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Old 10-28-2014, 08:37 PM
  #11  
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No. They do want you to sign a two year training contract. If you are typed and current in something they are hiring into then you are more likely to get a call. DPJ has very high attrition with pilot moral at an all time low. It isn't a career company and the current regional airline management has let the pilot group know this.
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Old 10-28-2014, 08:38 PM
  #12  
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No. They do want you to sign a two year training contract. If you are typed and current in something they are hiring into then you are more likely to get a call. DPJ has very high attrition with pilot moral at an all time low. It isn't a career company and the current regional airline management has let the pilot group know this.




_____________
ishtiaq
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Old 11-15-2014, 10:00 PM
  #13  
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I never really heard of them but tried to fill out the application. It told me I did not qualify because of no type rating on their particular planes. How would I apply without one of their type ratings. I've got lots of others.
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Old 11-16-2014, 04:39 AM
  #14  
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Default Impressive legal analysis

Originally Posted by MR JT8D View Post
If it's an at will employment state, then they can't do jack to you. The only thing they COULD do is terminate you. So QUIT with NO notice.

Evergreen was the carrier to start the termination on your PRIA to enforce the training agreement. That's how they do it.

They can NOT come after you for the note. It's just to keep you on the property and extract as much $$$$ out of your ass as they possibly can.
Originally Posted by MR JT8D View Post
Anyone can file a motion. ANYONE. It wouldn't hold up in court. They have zero on anyone quitting. ZERO...
That's some impressive legal analysis there, Mr. JT8D. I had no idea that promissory notes were not enforceable against persons in employment-at-will states. Good to know!

I'm sure you have handy some case names, citations, courts, dates, docket numbers, etc., to support your assertion that these contracts are unenforceable. Please post the information. I have a Lexis subscription. I'll look up these cases and post further information here for everyone's benefit.

I say this not to insult your legal acumen; I'm sure you're utterly correct. However, even the US Supreme Court provides legal citations to support its statements of the law; perhaps you could indulge us to do the same.

While we're at at, let's consider this hypothetical: A person goes to work for a company that gives each new employee a car. The company requires each new employee to sign a promissory note requiring pro-rated repayment for the car if the employee quits before two years. According to you, an employee could quit on day 2, keep the car, and no court in an employment-at-will state would enforce the promissory note. Fascinating. I'll have to look around for such opportunities.

Yrs most humbly,
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Old 11-16-2014, 07:19 AM
  #15  
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I'm an attorney and am also very skeptical about the statements that the training contracts are not enforceable. I would like to see the case law myself. I would like to know the legal theories of why they should not be enforced.

If you don't have the case law please provide the reasoning behind your thoughts that they can't be enforced, you probably have some good ideas.

Thanks
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Old 11-17-2014, 08:14 AM
  #16  
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Default The law

I decided to poke around a bit this morning, just to see what was out there in the reported cases on training contracts or promissory notes, pilots, and the enforceability of such arrangements. Bottom line: training contracts, whether written as a contract or as a promissory note, are enforceable. Read carefully all such agreements before you sign and understand what you are getting yourself into. I am not your lawyer, if you want or need legal advice in this matter, get your own lawyer at your own expense. I encourage you to do so before signing any such agreement. Mr. JT8D, if you have further information you'd like to add, please do so. I'll be happy to review any law or cases you can point me to.

Excelaire Serv., Inc. v Wolkiewicz, 2006 NY Slip Op 30676(U), 4 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2006): This is a trial court opinion (New York is a bit odd, trial courts are called "supreme court".) Excelaire hired pilot Wolkiewicz with a one-year training contract at $45K per year. Within a couple months, after the aircraft Wokiewicz had been trained for went down hard for maintenance, Excelaire cut his pay 60% (!), down to $18K per year, and he didn't fly for months. Wolkiewicz quit after 7 months. Excelaire sued. Excelaire lost, not because training contracts are not enforceable (Wolkiewicz didn't even challenge the contract on that ground), but because the court found as a matter of law that Excelaire has constructively discharged Wolkiewicz. Under New York law, quoting the court, "Constructive discharge may also be evidenced by the fact that the employer has made the employee's working conditions so intolerable that a reasonable person would feel forced to resign." Constructive discharge is the equivalent of firing the employee as far as the law is concerned, and since the training contract explicitly stated is was not enforceable if the employee was fired, Excelaire could not collect on the training contract. Bottom line, the contract was enforceable, and in fact the court enforced it. The court just enforced it against Excelaire due to the facts of the case.

That is the only pilot training contract case I could find in the entire country (at least using the terms I searched for in Lexis). I did turn up a case where several students of a helicopter training school in California sued the bank that lent them money for helicopter training. The school signed up a bunch of students, got all the students to get loans (averaging $50-55,000 each) from KeyBank, then went bankrupt after providing minimal training, leaving the students on the hook for the entire amount of the loans (student loans, generally not dischargable in bankruptcy, ouch). The published appellate decision was actually about the enforceability of an arbitration clause in the loan agreement, not about the enforceability of the loan itself. They facts were awful. It was pretty clear the school was set up to fleece gullible students (sound familiar?). Tough cookies, said the court to the students. Good luck at arbitration (where the bank always wins, by the way). See Kilgore v. KeyBank, N.A., 718 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. Cal. 2013).

As for promissory note-style agreements, I couldn't find any case involving a pilot. I did, however, find a case involving electricians and a union-sponsored training program. Trainees signed a promissory note for training against a loan they received from a training trust fund set up by the union, repayable by going to work only for certain employers who sponsored the training program. If the student went to work for a non-participating employer within the repayment period, he had to pay back the training costs. In other words, the arrangement is exactly like a pilot signing an agreement for his initial training at a new employer.

In this case, the student electrician tried to get out of the repayment requirement by making an arcane argument about the agreement not complying with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), an argument only a lawyer specializing in that brain-melting area of law could love (and also an issue that would generally not arise in the pilot situation, because the union made loans from a trust fund as opposed to the employer just paying for training straight up). No dice, said the court, pay your debt. The promissory note was enforceable. See Milwaukee Area Joint Apprenticeship Training Comm. v. Howell, 67 F.3d 1333 (7th Cir. Wis. 1995).

Oh, and by the way, this case was in Wisconsin, which like virtually every other state in the country (I believe Montana is the only exception, but don't quote me, I am not a labor lawyer), is an employment at will state. Go figure.

Did anyone make it this far other than Cgo John and maybe Vagabond? If you did, I'm impressed! Now let's get back to an endless discussion of the value of an AoA gauge in various cockpits, whether airliner or C152. I'm all in favor. The best and most direct measure of the aerodynamic state and health of your wing available.
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Old 11-17-2014, 08:56 PM
  #17  
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As I dreamed and schemed about my departure from DPJ I consulted my lawyer who concluded that YES the training contract was enforceable. I was fortunate enough to be able to leave just before my recurrent training was due. So you have been warned.

STAY AWAY FROM DPJ

Repeat after me (I even made it rhyme)

STAY AWAY FROM DPJ
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Old 11-18-2014, 05:27 AM
  #18  
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Originally Posted by BayBum4Ever View Post
As I dreamed and schemed about my departure from DPJ I consulted my lawyer who concluded that YES the training contract was enforceable. I was fortunate enough to be able to leave just before my recurrent training was due.
They don't require you to sign another contract before recurrent any more.
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Old 11-18-2014, 06:31 PM
  #19  
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They don't require you to sign another contract before recurrent any more.[/QUOTE]

That's because they cannot get anything above a CFI to warm the right seat.
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Old 11-18-2014, 08:47 PM
  #20  
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I am pretty sure a promissory note is fully enforceable here in the State of Texas.
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