Originally Posted by JohnBurke

What does Air France do? Aeroflot? Air Canada? Doug's Props & Mops?

Some operations start employees at full pay on day one of training, others have a training wage; I can attest to having been put on a training wage for two months by several operators in the past, and in modern times, several still do. So, not without precedent. I don't know what Kalitta does now, but they used to put people on a 1,000 dollar training stipend and the employees had to get their own hotel.