PPRuNe Forums - Airlines that have its pilots pay to fly

Quote:

Originally Posted by Newhairdo (Post 11968300)

There are a lot of companies around the world, good airlines, who use contract pilots via specialist aircrew providers. Are you suggesting they should be regulated by FAA/HKCAD/GCAA/EASA/CASA/UKCAA?

There is a solution - if you don’t like the Ts & Cs, don’t sign the contract! Simplistic maybe, but it will work. Supply vs demand always works.

Supply versus demand doesn’t always work — that’s exactly why we have labour and employment law in the first place. Nobody’s denying there are genuine contracting operations out there, but those aren’t the same as large scale airlines running scheduled services.

What we’re really talking about here is abuse of a dominant position. When a handful of companies control access to jobs, training pipelines, and even the licences you need to work, that’s not a free market — that’s market capture. Once you’re £100k deep in training costs and the only way to get your hours or keep your rating current is to sign one of those “contracts”, the freedom to choose isn’t really free at all. It’s coercion dressed up as opportunity.

And no one is saying the CAA should have a division checking contracts or running employment tribunals. The point is that when a company is clearly placing their crew in a compromised position — having them pay for training that, both under regulations and basic morality, should be paid by the employer (like rail companies as we’ve said)— the CAA should be referring that to the proper body. That’s literally what the law already expects of regulators when they see potential breaches outside their generic remit.

It’s not complicated. It’s just not being done. In any other industry, regulators share this kind of information as standard. The difference is aviation operates across jurisdictions, and that gap lets everyone pass the buck instead of acting and so we have this problem that no other industry has where costs are front loaded onto the employee… not a student loan tax… people mortgaging their houses for their kids etc.

So supply and demand has nothing to do with it… greed maybe. And honestly, why do we expect more responsibility from a debt-laden potential employee at20 years old than we do from an airline with 600-plus aircraft?

I think the whole point of this conversation really is when a company is so morally bankrupt that they set up dodgy structures to exploit their own employees… who have already invested a damn lot… they should be made to stop… and if their model can’t survive genuine moral costs of operating… then they shouldn’t be in business… and maybe flights to Majorca should be £50 not £10. I’m sure passengers wouldn’t mind if they know their flight crew are paid well and able to afford rent / call in sick without fear.