There used to be an outfit called Jetsgo that most experienced pilots I know (including me) flat out refused to work for even though many of them (again, including me) were unemployed at the time. We felt that MLB was lowering the bar to an unacceptable level not just in conditions of employment which were unconscionable, but more ominously in the level of safety.bearinmind wrote:Sky regional is a plague, the people that work there are the reason that the plague is getting worse. if you were a union employee and enjoyed a career and pension earned by your union family, and then leave to work for a non union shop, you have turned you back on your union family. If you set your worth at 6 figures for the last 10 years of your career and then say your are only worth 60k, you just take a job at a decent wage from your younger pilots, you are a plague.
As a result many younger pilots benefited greatly by skipping about eight years of normal career progression finding themselves in the left seat of an MD-87 or Fokker 100 before they were ready. Compounding that situation was the even less experienced F/O sitting beside them. This was not by any stretch an unusual crew at Jetsgo, and the lack of experience coupled with MLB's utter disregard for maintenance had us all holding our breath waiting for the inevitable smoking hole. It came very close on a number of occasions too that the public is blissfully unaware of, but no doubt Transport Canada decision makers spent many sleepless nights dreading that phone call they hoped like hell wouldn't come. Fortunately MLB drained that cash cow dry and shut it down before anybody lost their life.
The moral of this story is that anyone who starts an airline will get pilots to fly there. They may not be the right ones, but they'll get them. Experienced pilots are required especially in a new start-up, and I would rather see retired AC guys providing the initial core of experience then leaving in 3-5 years than inexperienced pilots rushed to the left seat before they are ready.
You can call them a plague if you want, but what they really are is the backbone until the place is up and running.