe. If you cannot deal with that then maybe aviation is not right for you not me, maybe you are the one who slipped through the net.:uhoh:

On speed, on profile had it occured to you that debt can be built up from lack of earnings as well as capital expenditure. Those who get their licence and then instruct and/or work in other low paid jobs can hardly pay their mortgages on £8-18k a year hence if you spend 3-4 years waiting for said job and previously were on £40k plus then you will find yourself getting £30k a year more in debt each year for each year spent in low paid jobs. Not just on training.

As for what's wrong with singles, etc errmr read above, read my previous posts and you will find the answer NOTHING it just doesn't pay a living wage. The debate if you remember was on the virtues of working for little or no reward IN ORDER TO gain greater reward. Why would you choose an option that paid you less for no foreseeable gain when you already have the requisite experience from the activities you mentioned. If I were a new guy with 250hrs then fine, I would take that on the chin. I'm not, so shan't.

Now can someone please come up with a non-selfish reason not to work for companies that bond or ask for SSTR/little or no reward initially other than the Ts&Cs thing as it is clear that Ts&Cs are being eroded and it is clear that the SSTR/bond route is a symptom not the root cause of this.

It is lastly but not leastly abundantly clear that much as some of you may believe that we haven't all thought it through. We have, we are educated, we have planned our routes, thoroughly researched all aspects of them and just DO NOT AGREE with you. We don't have to, it's a free world as well as a free market.

If you don't like it join a union get into management and somehow change it but quit whining about it as you are more likely to secure orders for the A380F than you are to make the growing number of us realizing that this is the way forward to suddenly realize that we have neglected some fundamental part of our reasearch, have what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity and about turn on our position. :ugh:

Anymore for anymore.....

VT, most eloquent, but rather missing the point.
The dynamic is simple: work free now = reduced rewards in future, get paid now (or have patience til the right job comes up) = higher rewards in future.
Obviously there are many airlines prepared to facilitate your amateur aviating, unfortunately this puts said airlines at a cost advantage. The logical, but regrettable, conclusion is that airlines who employ staff who want to WORK (not play, that's you remember) for a living are forced to reduce T&C's to compete.
Now you may be happy to be a gentleman aviator, but you're taking a position that would otherwise be filled by someone who would rather get paid for their labours. Seeing as most airlines couldn't give a toss about experience in the right seat, your arguments about unpaid experience gaining paid work (a la law etc, where experience counts) is total garbage.
Now comes the bleating about you deserving it as much as anyone else, so let's be blunt. If you are prepared to fulfil a position that undercuts those, particularly more experienced, who would rather get paid a proper salary for doing the job, and have earned the right to such a salary, then no, you don't deserve it as much. Those who have gained experience and worked hard for it don't deserve to see their T&C's go down the swannee because you believe you have a god-given right to a jet. 99% of pilots did not screw their colleagues to get said experience.
Hmmm, gotta lose the attitude buddy, no-one likes a drill sergeant in the flight deck.

You are right I'm sorry I actually do hate aviation :)
 

Okay I give in you are all right. I am the only person to see the merits of working for next to nothing. I invented the SSTR and also the bond and I in my day job as VT Almighty have also reduced the terms and conditions for airlines that do not even realize or care I exist.

In fact the 99% of pilots who did not screw anybody over for a job are all nice guys and I am just a cad and a bounder who is in this game to ruin it for everyone else.

In honesty this was a long held desire of mine. I honed my skills during my 'amateur' aviating wasting the taxpayers money on a flying scholarship (awarded for my lack of knowledge, application, lack of enthusiasm and having cheated at the tests).

Not content with wasting the tax payers money and to save getting a pizza delivery job at Uni I elected to join the UAS again cheating at the tests at OASC as I fancied seeing if I could get one up against the system so that those real professional aviators (just like you) would have another route closed down to them.

Then to put the icing on the cake I decided to waste hundreds of thousands of pounds of the taxpayers money, of course at no inconvience to myself and of course for the last time having proved myself a true amateur totally lacking in conviction, ability and generally blagging my way through the 6 days of interviews and tests and of course blagging the entire easy as pie year at Sandhurst; to train for a job I did not really like that much, get posted all over the world finding new and interesting ways to try and get myself killed all because I fancied being a gentleman aviator.

Not content with that I then left, decided to earn next to nothing as an instructor and spend my hard earnt equity on courses for no reason as I thought it may be glamourous and am now a little peturbed to find out that Ryanair have no officers messes, don't support sporting games that stop for tea and don't even have a mess kit for the Summer Ball or sponsor a polo team. Disasterously the chief pilot is not even called Tarquin. Gosh whatever next!!

Sorry to leave it here but the Baby eating Bishop of Barton Wells is coming round for dinner having just come back from holidaying on his yatch The Saucy Sue with the Balanese Goddess of Plenty and I need to go shopping for a nice juicy steak to go with the sauce Bernaise and a bottle of Chateau Lafite 1858...

(It's more plausible :ugh: )

Patience doh I'm 35 I learnt to fly when I was 16 how long should I wait? Flyboy I clearly am not in it for the trimmings there arent any where I work so maybe just maybe I'm in if for the flying and thus and willing to work for little or no reward to make the future better for me and mine.... Re the jet thing said in in no less than 8 posts IT WAS THE ONLY JOB AVAILABLE if it was flying PA28s I wouldn't have cared!!!!

Dont take your anger out on vt
 

:ok: This is the first time I have been forced to intervene on someones behalf. I think those of us that are angry here should be angry at the system not vt.


1)The foundation for where we find ourselves today was laid when the first fool decided to approach an airline more than five years ago and said you know what I'll pay for my own rating.
Can anyone here honestly imagine applying to london underground to be a train driver and london underground saying you have to pay for your training becauce you like trains so much.


An average train driver earns more than most first officers(cadet) probably with the exception of BA and Virgin.
While there are lots of people here more than willing to admit it that they will pay for a type rating if they had the money. Well over a thousand pilots have done the same thing vortex thing is trying to do but at least he's honest enough to give us a backgroung of why he's concidering it now. It obviously wasn't his first option.


You only need to look at the ryanair forum to see the number of people happy at been called for a ryanair selection everyday somebody joins the queue and I am saying this I was one of them but did not get in. Am I angry no! at least they bothered to call me for the selection process and like I mentioned earlier it was a good experience. A friend that we both passed our cpl on the same day currently has over thirty rejection letters and that was since april last year.


Someone mentioned aptitude I know a lot of guys you will call excellent pilots with first time passes in everything and the right personality to get along with anybody from anywhere on the flight deck yet they haven't been called for a single interview let alone getting a shot they are even in the right age group. I have also seen those with money, over thirty and a couple of resits flying jets as I post this simply becauce they have the money. Yes life is never fair.


Like I said earlier If you cant beat them you join them. or as they say in America Dont hate the player hate the game!!!
Every flight magazine you open you see adverts from companies who are waiting to exploit pilots asking them to pay for rating and hours. Can you imagine London underground advertising for train drivers to pay for the training and work for three monmths without pay so that it will give them a better chance of getting a job with the intercity ones that pay so well.


We are human and it is very easy for those already in the industry especially those that have been it for more than seven years before this whole mess began to try and tell people not to it but then as with all things you cant stop it. Stopping this rot will take a huge collective effort both by those already in the industry and those of us looking for jobs.


At least VT worked as an instructor for a while I know a lot of people who never bothered they simply splashed out the money for a rating after thier MEIR and I can tell you for sure all those that I know that took this route are currently flying jets.


VT i wish you all the best while I do not approve of working for less than you are worth the situation in which we find ourselves today is not your fault and quite frankly should you give up the post I am sure there are hundereds waiting to fill it. We are all part of the problem. And the airlines are very aware of this BA and a couple of other have stopped thier sponsorship programmes.


*I know I will be crucified for posting this as I have always tried to keep an open mind and see why people sometimes post what they do. The good thing is that there is a way to go back and see all the postings I've made since joing this forum before jumping to any conclusions about my motive.


Call me naive but the surefire way to stop this is to go the American or Canadian way where you cant get near a jet till you are well over a thousand hours mostly gained through instructing even then they start you off on turboprop . I dont know how the political lobbying system in this parliarment works perhaps scroggs will be more enlightened about that having been in the forces. The ministers need to know about this and with the CAA do something about it.


The mere thought of going down this route will act as a pshycological filter that will clearly act as a deterence to a fair percentage of those who embarked upon flight training in this country or Europe if we had such a system. Would it have detered me probably not but it will forced me to take a harder look at my options i.e age ,family ,finances, and when you start earning. I would definately have gone a different route.


A lot of people borrow money from the bank with the expectation that they will walk in to a job right after thier MEIR only to discover its not that straight forward. I was fortunate enough to see the reality from those around me who finished years ago that this wasn't the case. Therefore I was under no illusions but the good thing is eventually if you try hard enough you will eventually get the job.


Like we say in Africa everybody is going to the market place and will eventually get there through different routes.:=

I've stayed away from this for a few days because I felt that VT was getting a hard time for being honest, and that's not fair. There is a great deal wrong with the baby-pilot employment system in UK - and it's spreading elsewhere. It's not his fault. As he says, it can only really be dealt with by unified action from within the airlines by the wrokforces involved. Sadly, history doesn't give me much cause to hope that things will improve for those of you beginning your time in commercial aviation, who will have little incentive to improve things for those coming after you.

VT, all I can say is 'good luck'. I think you'll need it - especially to achieve the kind of returns you think you have a 'right' to! I hope you don't have cause, in a couple of years' time, to regret any of the decisions you have made or the course you took.

Scroggs

Nuclear Weapon -thank god for the voice of reason. (never thought I would come across a context where ‘voice of reason’ and ‘nuclear weapon’ would appear in the same sentence!)

Many contributors to this site, I would suggest, have rather elastic principles and somewhat overly biased views.

There is the group that complain of the wealthy who set out to buy advancement of their aviation careers, but at the same time pay for private education for their own children. Presumably in part to give them an advantage in the education and future employment market over the rest of the kids.

There is the group of experienced professionals that criticise ‘newbies’ for paying for their TR, who, if starting out on their careers now would have very little choice if they wanted to progress. Would they flex their principles or abandon their chosen profession?

There is the group who think that everyone should start on a Tigermoth and gently work up through the ranks before sitting in a jet. Any professional pilot, worth their salt, when asked privately, will tell you that getting the first job is the hardest and take anything you can get. If asked publicly on these forums you will invite a lecture on your responsibilities to the current professionals to maintain their T&Cs. If Ryanair operated TPs, would the clamour for employment by them be any less?

There is the group that commonly say, the inexperience in the RH seat means that the aircraft is effectively being flown single crew. Are these the same people who complain of the pittance many RH seat occupants are being paid? Providing evidence of deteriorating T&Cs

One could go on, but essentially these are arguments by those safely tucked up in employment about having the same or better terms and conditions in a totally different environment to the one they entered, and blaming the young and new for undermining them.

“I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed” - Mark Twain

There have always been many youngsters who would like to be and have had the ability to become professional pilots. Back along, a lucky few were selected. There were no opportunities for the unlucky ones, the majority, however suited or committed. Had there been other opportunities, no doubt the purchase of TR’s would have been endemic then, and probably even more restricted to the moneyed classes.

There remains a lucky few but now many of the others can progress if they can lay their hands on the cash by fair or foul means. They risk wasting the money, there are no guarantees. If they can adopt ways that they consider will lower the risk, why should they be criticised? Wish them good luck, it is unlikely they will change the world by their actions.

It is dramatic change in the industry over the last 5 to 10 years and not the degradation of principles that has eroded and continues to erode the T&Cs.

It is the experienced who have the power at their disposal to improve things, but understandably, they are not prepared to take the risks involved. It is safer and easier to blame the vulnerable and satisfy ones own conscience.

“We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles” – Mark Twain

I wish Vortex T good fortune, he doesn’t deserve to disappear down the plughole as some of the comments on this thread possibly imply. Wherever he ends up he can look back and console himself, if necessary, with the fact that he left no stone unturned. Unlike those who will say “If only I…….

(My belated thanks to Mark Twain for his wisdom on the nature of principles)

What the **** has principles to do with anything. I need to eat, drink, and be sheltered. If I have a particulalrly nice shelter I might get a ****. Check out Maslows heirarchy of needs if you don't believe me.

Ergo, I fly for money, no money...no fly. And yes I have been in this industry long enough to be surplus to requirements. It didn't make me work for free, I just went and got a job elsewhere.

If you want to make it in flying you better be good at something else. If people are gullible enough to give their services away then that is their problem. I guess you will go hungry or bankrupt...
Harry...show me the money $$$$$$$$$