I'm Here Doing It...at Avantair

[Kuma]

I don't know, perhaps I should have made a better descision in graduate school to understand how this is an efficient method in conducting a service-based business...

Try looking at it this way. Training bonds are classically the domain of bottom-feeding, soul-crushing pt. 135 charter operations: cargo and otherwise. These shops are widely recognized by the professional community as experience-building generators, to be used and moved-on from. The management of these go-nowhere operations know as much, and use bonds to obstruct their workforce from leaving too soon. It is expected by all, and palliated by none.

Avantair and it's most dedicated bill it as something significantly better, yet...

Clearly, the company is a service-based business. The key point is that service benefits the customer not the pilot. The pilot is merely a tool that the company uses to service their customer.

While I agree with you that training bonds are prevalent in bottom feeding companies, I disagree that they are causal; simply having a training contract does not make a company a bottom feeder.

While we all want to be born with the proverbial silver spoon in our mouth, most of us have to gain our experiences somewhere. We will seek out the best job that our experience will get us, but in the end, we may have to accept a job at what you would describe as a bottom feeding company.

 

[Paradoxus]

And yet, most companies outside of aviation, for example, that pay for a new hire relocation package, make said person sign a reimbursement contract should they quit within a year as a condition of employment. Standard language says that full relocation reimbursement is required for any voluntary termination within the first year. These are becoming standard across industries as many people have used them to their advantage and inclusively to the financial detriment of the company.

A legitimate argument at first glance. Unfortunately, it isn't approachable as anything even remotely similar.

Relocation packages are benefits offered to entice prospective employees, as a bonus of consideration. Recruits offered as much might not have considered the offer otherwise, were not the prospect of company-bankrolled relocation offered. This is a benefit offered on condition of employment for at least an agreed-upon timeframe.

The Perl developer offered this dosen't need company-sponsored relocation in order to perform his job skill.

A selling-point, nothing more. A bond signed is appropriate in this case.

Company-provided P-180 training is a necessity for the performance of the job itself. It is legally mandated, and must be given, even if the prospective employee himself is already trained and seasoned in P-180 operations.

Reimbursement bonds/clauses, etc aren't the domain of "bottom feeders" as you so eloquently put it.

No, they factually are. Again, why do legacy carriers omit this practice and leave such a dire vector of financial burden completely unguarded?

It's a year. If you don't want to agree, then don't say yes, I'll come work for you. It's completely voluntary.

Agreed. This wasn't the issue of contention.

Remember, "No one promised you a rose garden."

Axiomatic. Rose-gardens never come with training-bond-esque threats.

 

[Paradoxus]

Clearly, the company is a service-based business. The key point is that service benefits the customer not the pilot. The pilot is merely a tool that the company uses to service their customer.

Without question. Flight crews are company ambassadors to the clientele. The first, and perhaps last word in the maintenance of client comfort, and most critically, retention; not the bloody chiefs, managers, and executives. Quite simply, the crews and their attendant performance--even their very countenance are the most critical aspects of the business.

If you agree to as much, the pilot is demonstratively more than a simple tool for the service of the client, as one might regard a baggage cart.

While I agree with you that training bonds are prevalent in bottom feeding companies, I disagree that they are causal;
simply having a training contract does not make a company a bottom feeder.

No argument here. Certainly they are not causal, but they have been shown to not be arbitrary either. Bottom-feeders they do not necessarily a company make, however they cannot be denied for the glaring casus belli they are.

While we all want to be born with the proverbial silver spoon in our mouth, most of us have to gain our experiences somewhere. We will seek out the best job that our experience will get us, but in the end, we may have to accept a job at what you would describe as a bottom feeding company.

Doubtless. We've very nearly all done as much to build experience necessary for better jobs. We've very nearly all worked for such shops, places we all planned on leaving rather soon. These bottom-feeder operations were never seen as anything else by anyone. These operations never sold themselves as anything more than stepping-stones.

What is under discussion here is quite different, however: the presence of training bonds at an operation such as Avantair. Billed as a quality operation that one may...hang their hat at, so to speak. These fora are utterly replete with as much approbation for Avantair as it is naked admonishment for their policy and practices.

 

[CessnaFan]

But that's not the full picture....

So I hire someone, train someone, and then they leave because a better position (piloting a BIGGER aircraft!) opens up with another company. How am I supposed to protect my business from that? I don't have BIG aircraft, and NEVER will.....

Again: if the pay, benefits, and QOL factors explained in the spirit of full disclosure are so magnificently competetive, why the need to trap employees with financial ruin?

 

[BoilerUP]

So I hire someone, train someone, and then they leave because a better position (piloting a BIGGER aircraft!) opens up with another company. How am I supposed to protect my business from that? I don't have BIG aircraft, and NEVER will.....

You can't.

As an employer, you simply can't protect yourself from an employee leaving in their best interest...doesn't matter if its aviation, or legal/medical fields, or the city of Cleveland crying about LeBron's "betrayal".

Along the same lines, as an employee, you can't protect yourself if your employer decides to terminate your employment in their best interest.

Why should the employer have all the "power"?

 

[CessnaFan]

LeBron had a contract...

He met his obligation, and then left.

It's called the risk and reward system. As a business owner I take great risks, therefore I reap the reward. Remove that and you have communism.

All the power? I wish that was even remotely partly sort of half way true!

You can't.

As an employer, you simply can't protect yourself from an employee leaving in their best interest...doesn't matter if its aviation, or legal/medical fields, or the city of Cleveland crying about LeBron's "betrayal".

Along the same lines, as an employee, you can't protect yourself if your employer decides to terminate your employment in their best interest.

Why should the employer have all the "power"?

 

[Praetorian]

I guess for me the question is, what makes one air carrier a stepping stone employment opportunity, while another is a career destination? Why do so few unionized carriers require training contracts? If a particular carrier will only offer employment to those pilots willing the indenture themselves, what message is it sending about what it aspires to be as a company? I think that message is clear, “We hire inexperienced pilots in good times and in bad times desperate furloughed pilots, who will desert us for greener pastures at the first opportunity, leaving the inexperienced pilots who are left to fend for themselves”.

I wonder if any average airline passenger, let alone the wealthy fractional owner, would agree to place himself or his family in the back of an airplane flown by pilots who where required to indenture themselves if he knew about it? I also wonder about the mindset of a fractional company management team which would risk their companies’ image in this way simply to exercise a higher degree of control over its pilots.

Sometimes it’s instructive to look at the backgrounds of some of the managers at these companies, some of whom have learned over time to not simply hate, but truly loath pilots.

 

[Paradoxus]

So I hire someone, train someone, and then they leave because a better position (piloting a BIGGER aircraft!) opens up with another company. How am I supposed to protect my business from that?

Gangster tactics, I guess...I dunno...are you trying to convince me that flying bigger airplanes is requisite for a better job? Have you heard of Omni?

Why not simply make it a competitive place to work?

I don't have BIG aircraft, and NEVER will.....

So? Free-market dynamics demand creative solutions for competition. Trapping a workforce via threat of litigation is a circumvention of this philosophy.

 

[Paradoxus]

It's called the risk and reward system. As a business owner I take great risks, therefore I reap the reward. Remove that and you have communism.

Binding employees in your service via threat of litigation and possible financial ruin is a circumvention of the risk-reward philosophy of free-market economics. The unilateral nature of the binding is FAR closer to communism than you seem to realize...

All the power? I wish that was even remotely partly sort of half way true!

Indeed, who wouldn't want a return to serfdom, eh? Strip all rights of the employees and the consumers...you mentioned something about communism, didn't you? Ah yes...

 

[Paradoxus]

I guess for me the question is, what makes one air carrier a stepping stone employment opportunity, while another is a career destination? Why do so few unionized carriers require training contracts? If a particular carrier will only offer employment to those pilots willing the indenture themselves, what message is it sending about what it aspires to be as a company? I think that message is clear, “We hire inexperienced pilots in good times and in bad times desperate furloughed pilots, who will desert us for greener pastures at the first opportunity, leaving the inexperienced pilots who are left to fend for themselves”.

I wonder if any average airline passenger, let alone the wealthy fractional owner, would agree to place himself or his family in the back of an airplane flown by pilots who where required to indenture themselves if they knew about it? I also wonder about the mindset of a fractional company management team which would risk their companies’ image in this way simply to exercise a higher degree of control over its pilots.

Sometimes it’s instructive to look at the backgrounds of some of the managers at these companies, some of whom have learned over time to not simply hate, but truly loath pilots.

Ne'er were truer words spoken on this subject. THIS is why they all fail to become market leaders.

Along with attendant incompetence and prodigious lack of imagination, these management-types are focused on short-term, immediate profits. Little or no consideration is given to general company image, long-term profitability, or competitive quality.