I'm Here Doing It...at Avantair

[wacoflyr]

We were all typing at once.

 

[hangarrat]

Of course, I'm not disputing the notion that a training contract, even in this economy, is TOTAL crap.

I have been here a long time and agree that training contracts are crap. That said, I also have heard about how much the company wasted on wanna be pilots who had no intention on sticking around. I have seen them leave just before check rides and within a week of getting out on the line. One guy said he had to leave because it was too hard to get into and out of the cockpit and another guy said that he had no idea how much work fractional was. I also know the company has never once used it against any one with a legitiment reason for leaving such as a lost medical, mother getting sick and needing to be taken care of or several other family oriented issues that caused crew members to have to make a tough decision to leave during the first year. So go ahead and start the mindless ranting about the terrible treatment of pilots and comments about how if the company was worth a sh!t they wouldn't have to use a training contract. They started out without a contract and some time after losing somewhere close to six figures on about 4 or 5 pilots, they had to explain the loss to the investors and owners?

 

[Paradoxus]

I have been here a long time and agree that training contracts are crap. That said, I also have heard about how much the company wasted on wanna be pilots who had no intention on sticking around. I have seen them leave just before check rides and within a week of getting out on the line. One guy said he had to leave because it was too hard to get into and out of the cockpit and another guy said that he had no idea how much work fractional was. I also know the company has never once used it against any one with a legitiment reason for leaving such as a lost medical, mother getting sick and needing to be taken care of or several other family oriented issues that caused crew members to have to make a tough decision to leave during the first year. So go ahead and start the mindless ranting about the terrible treatment of pilots and comments about how if the company was worth a sh!t they wouldn't have to use a training contract. They started out without a contract and some time after losing somewhere close to six figures on about 4 or 5 pilots, they had to explain the loss to the investors and owners?

All fair points, however you still fail miserably at effective justification. Training contracts, most especially where no type-training is involved, are more about trapping workers than protection of investment in them.

To wit: recovery of funds lost to a migrating pilot from a shop is never a likelihood.

INESCAPABLE FACT: if the job was so goddam empyrean none would leave, at least not enough to make an appreciable impact. This is why so many operations (ones that provide actual type-ratings) simply do not have them.

Indeed, what is more likely: company work rules/policies/compensation are largely inadequate/undesirable, or that the majority of the pilot workforce are "wannabe pilots" (or some such)?

I certainly don't advocate the dereliction of contractual obligation of any sort, however, training bonds are major red flags to any serious professional, red flags that demand serious consideration.

In this respect, one may view them in the same manner one may view prenuptial agreements. Arguments pro are not without merit, however, isn't marriage (like employment) a partnership based on trust?

 

[johnsonrod]

While I disagree with the PFT issue in general, I do see some of the rationale from the management side. They are looking for some solid commitment up-front from applicants. We are talking about mutual commitment. There is always a risk of losing a new pilot to a competitor or to an airline (returning furloughee) within the first year or two, and one way of ensuring that there is commitment is through a training bond or agreement. This helps to reduce risk on management's side.

Pilots should know about the training contracts up front - if they are aware, then they should make a decision about continuing the application process or not. It becomes their choice.

Again, I am not a training contracts fan at all, but I also try to look at things through management's eyes.

 

[Paradoxus]

While I disagree with the PFT issue in general, I do see some of the rationale from the management side. They are looking for some solid commitment up-front from applicants. We are talking about mutual commitment. There is always a risk of losing a new pilot to a competitor or to an airline (returning furloughee) within the first year or two, and one way of ensuring that there is commitment is through a training bond or agreement. This helps to reduce risk on management's side.

Pilots should know about the training contracts up front - if they are aware, then they should make a decision about continuing the application process or not. It becomes their choice.

Again, I am not a training contracts fan at all, but I also try to look at things through management's eyes.

One of the many problems with the structural philosophies of aviation management today.

Why bother creating a decent place to work: one where people would be foolish to leave, when you can retain them at gunpoint?

A pragmatic solution in the short term, to be sure, but one banefully lacking in imagination; a solution that is totally benighted to the incalculable value of a content workforce. A pilot group that feels they are trusted, valued, and exceedingly taken-care-of will always be of more use than one that is met with hostility.

Speaking of acts of general management hostility, a training bond is the ultimate. The most valuable resource that a flight department has are the pilots. When presented with silly ultimatums like training bonds before they have even begun work, the Rube Goldberg machine of hostility and mistrust is set in motion: sapping efficiency, productivity, and most critically--employee morale.

I can view this hideous practice from management's point of view, much in the same way I can view the Holodomor from Stalin's. Villainous motivations are always more believable when one understands them. To wit: training contracts are outrageous attacks on employees.

Understanding the reasons for them is not requisite in the evaluation of their ethical and morale-crushing consequences.

The cycle of idiot aviation management in this regard begins like this: In the beginning, training bonds are nonexistent. The first generation of employees are hired, many flee because of working conditions, matters of compensation, etc. Instead of addressing the problems that drive pilots away from the operation, they instead find it easier to simply trap subsequent generations of new-hires with contracts for providing the training necessary for performing the job.

Pragmatic in the short term, as I previously detailed, but ultimately detrimental to worker productivity. From the onset, management-employee relations are antagonistically set against one another, and the employees relegate themselves to do their fundamental jobs, and seldom anything more.

Take a good look at the shops whom have either done away with training bonds, or simply never had them. Would you wager you'd be inclined to leave them in the first year, if hired?

Training contracts are warning shots across the bow by managment, signals they are at battlestations, antagonistically-aligned against their employees the moment they set foot on property.

 

[CessnaFan]

Objective?

No bias? Negative.

Sorry mate, there's proud and then there's blowing management. I'm an objective observer, with no bias either way.

 

[Paradoxus]

No bias? Negative.

I do my best. Everyone's got a little bias in them, eh?

 

[hangarrat]

Why bother creating a decent place to work: one where people would be foolish to leave, when you can retain them at gunpoint?

Those poor souls who are finally released from the unscrupulous contracts that they were obviously tricked into signing would then flee from their oppressors. Attrition rates would soar and although the company training cost would be higher, the savings on the pilot salaries would more than offset the amount since no idiot would work for a dishonest, immoral, deceitful, ruthless aviation management outfit for any longer than they have to. But those evil rascally managers would be the ultimate winners because they were able to reap the rewards stolen from the mouths of the children of the meek and mild righteous pilot group that merely wanted to give of their hearts and souls to allow passengers to share a memorable travel experience with each other... right? :nuts:

We have to do something about this, we have to stop this now before all that is good in this would crumbles to the ground and the wicked evil business man kills all the babies, poisons the water, and pollutes the air we breathe all to feed their insatiable greed... right?

ok, i gotta stop drinking and posting :laugh:

 

[NJAowner]

Let me start -- I do not think PFT is good.

But in many other professions, industries, etc., people have restrictive covenants/non-compete/confidentiality provisions which prevent them from easily migrating from one job to another close by if the company gives them specialized training or proprietary knowledge. I add the "close by" because in many situations if you wanted to move from Maryland to Nevada, the provisions may not be enforceable. However, in aviation, your "office" is mobile. Therefore, it may be tough to keep you from working for a competitor -- so the practical alternative is a reimbursement of training costs if you leave before XX months. For example, if I take you someone off the street and train you to be a Class A auto mechanic technician, if you do not stay with the dealership for 2 years you may be refrained from working at another dealership within 50 miles for 1 or 2 years or repay the company for your training. Others use the union rules to keep you from moving too soon. In the end, it has the same effect and the reimbursement (which I note is different than paying up front for your training).

 

[hangarrat]

If the training contract was a tool used to coerce pilots into staying at a disreputable avaiation company and:
1. the training contract duration is one year, and
2. there is no requirement to sign another contract prior to attending recurrent training,
then year two attrition would be reflected in the company's pilot seniority list.

Paradoxus, Me thinketh you doth thinketh way too mucheth

 

[Pervis]

If the training contract was a tool used to coerce pilots into staying at a disreputable avaiation company and:
1. the training contract duration is one year, and
2. there is no requirement to sign another contract prior to attending recurrent training,
then year two attrition would be reflected in the company's pilot seniority list.

Paradoxus, Me thinketh you doth thinketh way too mucheth

Not in the environment we live in now. When the majors started hiring in 2000/2001, NJA saw a huge attrition rate from those whose training contracts were up. That contract was two years, prorated. Many of those returned after the furloughs that followed, but that's another story. I moved up almost 200 numbers in just a few short years. Attrition now is at an all time low though, for obvious reasons.

 

[glasspilot]

Policy is a hard thing to change.

When the FAA changed the first class medical rule to allow ATP privileges for a year if the pilot is under 40 I remember a bunch of NetJet guys saying, "it's still 6 months in our manual so that's the way it is at NetJets". I'm curious, was I right then that it'll change or am I right now that policy is tough to change? How often do your 30 somethings get a medical?

 

[Paradoxus]

ok, i gotta stop drinking and posting :laugh:

Alright, now that was a damned entertaining piece of prose....nothing wrong with a little drinking and posting!

 

[Paradoxus]

Paradoxus, Me thinketh you doth thinketh way too mucheth

Meh, maybe so hangah...stirring things up a bit is what FI is all about, though, eh?

 

[Paradoxus]

Not in the environment we live in now. When the majors started hiring in 2000/2001, NJA saw a huge attrition rate from those whose training contracts were up. That contract was two years, prorated. Many of those returned after the furloughs that followed, but that's another story. I moved up almost 200 numbers in just a few short years. Attrition now is at an all time low though, for obvious reasons.

My pointy exactly. The current job market in this industry may be seen as directly correlative to the oft-touted benign\natural necessity (and effectiveness) prescribed to the training-bond phenomena. Were the better positions I alluded to previously (jobs that never required training bonds) available, attrition rates at training bond shops would be signifigant indeed.

Requiring the signing of training bonds for the training necessary to perform pilot duties is an indefensible practice. This is a fact we simply cannot get around.

 

[AftCG182]

What happened to a man giving his word and sticking to it? Since my beginnings in our industry, I've had a hard time understanding the whole training contract issue.

Hire me, train me. In exchange, you get my professional services for "x" amount of time. No piece of paper necessary.

If you give your word as a man that you'll do something... you do it. Period.

 

[rettofly]

What happened to a man giving his word and sticking to it? Since my beginnings in our industry, I've had a hard time understanding the whole training contract issue.

Hire me, train me. In exchange, you get my professional services for "x" amount of time. No piece of paper necessary.

If you give your word as a man that you'll do something... you do it. Period.

My sentiments exactly. Unfortunately, the "it's all about me" entitlement mindset that's evolved in the last decade almost considers you a chump if you keep to your commitments.

 

[SharkBait]

What happened to a man giving his word and sticking to it? Since my beginnings in our industry, I've had a hard time understanding the whole training contract issue.

Hire me, train me. In exchange, you get my professional services for "x" amount of time. No piece of paper necessary.

If you give your word as a man that you'll do something... you do it. Period.

I'd be happy to. It's the right thing to do. The point is some shady employers sell you the oceanfront view and then... well, then they have to force you to stay.

 

[Kuma]

What happened to a man giving his word and sticking to it? Since my beginnings in our industry, I've had a hard time understanding the whole training contract issue.

Hire me, train me. In exchange, you get my professional services for "x" amount of time. No piece of paper necessary.

If you give your word as a man that you'll do something... you do it. Period.

Here is the training contract. If you leave before two years, then the company will be out a significant amount of training cost...so you have to pay it back. If the man is to his word, he stays for the two years and if he then decides to leave then there is no harm and no foul. If he decides that he must break his word (due to unforeseen circumstances or whatnot) and leave early, then he pays for a portion of his training cost. This sounds logical to me...why not to you?

 

[SharkBait]

Why not earn loyalty instead of forcing it upon someone?