Company needs living, breathing chartholders!

[Sim Sweat]

Ahh ...

That kinda answers the question I was about to ask ... which was how did they put these non-paid people in the right seat under their opspecs, which clearly require a qualified SIC. But now that they're taking payment for the seat, I guess that allows them to provide minimal indocs training. I hope their POI is secure in his job ....

 

[handlesaregay]

Maybe they should advertise on Ebay

To me this represents a whole new low and I really hope this is not the start of a trend, paying for training and then working for free indefinitely afterwards? That is insanity! What these morons don't realize is they are taking a right seat turbine job for free in order to get another right seat turbine job for pay. What's stopping someone from taking the pay job they're trying to get and doing the same thing? What if regionals start using "interns" instead of paid First Officers? I can just imagine it, spend an entire semester getting real experience as an airline FO! We'll use your tuition money to finance the training and give you 4 or 5 months of real 121 line flying experience! I bet you could staff an entire airline that way or at least partially, reduce to a core group of permanent first officers and the other 2/3 could be temporary interns rotating in a new crop of idiots every few months. (And now that I've put this on a public forum I give it 12 months before somebody actually tries this, you heard it here first.) Yes I know it's being done by Gulfstream already but there is nothing stopping it from spreading and this sort of thing becoming the rule instead of the exception.

Young commercial pilots need to get out of the student mentality that is driving crap like this. I think you would do less damage to the profession by pencil whipping 800 hours of metro time in your logbook then actually helping this a-hole in South Dakota crew his metro for free. (I'm being sarcastic of course) I would rather tow banners, flight instruct, do traffic watch, just about anything other than use my certificates to fly for that j-off. The end does NOT justify the means. If it were up to me anyone crewing an airplane for free would have their commerical ticket immediately revoked, torn up, shredded, burned, and the ashes divided and sent to the four corners of the earth. But that's just me.


Follow up:

...after doing some research I'm not convinced these guys aren't violating state and federal minimum wage laws by running this scam. Just because you agree to work for less than minimum wage doesn't necessarily make it legal. I'm still researching this, I notice even Gulfstream pays a "wage" while you're there, possibly this is why? Any of you pilot/lawyers out there?

South Dakota Division of Labor and Management: 605-773-3682

US Department of Labor
Standards Administration Wage and Hour

 

[WhiteCloud]

The description for this job (if you can call it that) has slightly changed as posted on Jan 7 on one of the pilot job boards. It now states that you need to pay the company $3,500.00 for groundschool and flight training which is refundable after you have worked 800 hours or 1 year.

What are the odds that a company like this will hand over $3500. to a pilot about to leave?

 

[HawkerF/O]

What are the odds that a company like this will hand over $3500. to a pilot about to leave?

Exactly. Count on getting fired at 11 months or 775 hours, which ever comes 1st. These are the kinds of "low-rents" that the FAA is going to have to put out of business and ban all mgmt involved from ever operating in an aviation arena again.

 

[handlesaregay]

Idea for commerical pilot's organization

This is why we need some sort of national trade union for GA pilots. The idea has been tossed around before, but with more and more of us spending our entire careers in GA maybe it's an idea whose time has finally come?

It doesn't even have to be a union perse, with contracts and negotiatons and picket lines, but a simple voluntary organization with a basic code of conduct like "Thou shalt not fly for free". You could do this totally on the pilots side, no messy involvement with management just a group of like minded pilots getting together and agreeing on some basic rules of conduct and if you violate them you're out. Call it the Professional Aviators Guild or something like that. Not a strong arm organization like the teamsters just a professional organization of pilots using nothing more than old fashioned peer pressure, sort of a self-policing type deal.

Maybe I'm a dreamer, but in this day of the internet things are possible that maybe weren't possible 20 years ago. You wouldn't even need huge numbers for it to work, you could be effective with as little as 10% of active GA pilots. Don't get me wrong I'm not suggesting some sort of internet PFT blacklist or anything, just letting people know what operators meet certain minimum ethical standards and which ones don't. And if you happen to know of someone using their commerical ticket to work for free maybe the rest of us should know about it too. Just an idea, if anyone wants to take it and run with it feel free. I have a buddy of mine who is a web designer in his spare time maybe I might talk to him about putting something together. I am not currently flying at the moment so I have a lot of time on my hands. Idle hands are the devil's work. :nuts: