There are a number of you here who are offended by what is being offered despite having been told the exact deal by people like myself for a long time. I am frankly finding this discussion very wearing - you ARE being offered a permanent contract subject to passing a probationary year as a CTC pilot on a £42/hour basis. You will NOT do zero hours and therefore you will be paid - how many people have to tell you that before you believe it? Unless we face financial ruin or you royally mess up, you will be given a permanent contract as a Second Officer automatically at the end of that first year. That is straight from the horse's mouth. The deal is exactly as per the New Entrant Contract. The Company can put people in further up the scale if they choose, but that can only be a bonus rather than a negative feature. For those of you who think they should be told reasons why they should accept an offer from easyJet, I can only assume you must have an incredible deal lined-up somewhere - good luck.

What most people seem unable to grasp here is that, like Epsilon Vaz has said, this is a seniority system in all but name. You start off on poor terms and conditions (still way better than a turboprop outfit) and work your way up. De fumo in Flammam and others find being told the Captain's terms and conditions 'nauseating' because people are 'boasting' about what they get. No one is boasting about anything - the reason you are being told these figures is because it is what you will get too when you become a Captain. It is therefore material fact in the decision-making process.

I concur with the wise words of others who point out the facts of supply and demand. If easyJet cannot get the people they want they will bump up the deal, but if they can get 15 applicants for each job why would they offer more? Nonetheless, there seems to be plenty of you who seem to have way better offers and will be declining the opportunity to work for us. Given your antipathy towards easyJet at such an early stage in your careers, my strong advice would be to go off to Air Utopia where you are paid twice what we are and work half as hard. For the rest of you, come to easyJet as it is really a great place to be and offers the chance to fly with some great people, destinations and aircraft. Finally, I would strongly concur with the words of Brizzol and Epsilon Vaz, both of whom are very sensible in their advice.

Wow folks so it looks like us that are looking at this negatively are doing so without cause, the contract is permanent after all and of course you will get plenty of hours.

My only question is, if that is the case why are you not employed by easyJet directly and offered guaranteed hours? All the recent replies seem to suggest that this is what you will get.

I can tell all that you that from what I have been told you are most definitely not guaranteed a position as I know 2 guys that have been let go in the last 2 years, both during the winter stand down and one only after 250ish hours with eJ. Before you argue they weren't up to the job this is not the case either, I understand one dared to question management that after spending ~£25k on a type rating they needed some hours to feed their family, the answer was.... Good bye! The other was taken by another reputable airline and now seems to be very happy.

Just trying to keep the discussion balanced...

ADM - I hope Mr P's post clarifies why this is a poor deal. £25k for a type rating. Easy are not prepared to guarantee your first years income nor that you will have a job at the end. If they were things might be very different but their not.

Regardless of what you might expect to happen, my bank won't take IOU's on the basis that we can EXPECT a minimum of x number of hours.

I like others have a family to feed and a mortgage to pay. I can't do that on an expectation.

Wo Ping

Very kind of you to post. However I will query some points, even though you won't reply.

Is this how your airline justifies the vast amount of cheap inexperience it employs? I suspect that you'll find all experience is good experience. You just need a recruitment process strong enough to differentiate the good operators from the bad.

I have no first hand experience of this, though a chap I was flying with has an offer and showed me it. Great chap, few thousand in rhs of the 195. In the command process. But I diverse. The fact is no where does it say he is employed by easyjet or has a job for more than one year. Period. How can he take that to the bank and request a loan for £24k?

[quote]we'd like a healthy experience mix but in no way require it as cadets are excellent. Growth and time to command mean all command vacancies can be met by cadets for many years to come[ /QUOTE]

Ah but you do require it if you are to continue to be a safe airline. Like it or not it is a fact that concerns have been raised, by the CAA and by the insurance companies. Otherwise you will have an airline crewed exclusively by CTC in a few years time. Not a healthy or safe environment. Diversity and experience are both desirable to avoid clones flying your aircraft, and essential to safety.

Finally

Where's the investment on your company side? Non existent.

Alexander.

It's a shame you find the discussion wearing, and I do admire your orangeness. However as I touched on, the consensus is no one is being offered more than a years CTC contract. Yes perhaps the intention is they will then be offered a job. But they aren't being offered it now. The only security they have is an hourly paid CTC deal. Which technically is a zero hours contract like it or not. And expires in one year.

And you need to look around. For most folks the only time the money will be better than they are currently on is when they get the LHS. Not before. And this doesn't take into account having to pay back the rating from taxed money. That to me shows long term commitment.

Thankfully I'm not looking to move, but from what i see and hear I suspect Jet 2 may fit your description of decent employers. Just a final thought.

And for how many years did BEA/BOAC/BA recruit exclusively through Hamble?:ouch:

Firstly a fact check:

Not true. You may be relaying what you were told by these chaps, but the only people we have "let go" have been for dreadful attitude problems or ability issues (after extensive re-training). You do 12 months contractor work, then you get an interview. If you are one of the very few who fail, then you get a second crack after 6 months. If you fail again, then you are off.

However,

If the offer is not good enough for you, then politely decline it and carry on. Nothing lost, and you are doing a good thing for your own market. No need to rant on here!

Get this 12 month probationary thing out of your heads. All employees are placed on a probationary period anyway. This can always be extended. You don't need to put someone on a temporary contract, employed by a third party to give them a probationary period. Its absolute nonsense.

The simple fact is if easyJet wanted to employ people on a permanent contract and offer them a salary equivalent to flying 750 hrs a year, they would.

To demonstrate how much nonsense these arrangements are, consider this;

Year 1 you are employed as a First Officer by CTC on £67 (there is a sliding scale of pay against factored hrs - I have over 7000hrs so would receive the highest hourly rate). We were told to expect a minimum of 750hrs = £50,250 gross income although easyJet will not guarantee ANY minimum income.

Year 2 you are employed as a Second Officer by easyJet on a set £38,000 gross income.

So in year 2 after successfully serving your "probationary period" your reward is demotion and a £12k pay cut.

Before any of you say this is incorrect, these arrangements are exactly how it was described at the assessment day.

Incidentally I know someone who flys for easy on a flexi-contract. In August (one of the busiest times of the year) they completed 60hrs of flying. In the unlikely event that you did this every month, with no holidays, sickness etc, thats 720hrs a year and not the "expect a minimum of 750hrs" we were told.

The simple fact is if easyJet were so confident about using people for 750 hrs per year and being able to employ them after 12 months, they would simply employ them. If things didn't work out during the first 6 months, they would extend the probationary period. If things still didn't work out after 12 months, they would say goodbye.

I am pretty bored of this thread now and think I'll call it a day. Good luck to you all in your endeavours. Things are starting to move in our industry and regardless of what people might say on here, there are plenty of companies who value experience and will pay a decent salary without you having to get yourself into all sorts of debt & anxiety about whether this months salary payment will be enough to cover your outgoings.

Sorry just a quick note for Hundredpercent - it cost me two days holiday, around £500 for flights & accomodation and weeks of preparation to attend my assessment day, only to find out I hadn't applied for a permanent position. So I'm afraid it has cost us all quite a lot.

CaptThunder
 

They aren't interested.

The vast majority of easyJet captains understand that this CTC deal is iniquitous. And a bad deal for everyone, except CTC and easyJet.

You will always get sycophantic management climbers on here defending the indefensible.

All I'd say is this: if you have made up your mind to say no thanks, then move on to the next event. Life is too short for bad feeling. It'll kill you early.

I could be wrong...
 

...but, maybe, we are all missing one point: I don't think a company can hire you and then ask you to pay by yourself for your training, just my very personal opinion but it doesn't sound 100% OK and it would explain a lot of things.

Here's a reminder of what was proposed:

Take note and ask yourselves what the hell they implied by saying "Contract opportunities also lead to a permanent position"?

They make you jump through hoops, waste your time, effort and money only to spit on you. The whole recruitment campaign is now looking like it was designed to be a smokescreen from the outset. BALPA applied pressure to have pilots from all sorts of backgrounds be given a chance. But the truth is, most air-breathing mature and wise adults could never accept such a poor deal. Are we to believe EZY didn't know that in the beginning? Well at least the airline can now turnaround and tell BALPA that they tried! Hiring more kids on zero hour slavery contracts with guarantee-less terms is the only thing that fits the EZY model of mega profits and there's nothing BALPA can do to negotiate salary terms for new hires! Case closed.


I despair.

Sell! Sell! Sell!
 

ADM. I like your positive slant. You are an excellent salesman. Fact is the contract does not give any guarantee of a permanent job, we only have what you call the horse's mouth for that. Horses don't stand up in court without written agreements behind behind them. This agreement gives nothing. It says so in black and white. A probationary period is a permanent contract for a company from day one. This is not. To call it so is no more than positive spin.

I'm not going to comment on what is or isn't on offer here as it's been done many times so far, without seemingly getting anywhere. What I will say is that ADM is someone I have had the pleasure to fly with, has a wealth of knowledge, and is someone who's advice I would always give great consideration to applying. Beware dismissing what he says so easily. If this deal isn't for you I understand completely. I really do. Do what's right for you, having considered every aspect, and have no regrets. However, the likes of ADM, EcamSurprise and EpsilonVaz are spot on with the rewards and lifestyle that a permanent easyJet pilot enjoys. They aren't here to waste their own time rubbing anyone's noses in it. Believe it or not, they are trying to help you make a good decision. The right decision for you.

If it helps, I also joined as experienced crew on a zero hours contract a few years back and shared the same concerns (a volcano shutting down European airspace wasn't considered likely!!). However, I did work hard and made very good money. And yes, I did take a considerable paycut when I was made permanent. But it's a ladder to better things and in hindsight it was one of the best moves I could have made.

Good luck!

Last post from me as I am going to be off spending my millions as long term easyJet employee.....

I totally understand the risk some people are unwilling to take moving from a permanent position with an existing airline to a contractors position with easyJet.

Just to back up what someone else has said on this thread the only pilot's let go have been those with attitude problems and skill problems. The former you can't do much about and the latter shouldn't apply as you're all professional pilot's.

When I was signed off as an FO in easyJet the TC said keep your nose clean and head under the parapet and you'll do fine. Never a truer word said.

It's sadly an employers market......

AdM, the wholly understandable problem that people have with this set-up is that these experienced pilots are far more likely to have wife/kids/mortgage and are therefore unable to accept the job offer as-is even if they really wanted to come and work for us.

While I think the current arrangement is entirely appropriate for cadets joining the airline, I think it is utterly inappropriate and frankly embaressing to offer the same terms to experienced pilots.

It also seems to serve no purpose, unless you can think of one, other than to let these people know who's boss.

AdM

If Easy was offering a permanent contract as you so profusely testify then any company worth it's salt would put their employees on a permanent contract from day ONE and have it written into the contract that continuous employment is based on a 12 month probation. The whole idea of a "12 month" probation which then leads to a permanent contract is completely unnecessary and is nonsense. We all know why they are offering all these gradings - 12 month probation - 2 month SO - 12 month FO etc etc etc is purely to keep the cost down, nothing more, nothing less; that is their motive and you know it.

AM, you shouldn't be surprised at Easyjet trying to cut costs when they can, and lets face it, they pretty much can at the moment. Easy were paying golden hellos 10 years ago. Now the opposite is the case. Ruthless cost control (and not just aimed at pilots - they don't pay a penny more for anything than they absolutely have to) is part of what makes it such a profitable company.

However, I don't see why its any more expensive to employ new joiners permanently from day 1. It certainly could be made to cost the same. Perhaps it's an accounting thing.

Not convinced by the flex argument. We already have enforced 75% contracts and there is at any time one years worth of new cadets on fully flexi zero hours contracts. If flexibility was the issue then why not start experienced joiners on 75% perm contracts as I believe Monarch and Thompson do?

@HundredPercentPlease

Just an observation, on the flip side unless you was personally involved with the letting go of the two individuals then your comment is only "relaying what you were told". To add to that what constitutes dreadful attitude problems? Perhaps a person who is upset they have spent a lot of money to then be told that they should only expect a few hours a month over the winter? Could this not simply be someone that is in dire straights as opposed to bad attitude? I don't know as I wasn't there, was you?

Just for the record I'm not in the eJ race to the bottom anyway. As for my "rant" I'm merely interested in pointing out glaring fact omissions and numbers that tend not to add up from persons I assume are inside eJ that tell all how wonderful it is. Just trying to keep the discussion balanced.

HPP
I was trying not to get involved but your statement about people being chopped after extensive training it's utter rubbish. I know at least a half dozen of good guys being shown the doors over night for no good reason.