Originally Posted by
Karma
That's not a good analogy. Lets analyse what's really going on here. Silver and RAH don't have a training contract for the same reasons. People in this industry make lateral moves all the time and leave Lakes, Silver, CommutAir, Piedmont to fly a jet or increase QOL. I don't even want to get into why they do it but the bottom line is that is an undeniable fact and that explains why places like Lakes and Silver have a training contract. You don't see very many if any people leaving RAH to move laterally and go fly at Eagle or XJT, maybe a few to Skywest if they are from the west coast. The reason RAH has a training contract is because they have hired a lot of overqualified people lately, ex. Comair, Colgan, Pinnacle, Ryan International, etc. Now that major carriers are actually hiring some of these people might leave and advance their careers before a reasonable ROI can be recovered. You didn't often see people leaving RAH before 1 or 2 years before all of the above existed which is why only in the recent years the training contract was added at RAH but places like Lakes and Silver have had one for ages. It wasn't added for the reasons you state, such as the employees are being treated badly. It's nothing more than a simple insurance policy. The company is dropping over $30k for top notch training at flight safety, it's just wrong to leave the next day.
RAH has been doing a training contract for years and years, just like Lakes and Silver used to have one. Recently as in the last year RAH added the 5K because they couldn't attract new hires. No the training contract is not because of the few guys from other regionals who came over they did it to control attrition. If you get there and after a few months you want out see ya, but if they limit you to 2 years you will likely stay since now you are on year 3 and starting over will be hard.
I have been in this industry 3 years, I don't know it all but I get my facts first, you make stuff up as you go. And by the way, recently RAH dropped the training contract in the Q400 and ERJ, if I was an over qualified pilot from another regional and all I was looking was for stop gap before I went to an Utra LCC, LCC or a major then I would take the ERJ or the Q since those airframes don't have a training contract and I believe I could even pocket the 5k and still walk away when I need to. SO your theory falls on it's face.
Great Lakes doesn't even consider you an employee until you pass your check ride, after that point you become an employee and now you owe them 15 months.