Originally Posted by
FlyinSailor
On Mesa's website, it discusses a training contract of 12 months. Straight from the website:
"Mesa Air Group pilots with less than four (4) years longevity are required to execute a training agreement as a condition for entering into initial, upgrade or transition training. The aircraft assigned determines the promissory note amount. The duration of the note is one year, which prorates equally over the 12-month period. If the obligations of the note are not satisfied, the balance, if any, is then payable by the pilot to the Company."
After reading this, this sounds as you owe Mesa a year of employment. If not, then you must pay them back any training costs at a prorated amount. Anyone from Mesa able to confirm this?
Was recently reading good things about this company, but this caught my attention. It is not like you are receiving a cash bonus for accepting the job.
Also, does this start immediately upon first day of training?
Lots of people are militant about stuff like this, but even as a fairly leftist/labor-friendly guy, I personally have zero problem with it--in the past, Skywest had a 5-day CRJ course and was essentially poaching Mesa pilots the second they finished training. The company spends more than your entire first year salary on training you, and they use the training agreement to protect their investment (and weed out people who are just here to get current and leave).
Every single person I know who complained about it was simply using Mesa as a way to get 121 currency and/or a free ATP, and one guy who refused to sign it was asked to leave.