Originally Posted by
qball
AA had a training contract in the '80's (1 Yr 10K prorated). So did Sun country. AA was unable to enforce theirs as their PWA said pilots will not pay for training. Sun Country successfully enforced theirs as they had no union (or contract) at the time. Odd to see this type of thing again when so many majors are hiring. FWIW
There's been training contracts throughout the saga of hiring cycles. Regionals have had them. But as you pointed out, so have supplemental, ACMI, what have you. Miami Air, does, (or DID), Gemini Air Cargo was thinking of going to one as many of the newly minted MD11 FO's as well as a CA's were getting scooped up in the "Purple Nugget/Brown Nugget" era at FedEX and UPS. World Airways had one as well.
And for the most part, they've always been a little wishy-washy on being enforced, EXCEPT for World. Those guys DIDN'T mess around on enforcement of theirs.
The 2 big take aways from them are;
1) Simply a "sign of the times"
2) Indicates how "good" a company is to work for, as well as how they treat their employees overall.
"Their house, their rules". Nobody makes anyone show up and sign the thing. Kinda like no body makes you date the hot (yet crazy) chick that can come with a lot of dram afterwards that you KNEW about up front.