Alpiner

Pretty simple, pay back the money they took.

Web265

Of course you would, then pay back what you owe RAH, you'd be an idiot not to take that. I wouldn't take the job of a lifetime to avoid paying off a contract, I'd take the job of a lifetime AND pay off the contract.

We all know that's not what happened. I haven't seen all the records but I'm guessing 97% ish went to other regional outfits who hired them a little faster....maybe another 2% to LCCs. (if that)

tallpilot

Correct. It isn't that one shouldn't sign a training contract, it is that should one do so he should fulfill the terms.

JohnBurke

That is irrelevant and nothing more than fantasy. Nothing whatsoever to do with this discussion.

Republic isn't going after students who fulfill their obligation. Republic is going after students who fail to fulfill their obligation.

If United and a student enter into an agreement, and that agreement includes giving service to United after training is done, and the student gives service to United, then United isn't going to sue the student for fulfilling the contract.

If a student fails to attain pilot certification, or is not up to the standard such that the student can pass an interview or checkride, then an agreement might include a statement that requires other service (instructing, sweeping hangar floors, gate agent, etc), or it might not. The relevant details are in the language of a given contract.

Republic is suing those who failed to abide the contract. You're offering an imaginary scenario that is the exact opposite, such an inference does little more than muddy the water.

chihuahua

The agreements are most likely similar, since the same people come up with this stuff for all of Corporate America. These students most likely didn't understand what they were actually getting into, and that they basically signed up to be indentured servants of Republic.

United is doing the same thing that Republic did in this case, just at a larger scale. United knows they're not going to find enough people to keep filling their RJ feed and Manhattan-EWR drone pilot positions they envision, so what better way than to promise people who don't know any better, a job flying a 777, when in reality they're signing themselves over into indentured servitude to make sure the bottom of United's operation stays viable. They're all up to the same old tricks, just rebranded to make it look like they're trying to help someone.

Companies or organizations don't give out scholarships to universities with a legal contract that the graduate has to work at the company when they graduate. Yet, the idea of training contracts became accepted in the aviation world when jobs were hard to come by and pilots were desperate. Now, the same concept is just being re-hashed for initial training. Republic knows that the ship is sinking and they need to do anything they can to force whoever they can to stay onboard and go down with it. United also knows they're going to need people to fill all the sh1t jobs in the future, so they're applying the same concept.

JohnBurke

Nothing of the kind. Those who complete their training and enter into employment arrive as know-nothing nobodies with no experience; what can they expect? In a generation that wants the world handed to them along with the big, brass ring, much of the young populace doesn't seem to understand what it means to earn one's place in the world. Wanting it all right now doesn't mean one gets it.

It's been common for a long time now for training contracts, both with airlines and corporate and charter operators; typically a type rating equalled an agreement to provide one year service. A recurrent equalled an agreement to give six months service, and the terms and means of securing the agreement likewise differ among operators. The present state of affairs has led many to skip the years of gaining experience, of diverse backgrounds and skills and certification, to a skinny pipeline thick with curtain climbers who gotta have it NOW. They seem to think this is the norm. It is not.

What Republic, United, et al, has done is offer flight training to those who came crawling to the door on their knees; the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to be pilots have rubbed the haunted lamp and their shiny airplane wish came true. Someone paid for their flight training. They could have gone out and earned it like many of us did. They could have gone to the military. They could have done a lot of things, from securing a private lone to going through a university, buying their own airplane or any number of other means; they chose to do the ab initio route with an airline and come to the table at the completion with zero experience. No night cargo in ****ty airplanes in the clag with worn out cylinders and bad compressors in the ice on rough strips, loaded to the gills. No ambulance runs, towed gliders, jumpers dropped, charter, or corporate for them. Zero to hero in every sense and they truly expect to go a few monthso f buzzing around in a light airplane and be the hero, replete with pretty white shirt and stripey things on their shoulders. Maybe even a joe-biden/tom-cruise pair of glasses that at least makes them look like their going transonic while topless and spinning a signed volleyball. The dream in hand, these mighty magenta warriers gather up their kneeboards and ipads and apple pencils and head for the employment line, ready to sport their beards and strut their stuff (whatever that might be), and imagine this: the training department is backed up for a little while. They might have to wait a little bit for a class date. For a simulator. For indoc. To begin type training. Maybe even to go do OE.

What, what's that? A purveyor of a different shiny jet, calling? Hark, what is that? The siren song of a copilot job for somebody else? Why should Raybans be required to pay back the cost of his training, simply because he has stolen the money and run away in true coward fashion? Republic didn't give him a job fast enough? Poor baby. Sad. Pause, one and all, and let us collectively weep our guts out until we suffer the pangs of dehydration at the failure of the airline which bent over backward to offer the money, gave it in good faith, opened the door, the failure of this evil, enslaving airline composed entirely of the indentured and downtrodden, which has failed to jump when Ricky Rayban demanded, and has failed to immediately insert Rayban in the class of his choice. Indeed, let us hang our heads in unity and sorrow at this travesty of justice, and together we may understand the justification and hardship that has driven Ricky Rayban into the arms of a competing company (that did not shell out for his training). It's hard not to be sympathetic for Ricky. I feel so badly, personally, I want to go buy him a Tesla, just so he'll feel better, or at least donate a few thousand so he can make his car payment this month. In the meantime, there's his solution; another airline that wants know-nothing neophytes in raybans and flashy maui jims, ready to strut for them. Go Ricky. Go. Seriously. Go.

But pay on the way out the door. Someone has to, and it needed be the airline that paid for Ricky to enter the industry and gave him the qualifications to do so. Maybe Ricky needs to pony up after all.

This "indentured servitude bull**** has to stop. Seriously. Ricky made his choice. Call it what it is: his choice. Having made his bed, time to lay in it.

chihuahua

I'll feed the troll...

They gave them discounts on training, they didn't pay for the training. For the entire time they were in training they still had to come up with a way to cover their living expenses.

I guess expecting to have a pilot job that was promised to you, and you did indeed earn by successfully completing a training program which you did indeed PAY for, during a 'pilot shortage', is too much to expect though. Some of the more far out thinking among us might even believe that this type of behavior from airline management might be what lead to the shortage to begin with. I mean, I wonder why people weren't beating down the door to pay for training then have to 'pay their dues' and get the privilege of flying airplanes with known problems and pencil whipped maintenance in snow and ice before flying the shiny jet.

Hell, there was a time when Republic wouldn't pay you for cancelled flights. I guess this was an acceptable way to treat employees that showed up for work and 'paid their dues'.

Air Stang 7

There's a middle ground for sure. I still stand by the fact that company paid/assisted training will ultimately chip away gains as those who don't know the history will happily accept substandard contracts and compensation. And it could trickle up to the legacies.

JohnBurke

Republic gave them both.

Regardless of what the dishonorable little ingrates were given, what's relevant is what they owe. They owe it by contract, signed at their own hand.

Excargodog

Poor sweet babies. They actually had to PAY for their own living expenses while someone else gave them money to help pay for their training conditional on them actually fulfilling the terms of a contract they voluntarily agreed to? What did they think? That the $406,000 was a PARTICIPATION trophy?

God forbid any of these people ever join the military. Dereliction of duty and going AWOL - even in peacetime - still have real consequences some places. They’d be flying the friendly skies of Leavenworth Kansas or one of the other military correctional facilities.