Pacific Wings

Which is why you don't sign a ridiculous contract to begin with.

:yeahthat:

As a general rule, I agree. However (and I have no evidence that this is the case with the operator in question, but there's a great deal of hearsay and innuendo), what if you were routinely threatened with being fired for failing to break FARs, pencil whip duty times, fly a non-FIKI aircraft in icing, etc? What if your paychecks didn't arrive on time, or were chronically short of what they should be? A contract is a two way street.

I've never reneged on a contract, and I never plan to, but I've also never had an employer that didn't hold up their end of the bargain.


Most pilot training contracts are based on unfounded protections for the person making the contract. Most of them are technically illegal since you can't force someone to essentially pay for a job if they leave since training cost is part of an operations budget anyways. Perfect case is this shady operator. Who in their right clean conscience would force someone to sign 8000 dollars of a training contract to fly on a Cessna Caravan, a 172 with a turbine engine, payable even if involuntary forced to leave! Nothing to do with a mortgage contract and everything to do with principle and self interest.

Don't sign it to begin with. I agree with a operator being shady and one leaving for the that but don't expect to get out of for breech of contract when non of that is written in the contract.

I now S5 had a training contract but if you were let go for furlogh, company going OOB, or certain terminations you were out of the contract. If you walked away for reasons other than specified outs you were required to pay them xyz.... I had my lawyer review it before signing it and he said it would hold up in court without out of problem.
 
Idealism is great, but I'm with Boris. If I ended up signing a training contract and they suddenly wanted me to break the regs, falsify duty times, launch into dangerous weather, etc., I'd walk off and not feel one ounce of guilt for breaking the contract.
 
Sorry, but I don't think the "don't sign one" response really holds up. A lot of companies (including at least one I've worked for, very happily) see a contract as a way to prevent an unscrupulous employee from taking the training they provide and selling their newly improved resume to someone else. Requiring a contract in those cases is legit, IMHO.

That said, would you tell someone who signed a contract with a commercial vendor that they were in the wrong if the vendor failed to provide the promised service for the promised price? No. That's absurd. If one side abrogates the contract, the other is entirely within their ethical rights, maybe even DUTY, to reneg on the other end of the contract. It's like saying "well you should have known they might have been bad people" if you take your dog to a kennel that advertises pillows and warm beds but delivers infection and death. There's an implicit gurantee from the employer that the conditions of employment will be at least remotely similar to those advertised. What if, in all good faith, a little pilot wannabe signed a contract that said "we can have your firstborn if you reneg on the terms of our Agreement" and the company then proceeded to sabotage the airplanes and not pay the baby pilot at all, in obvious and flagrant violation of the terms of the agreement? Are we indentured servants? Contracts go two ways, that's the whole point. To be clear, I don't support reneging on a contract because you found something better or get sick of the work, but everyone knows what's honorable, both pilots and employers. And both know what isn't.
 
:yeahthat:






Don't sign it to begin with. I agree with a operator being shady and one leaving for the that but don't expect to get out of for breech of contract when non of that is written in the contract.

I now S5 had a training contract but if you were let go for furlogh, company going OOB, or certain terminations you were out of the contract. If you walked away for reasons other than specified outs you were required to pay them xyz.... I had my lawyer review it before signing it and he said it would hold up in court without out of problem.


I agree. unless it's an airline, ops that have training contracts are big red flags. a lot of airlines put the contract out there as a scare tactic where they don't go after you, it's 50/50. smaller places though in all probability will follow through til they get something.
 
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