Europes way of handling the pilot shortage

It's great news to see cadetships coming back. The airline controlling training from hour 1 will lead to a higher quality of pilot. Taking the financial burden off the student and onto the airline may also lead to pilots being treated like an asset to the company.
 
I hope for similar opportunities here in the U.S. for aspiring pilots otherwise no money, no flying!
 
fholbert said:
What about this?
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Repay over 7 years while making a good salary, getting full bennies. Could well be a golden parachute for some 55 year old who wants to retire at 62.
Lufthansa has shown that "making your own" elite pilots is a good way of retaining the best. If you manage to get in, you deserve to be in and be paid well.
 
$136,000 security bond has to be paid first. Yeah that's going to happen. Who has that money to spend.
 
Right....I can see this being a great deal for pilots. Now management controls supply and demand, the downward pressure on wages will be the weight of an A380.

Airlines already have pathetic starting salaries, whats going to happen when your loan payment is lumped in with that starting salary? 7 years of getting 10k or less in your pocket while the rest goes to loan repayment, medical and taxes. Welcome to indentured servitude.
 
its bogus. there are plenty of qualified pilots who would take these jobs. "cadet" programs are a joke and excuse for the airlines to pay even lower salaries.
 
Skåning said:
It's great news to see cadetships coming back. The airline controlling training from hour 1 will lead to a higher quality of pilot. Taking the financial burden off the student and onto the airline may also lead to pilots being treated like an asset to the company.
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I think it's the other way around -- I think it leads to a very stovepiped, limited-experience pilot who isn't able to develop airmanship outside the narrow confines of the airline-style cockpit. Plus, it leads to essentially indentured servditude to a particular company, for better or worse.

I much prefer the US method, where guys have to go out and get all kinds of different flying experience to move up the ladder before they're flying big tubes-o'-pain with lots of people in the back.
 
Hacker15e said:
I think it's the other way around -- I think it leads to a very stovepiped, limited-experience pilot who isn't able to develop airmanship outside the narrow confines of the airline-style cockpit. Plus, it leads to essentially indentured servditude to a particular company, for better or worse.

I much prefer the US method, where guys have to go out and get all kinds of different flying experience to move up the ladder before they're flying big tubes-o'-pain with lots of people in the back.
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I agree, in a modern glass cockpit jet the ops specs, checklists, and flows pretty much all the toughest decisions are made for you.

Versus flying single pilot 135 in a piston 402 or Navajo or even a single engine 210 flying for pleasure. This will definitely make the gap wider between GA and 121 when it comes to skill and experience.
 
It's perhaps worth mentioning that the US (pretty much the only major aviation region that still avoids cadet scams and trains pilots in actual airplanes) is still the safest and BY FAR the most efficient in the world. As anxious as the SJS Squad is to become a bunch of 'college'-trained sim button pressing slaves, I'm surprised there isn't a yoke on the yoke by now. My briefing for 'cadet' schemers: 'Close your eyes. Everything you see is yours. Now open them. Everything you see is mine.'
 
We must not be short enough on pilots when the majors and mid tier recruiters are still telling me my experience is no good for their companies.
 
Boris Badenov said:
It's perhaps worth mentioning that the US (pretty much the only major aviation region that still avoids cadet scams and trains pilots in actual airplanes) is still the safest and BY FAR the most efficient in the world. As anxious as the SJS Squad is to become a bunch of 'college'-trained sim button pressing slaves, I'm surprised there isn't a yoke on the yoke by now. My briefing for 'cadet' schemers: 'Close your eyes. Everything you see is yours. Now open them. Everything you see is mine.'
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Boris, not sure the accident rate is higher in Europe than in the US ? Those are two different philosophies, but they seem to be working well on both continents. As for the starting salaries, I'll speak for Air France, the cadets start at well over 5k euros/month, 14 month pay, 6 weeks paid holidays, 10 free tickets on the SkyTeam network plus ZEDs, I wouldn't call that slavery... And that's direct entry into a legacy airline, not a regional.
 
Pépé le Pilot said:
Boris, not sure the accident rate is higher in Europe than in the US ? Those are two different philosophies, but they seem to be working well on both continents. As for the starting salaries, I'll speak for Air France, the cadets start at well over 5k euros/month, 14 month pay, 6 weeks paid holidays, 10 free tickets on the SkyTeam network plus ZEDs, I wouldn't call that slavery... And that's direct entry into a legacy airline, not a regional.
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That is great, unfortunately, an American cadet program will be as similar as our healthcare systems.

Also, how much of that 5k actually ends up in the cadets pockets and how much of it goes towards paying down their training costs?
 
Pépé le Pilot said:
Boris, not sure the accident rate is higher in Europe than in the US ? Those are two different philosophies, but they seem to be working well on both continents. As for the starting salaries, I'll speak for Air France, the cadets start at well over 5k euros/month, 14 month pay, 6 weeks paid holidays, 10 free tickets on the SkyTeam network plus ZEDs, I wouldn't call that slavery... And that's direct entry into a legacy airline, not a regional.
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The last time I looked, the US was still the safest per seat mile, but Europe was not terribly far behind. What's perhaps more interesting (to me, anyway) is the sheer VOLUME of traffic in the US...it's an order of magnitude greater than anywhere else on earth (although of course this is changing as our McEmpire crashes down around us). So, not only is our system the safest in the world, but it is safest under circumstances that give it a significant handicap (congestion).

As to the cadet system: Europe has a long history (longer than the whole history of the US, actually) of an apprenticeship system. This works well in the more predictable, significantly more regulated economies of Europe. In the US system of "regulation when it benefits the company", though, I assure you that a cadet scheme will inevitably become indentured servitude of the worst kind. Plus, the simple fact of the matter is that the best training for flying an airplane is...flying an airplane.
 
Matt13C said:
That is great, unfortunately, an American cadet program will be as similar as our healthcare systems.

Also, how much of that 5k actually ends up in the cadets pockets and how much of it goes towards paying down their training costs?
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The 5k is the actual salary (minus social security, retirement, unemployment etc that account for about 22%). You don't repay the airline. The airline invests in you. You sign a 5 year contract where you cannot jump ship, that's all. Furthermore, if you're in France, where else would you go other than Air France ?
 
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