F1 doesn't really equate to flying, it's a sport with huge returns for the drivers if they make it and last time I watched, they weren't carrying fare paying passengers.

Also, many find rich sponsors who cough up for the prestigious paddock passes and thrill of being part of the team, although in reality they are just cash cows.:}

Also, as I understand, Easyjet don't pay dividends to the shareholders as the profits that are left after management have taken their huge bonuses and share options are put back into expansion. Stelios wanted div payments as I remember. So the management team seem to be the only ones sucking the profits if you disregard the share price, but as they say... Shares are a gamble and the price can go down as well as up. If for instance there was a big hull loss in any company and lawyers could pin it on recruitment, training or fatigue then you can imagine what would happen to the share price! And those responsible would have taken the cash, shares and pension contributions and move on. Again think Fred the Shread.

I guess we will have to see how it pans out.

I sorry if my info was out of date as I didn't check the date on the article but they started in 2010, I don't have or trade shares. I do forex.

Still any comments on the rest of the post? I guess we can now see how your bread is buttered from this and previous posts.

As for ignorance, well by definition as a lack of knowledge, we can all suffer that sometimes but if memory serves, your posts are about dumbing down the career and terms and profitability, then one catastrophic hull and passenger loss will teach you a lot about economics of airline shares if you do indeed hold them.
TBH I'm sitting in one of the major capitals in the world waiting for my table for dinner so I will have to catch up with your posts tomorrow to be utterly informed of the content.

Life's a beach )

Starfox
I think we are getting to the heart of the debate:
What constitutes P2F?

For example you say that paying for a type rating doesn't count. However I have a totally different view that unless you are repaid the cost of the type rating then it is P2F, or at least pay to gain employment.

I posted a list of aspects that could be considered examples of P2F, as yet no one else has commented on this.

Perhaps others would like to reiterate what they consider P2F?

Do train drivers pay for their type rating? Do HGV/coach drivers pay for their type ratings? Do oil tanker drivers pay for their type ratings? Did the Overspeed drivers pay for theirs? No idea, just asking. How did/do these industries deal with this aspect of employee training?If easyjet ask you to pay for an Airbus rating what happened to the B737 guys who had to change type within the company? Did they have to make a contribution? What do you think would happen if RYR bought B777, as rumoured? Would they ask for volunteers to move across and then charge them for the privilege?

Also the costs charged to people for the ratings are hardly what you could call competitive :ooh:

CPL ATPL = PTF one can pay till he/ she passes
Type rating = PTF
LT = PTF

Too many people wants to be a pilot.

At the risk of being stoned to death! what's wrong with paying for your training? The scenario now is: You want to be a pilot, OK we screen your aptitude i.e reduce the risk of the no-hopers, here's the deal, you pay for the training, if you pass you get to fly one go our 65 Million pound jets, on the other hand, you can pay your training and buy your own jet!
Of course, I am not supporting the issue of getting no salary while flying, that is completely wrong, but during the " training phase" it is reasonable to have a reduced salary.
Training is continued assessment and guys can expect to be chopped at any stage if they don't make the grade. It is impossible for an airline to justify keeping marginal people flying at the risk to the public. Of course, some guys are slow learners but this is reflected in the accrued debt and the mind set " i've come this far I may as well continue". All this spouting that " proper companies" pay for everything " in my days".. let's move on and accept how it is. Take a long hard look at the " proper companies" and evaluate firstly how difficult it is to enter and how much the real cost of getting to their standard is. 10 Years ago Oxford students were paying almost 3 times as much as modular for the same CPL ticket, but then they could " fast track" to the majors..this was the real start of PTF at grass roots level. The likes of Eaglejet spurned a whole new avenue of progression for the marginal students and the rejects and this culture has prevailed ever since

Unfortunately on the regulators have the power to stop P2F. Seems like most PTFers are Europeans so maybe EASA can do something first

Avenger,
Come on Brian lets go to the stoning! Avenger you have been found guilty of blasphemy, no women here are there? :)

Paying for initial training up to FATPL has been here for many, many years and this will not change, I personally don't count this as P2F.
Once a pilot moves into an operation which is plainly commercial the customer should not have a pilot who is paying for the privilege of being there.
Therefore I would count reduced salary during training as a form of P2F. If the selection procedures have been rigorous enough then there is a big reduction of risk for the company and no need for this!.
Likewise paying for the type rating with no repayments (to reduce the risk of absconders) is a form of P2F.

Bamboo.
Interesting point about Europeans. America seems to have taken steps to prevent this. What is the situation for Chinese trainees, asia in general etc?
Chances of EASA doing anything that is not in the intrests of the airlines? :ugh:

P26
Chinese if you are referring to China and asia are still mostly fully sponsored by the airline as of now. I was fully sponsored and being paid salary during CPL. However i do see that unfortunately P2F might be taking over in the near future as many are going P2F route having not being able to get entry to fully sponsored scheme because they think they can be n airline pilot having being rejected in the first place.

The regulator only has the power to regulate what is already enshrined in statute. Avenger has already touched on the reality. The evolution of the training industry, and the transition of those trainees into limited high tier employment, has been visible and obvious for some considerable time now.

Over a period of twenty years, the changes that have facilitated that evolution have been glaringly obvious. Some of us have pointed out those reasons time and time again. Nevertheless, there are a lot of people that simply ignore or choose not to believe the blatant realities of the evolution of that marketplace, and what it is today. I am not sure why that should be a surprise.

The burden of "training costs" was one that Twenty years ago most airlines were happy to shoulder on the basis that it was an investment they themselves were going to benefit from. The problem came (and I worked through this era) when individuals decided to avail themselves of that investment and then jump ship for their own benefit. The response to this, was to contract those employees, "bond" them for that training. That didn't solve the problem as the airlines still had the expensive (and sometimes hopeless) task of enforcing those contracts when the employee defaulted by choice. The answer to that was to shift the upfront burden from the employer to the employee. In other words you pay for the costs that put you in a position to do this job. If the employee then chose to default, it was only a minor inconvenience to the employer. This proved sufficiently successful to see it spread back down through both the employment ladders and the training ladders.

Airlines, that had traditionally recruited from military career changers, self improvers, and to a very limited degree cadets, also found themselves evolving into an era of new realities. Economic cycles rotated as they always had, but deregulation in the latter two decades of the Twentieth century, took hold as new, determined, and very serious operators attacked the underbelly of a very entrenched and established cartel. This happened as statute also swept aside a large portion of the working age and working time regulations. Senior pilots (usually captains) found themselves able to work anything up to a decade longer than had previously been the case. Growth notwithstanding, this allowed a large margin of breathing space to bring about a revolution at the other end of the pilot career market.

That growth came in the form of a massive expansion of ab-initio cadet programmes. Both the established players in this previously limited market, and new entrants provided a cost effective, monitored, and tailored product for the right hand seat. The "experience gap" that might ordinarily have put a natural brake on this expansion, was negated by the fact that those who would once have retired at 55 could now go on to 60 and later 65, thereby providing a decade of growth at the other end of the career chain. That was all the industry needed to revolutionise this aspect of the marketplace.

The cadets themselves proved to be very able and very cost effective for the industry. The attrition rate was tiny compared to the attrition rate for self improvers. For an industry now driven by cost, the writing was not only on the wall, but it was there in very large and very bold letters!

The squeeze was always going to be in the middle of the market. The ex-military and the ex-civil career changers/improvers, found themselves in a marketplace being increasingly dominated by ab-initio cadets at one end, and by experienced pilots no longer forced into early retirement at the other.

As the supply realities changed, so indeed did the reward (remuneration) realities. Another regulatory change that broadly coincided with these industry evolutions was the change to licensing requirements in some countries (notably the UK). A massive reduction in the requirements for a basic CPL (to recognise its aerial work role rather than airline requirement) saw floodgates being opened to a world of people that believed (and still do) that a CPL was their golden ticket to the right seat of an airliner, no matter how they acquired it. It never had been, it wasn't, it isn't, and it is highly unlikely it ever will be! However that is a reality that is lost to many people who simply close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and simply refuse to believe it!

That is the potted history. The future is always by definition speculative. However, the current flow of the evolution (which has a huge mass of momentum,) shows no signs of changing course or slowing down. Airlines (employers) are increasingly driven by cost reductions. The transposition of training costs increasingly moves from the employer to the employee, particularly where those costs put the (potential) employee in a position to actually do the job. Employment opportunities (even at the upper tiers) are becoming significantly less well remunerated and increasingly seasonal in scope. The top tier airlines are finding themselves increasingly "at risk" and threatened by cost advantages available to their competitors. The supply of quality candidates from the airlines perceived quality sources of supply continues to grow year on year.

For a potential pilot coming into this extremely difficult industry today, the reality is finding an acceptable risk profile route that is likely to mitigate the huge costs involved with training. That is the reality for most, and the choices are fairly limited, extremely expensive, and not without significant risk.

However you elect to define "pay to fly," the reality is that you are almost certainly going to pay for your training one way or another. You are almost certainly going to find costs involved in your intermediate and advanced training. You are almost certainly (even if successful) going to find reduced rates of remuneration, reduced terms and conditions, and increased productivity requirements.

For the unsuccessful there is always likely to exist a "vanity publishing" market of "type rating" and "line training" programmes for sale, in order to satisfy that segment of the market. Pay to fly? certainly! But one created by a customer need as indeed most successful businesses are.

If you are lucky, and you have the resources and determination, there are still reasonably good career paths available. They are however few and far between, and usually expensive and not without significant levels of intrinsic risk.

If you are not lucky, made the wrong choices, or simply failed to research properly, you can always sign somebodies petition?

Bealzebub:

What an excellent post; that is exactly the way I remember it. In particular, I have bad memories of those who accepted the free training and then did a runner at the first available opportunity. A very good friend of mine was FOD in a large UK-airline. He would not hire anyone who had a dozen types on their licence for that usually meant that they could not even begin to spell the word loyalty. He would much rather hire someone of good character and spend money on training them. The type-hunters in the past have a lot to answer for.

Beazlebub,

If Carlsberg did Pprune posts.....:ok:

In reality, industry wide, I suspect that those walking away and not repaying bonds was in fact very small when compared to those happily staying in jobs but nonetheless used as an excellent excuse to end the practise of bonding.

In my last company, we lost just over 100 pilots in a 14 year period. I think that adds up to a hell of a lot of training costs that went down the drain.

I wonder how many of them would still have walked if they had had to pay for their rating?

Actually, if you have paid for your training then you are more mobile as you have nothing further to pay.

We must remember that companies do earn a crust from us coming to work, we are not just a perpetual drain on financial reserves for no reason.

How about the poor excel folk who took a loan paid monthly by the company for ratings and then went bust leaving them with no job and a loan. It cuts both ways.
Pilots have to put up with a lot of hit also. Basing, redundancy, shift work patterns blah blah. Sucking thin air from the engine bleed for 900 hours a year isn't ideal either. Glad I don't even do half that a year!

Oh and ask a few ex bmi and monarch guys about pensions......

All in all, you'd have to be mad to stump up 130k or whatever it is now.

I've enjoyed reading through this thread, reminiscent of the quality of discussion that used to prevail on prune 15 years ago.

There's little I can add to all that has been posted already, suffice to say that the singular root cause of all this is that there are simply too many fresh new professional license holders every year. Its like musical chairs, except they are adding bodies instead of removing seats! Until numbers are artificially restricted to match the positions available then nothing will ever change in terms of T&C's. But no organisation can do that, the regulators are only interested in operational safety and quite rightly so and all the others involved (airlines, FTO's etc) have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Pandora's box was well and truly opened in the UK/Europe with the start of JAR (although I was no fan of the then antiquated mindset of the CAA) and the situation is now like toothpaste; its damn near impossible to get it back in the tube. It will be interesting to see what happens when MPL becomes the norm.

Deep and fast:

"Actually, if you have paid for your training then you are more mobile as you have nothing further to pay".

That is precisely my point. If you pay for your own rating and then get a job on the basis of that, then you owe the company absolutely nothing. It's your rating and you can go anywhere you like, when you like.

But that is not really what we are discussing here. We have a bunch of would be pilots who would like to have a career in aviation but they either cannot afford to pay for a type rating (P2F) but would like to have the opportunity to join an airline that would pay all the bills for them.

Now that was the system in the old days. The company hired them unrated and spent a lot of money training them for free. So how did that go?

100 of them in my company walked out of the door in 14 years with a type rating and with no obligation to repay a penny. That is a pretty good illustration of how some pilots see loyalty versus their own desire to do what they want regardless of the consequences.

So, we lost 100 pilots at (in those days) an average of £15,000 each in direct costs which (even a thick pilot will realise) was a waste of £1,500,000. How can you blame an accountant for hiring someone who already has the type rating?

From a personal point of view it was not really my problem. As a dedicated training captain throughout most of my flying career. I always wished them well and hoped that they would have a good future (most of them did). In fact, for 7 years I was the union guy but even then, I could not believe how selfish a lot of them were.

My favourite was a young man who was a DC-10 F/O. The company that we were flying for did not spend money training pilots to do new things. You either had the rating or you didn't get hired. We persuaded the management that this guy was worth the effort and were eventually given clearance to spend money and put him through a DC-10 command course. I put a lot of effort into him and did his final line check in the presence of the FAA. Two weeks later he did a runner and joined another airline and left a lot of us with severe egg on our faces. Are you going to tell me that he didn't know he was going to go elsewhere in 2 weeks time?

So, that is where Deep and Fast makes such a valid point. The pilot pays for his rating (just like an HGV driver) and he can bugger off whenever he likes. That way, he is happy and the accountants are happy. Is that not P2F?

It's a bit unfortunate if you can't afford the rating but if your predecessors hadn't screwed the system, you would have got the rating for nothing.

By the way, I don't know if you have ever heard of the collective noun for a bunch of pilots sitting in a crewroom? I was once told that the correct term is a "whinge of pilots".