Never said I had 'problems', just a reality check!;)

Ok, I apologise in advance for the facetiousness of this post, but sometimes you have to wonder. Flintstone, you’re right of course – all new fATPL holders could stop this rot by simply refusing to do it. But of course they’re not the only ones who could stop it. So I’ll list a few options. You tell me when it gets simply ridiculous, if it’s ok to require all new cadets to reject what is realistically the only route left in then all of these should be just as fine..…

• The Queen could hear of the plight of new pilots and decide that it’s ridiculous and, using her absolute powers decree it stops.
• The government could see what’s going on and pass law to stop it on the basis of O'Leary isn't a very nice man and besides why the hell should pilots with 20 years experience have to defend their own terms....someone else should stop their conditions being ruined...
• The CAA could say “oooh, that’s a bit rum AND it degrades pilots Ts&Cs. Let’s change FCL to outlaw self sponsored TRs”
• The individual airline board of directors could veto it, as it shows total lack of respect for their existing and [potential] future employees and really they'd like to be seen as good companies to work for
• The TRIs, TREs, LTCs etc could refuse to train anyone who Self sponsored a type rating, or in particular line training, as it’s degrading to the whole pilot community and damaging to their own Ts &Cs in the long run
• All existing airline staff could refuse to accept any such scheme within their company and take a variety of (forcible) measures to make their views known, putting pressure on management to rethink
• The cadets could refuse to take jobs that require SSTR. Of course, there are so many cadets out there, with such large sums invested that HAVE to make something happen or go bankrupt, that if they don’t take a self sponsored opportunity, someone else will, sooooo:
• The FTOs could decide that they are putting out too many students, so they could choke back course numbers to reduce supply in the market
• The funding houses [banks, for clarity] could absolutely refuse to lend for any kind of flying training. Therefore the FTO industry becomes cash only and everyone would have to save first to get their ratings. How many would then actually part with £50k of cash from their own bank - it's a hell of a sight harder to spend your own money, than someone elses..!?
• Of course, potential cadets - who are yet to start training - could see the damage that's been done by too much supply, not enough demand, so not even start to train because "there’s-too-many-out-there-already-and-I''d-only-be-adding-to-the-problem".
• Parents could see there are too many potential cadets and dissuade or otherwise force the issue such that their kids went a different route….but of course you can’t GUARANTEE a kid will do what you want, soooo:
• People could stop having kids altogether, cos if they don’t have kids, they can’t want to be pilots and therefore can’t add to the huge pool of available cadets, therefore airlines would have to offer incentives again….

Yes! I see it now, ALL of these are eminently plausible...So we get the queen onside and start a mass contraception campaign! Within 18 years the industry will be safe again, for all those already in it! And they won't have to lift a finger.... easy now you come to mention it...

Of course, most of these are ridiculous. As is the notion that a 19 year old kid with £50k of debt should just go to the wall to protect some 50 year old Captains final salary pension. Of course, you are 100% right that in time, that 19 year old kid will be the 50 year old captain and what's left of the terms and conditions at that time, who knows...but a 19 year old, with only A levels and a shiny fresh fATPL.... they have NOTHING else TO sell. I'm lucky. I've gone straight back to my old - and very well paid job. But lets cut the bull!!!!. There aren't any [or rather there are very few] FI, air taxi type jobs out there even if there was the inclination to go that route. For a 19 year old, these positions are the only route. And you're absolutely kidding yourself if you think that you'd do anything else in their shoes.

No-one, NO-ONE WANTS to pay their own TR, but that's what the industry has become. You moan of people wanting "someone else to do something", yet the irony is that this is EXACTLY what you want....someone else to do something to protect your Ts & Cs.....food for thought...

Ahh Ryanair threads must say they are always a good read, be it for a laugh 9 times out of 10.
In all fairness can we not be grateful that at least one operator is employing!
Ryanair is really how you take it, could they use a union sure as hell the answer is yes! Blame cadets for shutting up and sitting there fat dumb and happy.......NO of course not!!
Wake up people which contracts are the new cadets on......Not Ryanair therefore if any action is taken by these cadets it would not be with Ryanair but with the contracting agency! Since terms and conditions are listed in the contract therefore you would have to go through the middle man to get to Ryanair....Thinking about it a very cleaver way of doing it :mad:
Ryanair should be taking on all the excel guys who are type rated and require an OCC, save time and effort but again as you said Ryanair does cream some cash from the cadets. But the terms and conditions were long gone in Ryanair before many cadets even started flight school, so really harsh to blame the incoming generation. It is wrong but its the way the airline works simple as..... Everybody knows what they are in for nothing is hidden its all in black and white when you read your contract. If you enjoy flying, going to work, working with good no great people, going to some challenging places and flying good aircraft Ryanair is a great job, it really is just its run by an accountant and to be honest that says it all......
As for doing air taxi work and FI work, well the majority of AOC for air taxi companies you require 400hrs Total time (single pilot IFR commercial operations), not in the grasp of many new fATPL holders, therefore we start to build hours by Flight instructing right? Went to my old flying school last weekend, no instructor courses running because there is no demand for them...why.....because there is no FI jobs going. The AOC guys at my former flying school on average do 4hrs a month some up to a max of 20! In this day and age where would that get you??? No where especially with hundreds of experienced jet drivers on the market from the likes of Excel, Future and soon to be a certain 747 classic operator!!!! Ryanair is not the worse, how come people are not slagging off Air Asia where you pay the full hog including line training and line flying? Least at Ryanair you are paid during line training and once released to the line!
Just my 2 cents, its a sign of the times, but as soon as things pick up hopefully many unemployed guys and girls will be picked up straight away, the times are hard and will be for a while, we are just going to have to sit back and ride it out.

OK ADWJENK

A good post, but people love to slate RYR mostly because they believe the tripe posted on here or who have failed to get into the airline themselves.
Many have axes to grind and find that Pprune is the best forum for their frustrations.

RYR is recruiting and need pilots to crew their new aircraft, wherever they may be based.
With the UK economy the worst in Europe we can see those aircraft being placed outside the UK for the forseeable future.

Watch this space (Pprune) as more airlines collapse and or cut back in the next few months, RYR are lean and mean enough to survive.
Easyjet are going down the route of contract pilots to fill their seasonal requirements (A La Brookfield).

Only those whose can cut to the bone will survive and even the legacy carriers are not immune.

EAT have just announced the return of 2 A300's and that means 16 F/O's and 8 F/E's redundant, only a few but if the large freight carriers are sneezing who will catch the flu and die ?

Clanger.

Excellent post. I don't feel that any of your suggestions are too silly. Crack on with them old bean, let me know how you get on. Actually you're wasted in aviation. Ever thought of politics? ;)

The only way my T&C's would be undermined by this SSTR malarkey would be if I ever found myself needing to pay for one. Then of course I'd do what I've done before and decline the offer, worked for me then and hasn't held me back one bit. Of course it might have hindered me if my idea of progress was straight into the RH seat of a Boeingbus but I've always taken the more relaxed view that the best part of a journey is the trip itself. I'll wager that my scrapbook is far more interesting than it might have been had I bought my way up. I've enjoyed my career progress, all of it. So much more fun than being the homogenised product of some system.

Look back over what I've written. Nowhere have I said this affects me personally. What I have said is that it's now made things harder for wannabees to get a break into bizjets and that irritates me. Until relatively recently those of us 'inside' could recommend someone and that would be that. Now because they've seen the airlines do it some operators are demanding SSTRs which has stymied some great people. That's what annoys me, not because it has affected me directly (because it hasn't).

Lets compare

A BSc Engineer Graduate - 3 to 4 years HARD studyng and if hes lucky he gets a 20k job after grduation.

A pilot - 12 months EASY work (most of the time he's sitting on his back side waiting for the weather to change) . Indeed if you add the effective training together its probably a lot less than 12 months......

Why on earth should the pilot graduate get a 50k starting job? I am one and I like the idea, but we may need to be realistic. A 4 year apprentice, like most apprentices, could be seen as doing ppl, instructing, hour building etc whilst working to earn cash and avoiding huge debt. Just because some poor sod has joined the rest of the worlds rat race by taking credit and trying to race into the RH seat of a jet does not mean he should handed a shiny job with a big salary - and lets admit it - the job is easy compare to many others.

Exactly! I got my fATPL pretty much in my sleep while I spent most of the 12 months it took to cut it off the back of a cornflakes packet playing video games!

skyflaps

i really hope that last post was meant sarcastically. please say it was.

where did you do your training? 12 months and it was EASY? not just easy, but EASY. i remember that i was sat on my arse alot, however i wasn't waiting for the weather to change, i was trying to pass 14 HARD groundschool exams.

firstly, who is paying 50k for a cadet? can you give them my cv please?
secondly, it will help keep the bank manager happy because unlike the bsc engineer graduate the pilot hasn't had his education fees subsidised or loaned money at an incredibly low student loan rate.
thirdly, it's considered responsibility pay, there's alot of people to kill up there.

don't give our secret away

are you in ryanair yourself? if not, you should be. management would effing love you; campaigning for lower pilot salaries.

OK I take some of your points - not all. The ground school was hard but nothing compared to what you do at degree level, at least a technical degree. Agreed though , university loans are cheaper and there are a lot more bursaries etc to be had.

Responsibility pay - the same kind of responsibility exists in many professions - doctors for instance start at rather low salaries on the NHS considering their expertise. We do have a large responsibility but come on - most of its taken care of by the bloody auto pilot. It would be nice if we really were flying the thing - we need to prove our worth only on rare occasions. Similarly bus drivers/ taxi drivers have responsibility too.....

Anyway Im on your side - I promise - Im just playing devils advocate here. Perhaps we need to open our eyes and step a few rungs down the old fashioned pedastal that we pilots once were on.....

Skyflaps,

You are young. You will learn.

We should not be taking any steps down any rungs of any ladders in order to feather the nest of the likes of MOL and his cronies.

Did you see what Chesly Sullenberger said about the state of our industry yesterday to Congress?

If not, I commend you to watch, listen and learn.

I am all for standing my ground and raising Pilot pay. It may not happen, but I ain't rolling over for no-one.

The autopilot on the 738 is a bag of !!!!!!!

it tried to overspeed and do allsorts of dodgy stuff, will allow its self to stall in the cruise,,,,,you have to know how to work it to get the best out of it.

I must be doing something wrong because I can sit in the seat doing a 4 sector day waiting for the weather to change and at the end of the day be mentaly knackerd!

yes I bought myself a job,, but I also did instructing and charter, and I dont take home 50k a year! maybe after tax and deductions for uniform and all that i take home £30k max! but thats not bad and will hopefully go up in years to come.

Most of us would prefer to be knackered in a cockpit than in an office writing proposals, preparing presentations, writing reports and pretending to be grown up and formal in a suit and tie. Essentially we are prepared to be screwed to the limits by the likes of Ryan Air by our own choice - we all knew what this industry is about - EVERYONE WANTS TO DO IT..!!!! because it is sexy and has a great view!! People are even willing to take 120k loans and gamble with the risk of finding a FO job straight after 140hrs of training - how ludicrous! What other industry requires these risks - but we take them - why ? Because the job is sexy with a great view - and slightly fun, although the auto pilot has taken most of the fun away by now. So....
demand and supply - we all know this - but who's fault is it? Personally I dont think we have a right to whine at anything here. Ryan Air can screw us as much as they want as long as there is a supply of pilots - rich,poor, good, crap etc. that will sit in their RHS. There are too many pilots and thats no ones fault but ours - hopefully soon the schools will stop producing them for a while - if Im not mistaken Oxford are still spitting them out in the dozens with some bollocks of ' It will get better......'

skyflaps. . . . . GROW UP

I doubt whether the families of the crew of the Turkish Airlines flight at AMS today would agree with your summary of the "sexy easy :yuk: " job you do.
It's idiots like you that have resulted in this profession descending into the piece of crap it has now become.

Skyflaps, how many hours command do you have?

p.s. This question is not to denigrate the majority of FO's who are well aware of the responsibilities resting upon flight crews shoulders.

ahh here we go, Camelhair is going to stick his oar in ...

On the contrary CamelhAir asks a valid question.
Perhaps you forget skyflaps, if the miserable old sod next to you drops dead you are promoted. . . . which is the only reason you are there.
At that point , on a dark dirty night, low on fuel,lets see how much fun & how easy you find it.
Of course you will be one of those legend in your own lunch -time types that we so appreciate from the other seat, fortunately a minority. BTW you are not Dutch are you ?

skyflaps



I actually found the ATPL quite difficult to achieve. I must be thick.

Perhaps, skyflaps you should write to my former boss M.O.L.

Ryanair
Corporate Head Office,
Dublin Airport,
Dublin.

It seems you have all that he's looking for in his management team.

Please be careful not to tread on too many of us humans on the way.

I have to agree when i did my fATPL's i was still working full time and i can assue you doing that much work in 12 Months wasnt easy.

And before you say compared to a real degree etc.. I also hold a BEng (Hons) degree in Microelectonics and Computing and again i can assure you that wasnt easy either.

I would have to say the ATPL was just as hard because of the amount of information you have to learn, not because of its hardness.

Plus it was more expensive than my Degree.

But thats my personaly perspective on the subject

Skyflaps, you comments miss one very important point.
If a Doctor screws up his patient dies
If a Lawyer screw up his client spends a lot of time inside
If a pilot screw up, he dies along with his passengers.

This is an industry where complacency will kill you, end of. It will also kill many people who are relying on you.

Oh and when you do get into the big shinny jet, you are still an apprentice, learning your trade, that's why we have Captains, and they lean every day as well.

The argument over paying for type ratings will never stop, as long as people will pay. Ryanair, good or bad exploit their staff as much as they can and don't even bother to hide the fact. So they have nice new planes, so what, I have flown both brand spanking new 737-800's and older 300's and 400', I am currently on both the 800 and 400. When it has a problem, you are getting real time experience in learning how to deal with it, not just waiting for a sim recurrent.
Still whatever floats your boat. Happy flying
FC

Just my take on things, i've been nothing more than a passing observer regarding the RYR t&c's.

It sucks for the young grads, low pay, SSTR, no job garuantee etc. Not a nice position to be in.

However, for those that take the risk, if it pays off, its my impression it pays off quite well?
Good pay (at command) for EU flying, home every night?

I may be wrong, and would like to hear everyones views, but it seems that after the initial hurdles and downfalls, the end result if achieved aint too bad? LH seat on a new 737 in mid 20's cant be all doom and gloom!