I'm Here Doing It...at Avantair

[gutshotdraw]

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?

The NJA FOM is being re-written to incorporate the NJI operation so we'll see.

 

[Paradoxus]

Why not earn loyalty instead of forcing it upon someone?

This is what pukes in management fail to comprehend...

 

[johnsonrod]

Why not earn loyalty instead of forcing it upon someone?

Say that to the scumbags who bail early. They know what they are getting into when they join. If not, they are either idiots or scumbags.

 

[rettofly]

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?

Here's where the shades of gray come in.

Part 135 requires ANNUAL recurrent. Thus, the training cost has a shelf life of ONE year.

A one year pro-rated training contract is probably reasonable. Anything over one year is NOT reasonable.

 

[Paradoxus]

Say that to the scumbags who bail early. They know what they are getting into when they join. If not, they are either idiots or scumbags.

If there are so many scumbags that management can justify contracts, the problem isn't with scumbags, it is with management.

Is this so difficult a concept to grasp?

There isn't anything wrong with me (read: the company), the fault lies with the world (read: pilot workforce).

Productivity, morale, loyalty...casualties of this madness.

 

[Kuma]

Here's where the shades of gray come in.

Part 135 requires ANNUAL recurrent. Thus, the training cost has a shelf life of ONE year.

A one year pro-rated training contract is probably reasonable. Anything over one year is NOT reasonable.

Now, this makes sense. Why is Paradoxus et al so vocally against this? Isn't this better than a pay for training type scenario?

In the perfect world, there would be infinite money available for training. In a perfect world every worker would be happy at every company, and at every domicile. In a perfect world, nobody's life plans would ever change due to illness in the family, etc.

I think of this prorated training contract is just a safety net for the cash strapped company. If I were going to hire someone and spend a few G's on them before they could even make revenue for me, I would want them to stay for a while.

 

[Pervis]

I can see valid points to both sides of the discussion. One example I can give in favor of contracts is during the good times. In the first full year post 2005 CBA (2006), when NJA had a whole 5 bases for the noobs, attrition totalled 122 pilots that had less than one year service. Some for legit reasons, but most to get a type and get their "dream" job elsewhere with little/no commute. This is a perfect example of lower than desired ethics for any employee.

On the other hand, same example, management said it didn't hurt at all, thus bamboozling us into giving up more than we needed to (IMHO) in order to increase base availability to 100 for new hires with IBB 2007. Even if the cost was negligible (unlikely), two pilots tied up for months of training to fill one seat is a definite burden.

Management created the problem to begin with, and less than scrupulous pilots took advantage of it while the rest who remained tried to improve on a pretty good place to work. The times are indeed different from my youth. Zero loyalty from both sides will simply increase the cost of doing business, while lowering QOL for the majority of employees who remain, for whatever reason. Maybe someday the viscious circle will return to common sense.

 

[hammer2]

Just talked to a pilot about your schedule change and last day pay. You guy's got it bad, hope it improves soon!

 

[johnsonrod]

If there are so many scumbags that management can justify contracts, the problem isn't with scumbags, it is with management.

Is this so difficult a concept to grasp?

There isn't anything wrong with me (read: the company), the fault lies with the world (read: pilot workforce).

Productivity, morale, loyalty...casualties of this madness.

If you disagree with the idea of a training contract (to avoid jumpers who don't provide a return on the training investment), just don't apply... It really is that simple. Avantair is a public company and it can't afford to continually pump more money into training to cover scumbag jumpers. If you apply to Avantair, just be aware of the training contract policy.

 

[Paradoxus]

If you disagree with the idea of a training contract (to avoid jumpers who don't provide a return on the training investment), just don't apply... It really is that simple.

Correction: it would be that simple if I were an applicant or employee of Avantair (or any other training bond shop); I'm not, so that isn't even remotely the issue under discussion here.

This is a candid indictment of the management practice itself.

Avantair is a public company and it can't afford to continually pump more money into training to cover scumbag jumpers. If you apply to Avantair, just be aware of the training contract policy.

Sage advice, however completely self-evident and unecessary. Again, the phenomena of training-contracts is the result of a short-sighted, reactionary response to significant turnover.

Turnover rates are not arbitrary, I'm sure you'll understand and accede.

Rather than employ a bit of imagination and foresight to correct the base, elemental causes of plethoric turnover, corrupt management instead decides to entrap recruits before they even begin the job.

Again, look at shops that have no training contracts and examine their attrition rates. Perhaps it is fair pay, reasonable working conditions, high morale, stability, or a combination of any or all of these that solidify a quality workforce and eliminate excessive attrition at these operations. In our business, unless you're inexplicably aligned against your brother professionals, I'm sure you'll agree that pilots are what drive the engine of profitability, not silly, binding contracts or the idiot managers that employ them.

It really is as simple as that. Avantair is at the top of this ideological hitlist because of the absurdity of training bonds for non-typed aircraft.

If Avantair was serious about their oft-claimed success in the market, as well as honest with investors, they would have implicitly reported long-ago that newhire retention-rates were unreasonably low due to not operating as a competetive employer.

Fantasist notions that too many pilots are "scumbags" and some such are little-more than clever theatre: distractions from far-more threatening ailments within an operation. For proof, anyone need not look further than, again, newhire retention-rates at non-bonded shops.

I can't for the life of me understand why so many of you vociferously defend and excuse the inexcusable. Some level of Stockholm Syndrome?

 

[BoilerUP]

Provide your labor with fair compensation and suitable QOL and there's no need for a training contract.

 

[Paradoxus]

Provide your labor with fair compensation and suitable QOL and there's no need for a training contract.

It really is the only sensible solution, complete with fringe benefits (I would posit critical, actually) to morale, productivity, and employee longevity: all of which directly affect general, operational efficiency and profitability.

Any management functionary that believes anything else is extraordinarily unqualified, as well as banefully lacking in imagination.

Any pilot of said operator so aligned has trapped himself in a closed loop of self-reinforced denial.

 

[Paradoxus]

Now, this makes sense. Why is Paradoxus et al so vocally against this? Isn't this better than a pay for training type scenario?

Certainly. Is it better than simply correcting the flaws in management and pilot compensation structure than necessitate as much?

Demonstrably not, as I've proven ad infinitum.

 

[jonjuan]

Correction: it would be that simple if I were an applicant or employee of Avantair (or any other training bond shop); I'm not, so that isn't even remotely the issue under discussion here.

This is a candid indictment of the management practice itself.



Sage advice, however completely self-evident and unecessary. Again, the phenomena of training-contracts is the result of a short-sighted, reactionary response to significant turnover.

Turnover rates are not arbitrary, I'm sure you'll understand and accede.

Rather than employ a bit of imagination and foresight to correct the base, elemental causes of plethoric turnover, corrupt management instead decides to entrap recruits before they even begin the job.

Again, look at shops that have no training contracts and examine their attrition rates. Perhaps it is fair pay, reasonable working conditions, high morale, stability, or a combination of any or all of these that solidify a quality workforce and eliminate excessive attrition at these operations. In our business, unless you're inexplicably aligned against your brother professionals, I'm sure you'll agree that pilots are what drive the engine of profitability, not silly, binding contracts or the idiot managers that employ them.

It really is as simple as that. Avantair is at the top of this ideological hitlist because of the absurdity of training bonds for non-typed aircraft.

If Avantair was serious about their oft-claimed success in the market, as well as honest with investors, they would have implicitly reported long-ago that newhire retention-rates were unreasonably low due to not operating as a competetive employer.

Fantasist notions that too many pilots are "scumbags" and some such are little-more than clever theatre: distractions from far-more threatening ailments within an operation. For proof, anyone need not look further than, again, newhire retention-rates at non-bonded shops.

I can't for the life of me understand why so many of you vociferously defend and excuse the inexcusable. Some level of Stockholm Syndrome?

Dude, I am going to print your post out to help me win this weekends neighborhood Strip-Scrabble contest. You must be the smartest guy in the world making the least amount of money.

 

[Kuma]

Again, look at shops that have no training contracts and examine their attrition rates. Perhaps it is fair pay, reasonable working conditions, high morale, stability, or a combination of any or all of these that solidify a quality workforce and eliminate excessive attrition at these operations.

How does one get access to this information? For instance, I can look at APC and see what companies pay, what routes they fly, what locations are domiciles and superficial information about retirement plans. I do not know of a source of information that provides attrition rates. What is your reference?

Perhaps your reference is simply empirical data collected by you during your career. If so, you should qualify your statements; they are no longer facts but merely opinion.

My opinion: If the company invests in you, then you should invest in the company. If for whatever reason you want to leave, return the unused investment (pay the remaining training cost).

 

[rettofly]

It really is the only sensible solution, complete with fringe benefits (I would posit critical, actually) to morale, productivity, and employee longevity: all of which directly affect general, operational efficiency and profitability.

Any management functionary that believes anything else is extraordinarily unqualified, as well as banefully lacking in imagination.

Any pilot of said operator so aligned has trapped himself in a closed loop of self-reinforced denial.

In an ideal world, adequate pay and good QOL is indeed the sensible solution to attrition problems. Unfortunately, the world is not ideal.

A new hire who has the pay, benefits and QOL factors explained up front and accepts the position based on full disclosure of what awaits him or her, should not have issues with the notion of buying into a one year training contract. Whether the training results in a type rating or not is irrelevant.

During my full-time aviation career (4 employers, 4 training contracts), I have seen quite a few enthusiastic new hires become disgruntled employees once the satisfaction of landing a job wore off. This was observed at union and non-union shops.

In my earlier career (not in aviation), in which I was a hiring manager for some years, I saw the same phenomenon. The attractiveness of the salary and QOL offered and accepted quickly goes away, to be replaced by grumbling about how "I'm being screwed". I've done a bit of this grumbling myself. Generous raises and promotions are eagerly accepted, but the grumbling stars again fairly soon. It's human nature. The old bromide about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence holds true.

No one is ever forced to accept a job. Having accepted the conditions of employment by accepting the job, it seems to me that one should be prepared to abide by any agreement that comes with the job.

 

[Paradoxus]

Dude, I am going to print your post out to help me win this weekends neighborhood Strip-Scrabble contest.

Strip-Scrabble? I never thought of that...imp:

You must be the smartest guy in the world making the least amount of money.

Nah...

 

[Paradoxus]

How does one get access to this information? For instance, I can look at APC and see what companies pay, what routes they fly, what locations are domiciles and superficial information about retirement plans. I do not know of a source of information that provides attrition rates. What is your reference?

Perhaps your reference is simply empirical data collected by you during your career. If so, you should qualify your statements; they are no longer facts but merely opinion.

You're right, I don't have any hard, empirical data. APC is a good resource, in that you can easily divine which operators don't have training bonds: legacy carriers, UPS, FedEx, etc. Succinctly: the jobs one would be clinically mad to leave shortly after hiring.

My opinion: If the company invests in you, then you should invest in the company.

Agreed.

If for whatever reason you want to leave, return the unused investment (pay the remaining training cost).

You needn't be a legacy carrier to replicate conditions that don't drive hordes of pilots away.

Look, if you need the theat of financial ruin to trap people from leaving, (as too many have been observed to do at Avantair, evidently) what profit is there in that?

Flawless illustration: The ones that do get pissed for whatever reason that would have left had not the Damocles sword been forced to hang over their heads will now endure the term of the contract giving close to 0% effort in the fulfillment of duties assigned.

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...

 

[jonjuan]

You're right, I don't have any hard, empirical data. APC is a good resource, in that you can easily divine which operators don't have training bonds: legacy carriers, UPS, FedEx, etc. Succinctly: the jobs one would be clinically mad to leave shortly after hiring.


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...

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.

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

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

 

[Paradoxus]

In an ideal world, adequate pay and good QOL is indeed the sensible solution to attrition problems. Unfortunately, the world is not ideal.

One might as well lament that in an ideal world, gravity would not be the lethal obstacle it is to vertical construction, thus ladders and stairs are the only sensible solution to accessing and egression from higher floors.

But there is another way, you see, that will make the clientel of your thirty-two floor hotel content and coming back: elevators.

A new hire who has the pay, benefits and QOL factors explained up front and accepts the position based on full disclosure of what awaits him or her, should not have issues with the notion of buying into a one year training contract.

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? Is it not a given that attrition will be inconsequential in light of such a deal?

We've already elegantly established that the misconception that most pilots are scumbag/wannabe/etc is psychologically mendacious (there simply aren't enough active, ATP-carrying professionals extant to the number of possible employers for the laws of averages to be remotely applicable).

Whether the training results in a type rating or not is irrelevant.

Agreed, somewhat. You win that one.

During my full-time aviation career (4 employers, 4 training contracts), I have seen quite a few enthusiastic new hires become disgruntled employees once the satisfaction of landing a job wore off. This was observed at union and non-union shops.

Perhaps the interview process wasn't as comprehensive as it should have been at these places?

In my earlier career (not in aviation), in which I was a hiring manager for some years, I saw the same phenomenon. The attractiveness of the salary and QOL offered and accepted quickly goes away, to be replaced by grumbling about how "I'm being screwed". I've done a bit of this grumbling myself. Generous raises and promotions are eagerly accepted, but the grumbling stars again fairly soon. It's human nature.

If it be merely human nature, as you're so cavalier to point out, non-bonded shops should be seeing, and should have classically seen, legions of new hires fleeing in droves. UPS, FedEx, legacy carriers, my own place of employment, etc. should have found the institutional necessity of training bonds long ago. Of course, they have not. Explaination?

The old bromide about the grass being greener on the other side of the fence holds true.

It does indeed. The existence of training-bonds at operators that employ them is testatory that it is, and that they aren't competetive. In this case, there must be (or must have been) a myriad of superior Piaggio jobs out there (I cant think of any other way P-180 training would be useful)

No one is ever forced to accept a job.

No, not explicitly. Seldom is one forced to do anything within the bounds of a free society. One can be compelled, however, with varying degrees of severity in all acts.

Having accepted the conditions of employment by accepting the job, it seems to me that one should be prepared to abide by any agreement that comes with the job.

One certainly should. One should not, however, be constrained via dire threat of ruin. There are a host of alternatives, as I have illustrated, that mitigate attrition and offer invaluable expansions to workforce productivity, quality, and morale. Shops that employ them indict themselves for a varied assortment of practices, none of them positive.

Let's try it this way.

Employment within the free-market is a partnership. Partnerships in business always come with attendant risk. Most pertinent: the risk of competition. Contracts are purposeful for the attenuation, and in some cases, total mitigation of said risks, I'm sure you'll accede.

A contract that is mutually beneficial to both parties is not an alien concept, and in most every case, commonplace in other forms of business. A training contract, with answerable symmetry to the benefit of the employee would be far more reasonable, i.e. if the company fails to deliver on agreed conditions, they are liable for damages; if the employee fails to deliver on agreed conditions, they in turn are liable.

This form of contract is far more palatable for agreements drafted between professionals, no?

Of course, it would be far easier to simply negate the need for contracts as any honest employer would via the methods I've previously ascribed, would it not?