What's the difference?

Mitch Cronin · Post by **Mitch Cronin** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 5:57 am

I know people will avoid the "trolling" thread that inspired this question, so in hopes of actually getting an answer....:

Pilot 'A' doesn't have much coin at all... he want's to fly, but takes a job as a ramp rat at Fubar Air, knowing he'll be prostituting himself for a couple years... at the end of that sentence of servitude comes the much desired, yet horribly underpaid job of flying Fubar Air's clapped out, poorly maintained heaps of trash they call airplanes.

Pilot 'B' doesn't have the patience... and can't stomach the notion of working for peanuts as a ramp rat for Fubar Air... He's decided he wants to fly for a living, not labour as someone's wench... He may be a bit older than Pilot 'A'... He's done a bit of "prostitution" style labouring outside the aviation biz already, so he's got a few more bucks than the other guy...He's ok with flying clapped out tin tubes of junk for peanuts, even if he has to pay for a PPC to get the job.

What's the difference? Why is it that so many of you frown on the guy who pays for the PPC, but the other guy who, while applying for a job as a pilot, accepts a two year sentence as Fubar Air's slave, is ok?
What's worse? A quick and dirty rape? ...or the long, drawn out prostitution?

Perhaps the glut of potential pilots has allowed employers like Fubar to screw you all, but it seems to me that in either scenario you're equally trashing the lowest rank of your chosen profession?

J31 · Post by **J31** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 6:51 am

Good comments Mitch, how true

airplane rider · Post by **airplane rider** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:28 am

I was once told by someone during my first couple of years that "pilots eat their young."

Jaques Strappe · Post by **Jaques Strappe** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:32 am

Good post Mitch and probably quite accurate.

Working around airplanes either loading, fuelling, dispatching, whatever, brings with it a certain value that a cheque does not have. Not everyone can afford to write a cheque, especially after already dishing out 50K for licences. We can all afford however to learn, " from the ground up"

If cheque writing is condoned, where will it stop? We do not want this as an industry norm which in many cases at the entry level, it already is. Each time a pilot wants to move, will he have to write a cheque?

Will experience fall to the guy with the biggest wallet? Then what? A bidding war for jobs? You have seen first hand what Michel Leblanc does to the Industry each time he surfaces. Is that really the Industry you want to be a part of?

There is a good argument to say that a guy could work as a slave on the ramp for a year or go get a good paying job on an oil rig for a year, then come back and buy a PPC. As a potential employer, I would have much more respect for the guy who spent time working witin the industry as opposed to someone who just came along with a cheque.

cyyz · Post by **cyyz** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:35 am

As a potential employer, I would have much more respect for the guy who spent time working witin the industry as opposed to someone who just came along with a cheque.

So you'll respect the guy who worked at GlobeGround and you'd hire him over the guy who worked at a mine????

As an employer you'll respect the guy who did slave labour at your place of work, I doubt you'd have any respect for anyone else applying.

Jaques Strappe · Post by **Jaques Strappe** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:44 am

CYYZ

You are missing the point dude. I am saying that if two guys came in the door, one with his cheque book and the other with the willingness to start from the ground up, I would take the latter.

Money can buy material things only. Think about it.

cyyz · Post by **cyyz** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 7:49 am

But Mitch is pointing it out that the employer isn't looking for someone "willing to start from the ground up" he's looking for a slave for 1-2 years and if a spot opens up that he can't find a Direct entry person to fill the slot he'll upgrade the slave.

Air Canada doesn't hire Ramp workers to move up to flight crew why not if it's prefered to hire the guy who wants to work from the bottom?

water wings · Post by **water wings** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 8:05 am

you have raised good points with your wee yarn, and many of my non-flying friends see it your way as well... kinda like they pay for their tuition...but, i point out, you do not pay for your job placement..
sooo, where does that leave you? i, too am beyond the age of eagerly working the ramp for 7$ an hour - even though i see that as an easy and great step into aviation for 19 year old 300 hour pilots, but i digress...
i too worked and earned good coin prior to my entry into the flying side of aviation. i spent most of my money getting my 50 hour floats (which is another mini PPC issue within itself) and spent the rest on stuff like food and gas for my car once i was out looking for flying jobs.
i see your reason for paying for your PPC and i'll raise you the cost of doing business. Why should you, or any other pilot pay for the cost of someone elses' business? i see employers costs in aviation are always going up, and passengers and freight customers are whining about the rising cost of everything and refusing to pay the increase. BUT, that's life. Pilots should not be dragged into the cost of doing businness outside of paying the 30-40G to get their commercial license.
I also understand that employers are sick and tired of pilots taking the training and leaving in less than a year, forever searching for greener pastures and louder planes.
I personally don't have a problem with what i call "the cost of loyalty"... that is in trying to get the pilot to stick around for the worth of their training. It also reflects well in any business if you do stick around for more than a year... but not if you're comprimising safety etc.. yadda yadda...that is yet another topic.
so there.
that's why i see PPC payers as helping the vicious cycle of poor pilots having to make the decision of paying for a PPC. because you know someone else will and beat you to the flying spot. Kinda like the pilots who do traffic spotting for free...while other pilots can't get paying jobs to pay their rent, because well, someone will do it for free...

ta-dah!
does that make any sense?
do what you have to do, i guess, but fly safe.
ww
PS, Jaques, great point parallel to Michel Leblanc. Bang on, i'd say. It was his business, and the pilots paid for it.

Jaques Strappe · Post by **Jaques Strappe** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 8:09 am

cyyz wrote: Air Canada doesn't hire Ramp workers to move up to flight crew why not if it's prefered to hire the guy who wants to work from the bottom?

Don't want to point out the obvious but there is a difference between a complex Jet and a 180 on floats or a Navajo.

So I ask you CYYZ, where does paying for a PPC stop if it is condoned?

grouchy · Post by **grouchy** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 8:57 am

You know what's really funny? For all the rhetoric on here and it seemed to be the majority opinion too, the number of Jetsgo guys that have been hired at AC. I guess it really worked for them didn't it? If it was such a bad thing why would AC hire these people?

Mitch Cronin "What's worse? A quick and dirty rape? ...or the long, drawn out prostitution? "
Dont matter, either way you are getting fucked, and isnt that what aviation is all about.
But we do it to ourselves.

WW "Pilots should not be dragged into the cost of doing businness outside of paying the 30-40G to get their commercial license."
Great statement.
The licence, the commercial,the ifr, the atpl, the float rating. Those are yours (to keep) anything else is the owners.

Mitch Cronin · Post by **Mitch Cronin** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 9:03 am

Thanks, I appreciate the reasoned and civil responses...

Jaques... I understand what you're saying, and I agree to an extent...but you know, it's not like all who decide to pay for that PPC have just entered the field of aviation... In fact, they've likely all worked pretty hard to get the qualifications they already have.
I knew an AME, for instance, who I'd worked with for years, who'd been flying the whole time... as much as he could (he may be here and wish to remain anonymous, so I'll leave some details out)... he eventually quit working as an AME and took a job flying. He agonized over the question of buying a PPC on something like a Ho ... he could afford to (barely), but he knew the potential for being black balled because of it. I haven't kept in touch, so I don't know where he is now, but last I knew he was pretty unhappy with what looked like a forever right seat job on some small stuff....

There are probably lots of tales of folks who have put in lots of "from the ground up" time, who eventually found the coin to buy a PPC, just so they could advance beyond what looked like a dead end... yet there doesn't seem to be any sympathy for their plight among those who frown on that practice. Probably even some who spent their time on the ramp at Fubar and got screwed over...

A decent potential employer might consider all that... But then again, the ideal situation (and here we get back to that notion of a nation wide association that has some governance over pilots entering the work force) would be for neither to be necessary...

If a teacher was made to work as a janitor for a year or so first, how many of them would take that? Or if a doctor was offered a job as a nurses aide? ... Do lawyers all start in the mail room once they pass the Bar??
As it happens, I worked as a ramp rat for a time while learning to fly, and after... before I finally got accepted into the aviation maintenance school... but if after getting my AME licence the only way I could get a job as an AME was to go back to the ramp for a while, I'd quickly and ferociously work toward finding a solution to that nonsense!

I find it hard to frown on someone who sees the absurdity of allowing employers to enslave them, after they've done all they had to do to get a commercial licence, some ratings and some decent hours, just so they can hopefully get to fly their airplanes someday... then again, having to essentially pay for the job seems equally rotten. But that was my original point... Don't both scenarios suck?

Cain't ya all git t'gether an' fix it?

Kurwa · Post by **Kurwa** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 9:42 am

It doesn't matter whether you wrote a cheque or not, I believe very few of us have arrived at where we're at without 'paying' for a PPC at some point. We all know what the salaries are at the majority of navajo and other similarly equipped operators, even for captains. Now who is going to try and tell me that isn't paying for a PPC? I know because I've done it and that's what it felt like, even though I didn't write a cheque. I made more money driving a forklift. Yes we do it to ourselves as a labour market, but unfortunately I wanted a flying career in this lifetime, so what other recourse is there?

Youngback · Post by **Youngback** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:25 am

There's another part of the pay for a PPC deal that bugs me. If paying for a PPC becomes the norm, eventually everyone is going to have to get one to stay competitive. It seems kind of ironic that initially buying a PPC was to avoid the ramp and now you'll have to have a PPC just to work on the ramp. Therefore you have just screwed everyone behind you now that you have to get yet more training to even have the basic minimum qualifications.

I've worked hard to get where I am. So has everyone else here. If someone wants to buy themself a PPC, fine. They won't easily make friends. Thats not an opinion either.

cyyz · Post by **cyyz** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:29 am

Jaques Strappe wrote: So I ask you CYYZ, where does paying for a PPC stop if it is condoned?

It doesn't but working in Timbucktu for 2 yrs to have your company go tits up(skyward) doesn't "help" the situation.

If they want us to be ramp rats give us contracts stating "work the ramp 6 months get the right seat"

J.P.WISER · Post by **J.P.WISER** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 1:59 pm

cyyz wrote:
If they want us to be ramp rats give us contracts stating "work the ramp 6 months get the right seat"

So make this just like a trainning bond but for the ramp. It's still the same shit.

When you go to write the charter accountant exams they base the difficulty of the exam based on the number that they need for that perticular year. More jobs equals less to pass and vice versa!!

Supply and demand!!!

End of story

J.P.WISER · Post by **J.P.WISER** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 2:00 pm

PS great way to put this in context Mitch!!

Rowdy · Post by **Rowdy** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 4:04 pm

Sorry for the thread hijack.. but whats with all the posts related to Buying PPC's lately?

op's want a PPC to be paid for so you can sit right seat with them?

Lommer · Post by **Lommer** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 4:47 pm

When you go to write the charter accountant exams they base the difficulty of the exam based on the number that they need for that perticular year. More jobs equals less to pass and vice versa!!

J.P.WISER - I think that's the best solution I've heard that could actually solve the problems in this industry. Unfortunately, denying people commercial licences because "there's too many pilots already" isn't going to be popular (there are still people who get the licence because it makes them a better pilot, not because they're looking for a career). Training bonds are one way to tackle the problem, but they're not a fix-all solution because pilots can and will get screwed if there's an oversupply of labour. So what other options do we have? The only one I can think of is professional regulation like lawyers or accountants. A Professional Pilots Association that is recognized by the gov't and given some power would go a long way towards cleaning up this industry, but the public would destroy it because it would be seen as driving up prices to pad the professional's wallet.

So, an open question: what can be pragmatically done (by us as pilots, voters, or whatever) to solve the problem of PPC buying? Just saying that pilots shouldn't do it because it's wrong isn't going to cut it because as we've seen, in a market like this it plain doesn't work.

cyyz · Post by **cyyz** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 6:10 pm

Unfortunately, denying people commercial licences because "there's too many pilots already" isn't going to be popular (there are still people who get the licence because it makes them a better pilot, not because they're looking for a career). .

No ones skills are any better by going from a PPL(1000TT) to CPL(1001TT) it's just paper.

100 CPLs give out a year
50 ATPLs given out a year

Flight test, written exams and verbal(oral) exam in front of 5 person tribunal.

Hickory Stick · Post by **Hickory Stick** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 9:20 pm

Paying for a PPC is idiotic, its just like paying for sex. If you try hard enough you will get a job, especially in this climate. I did it all without paying, if I can do it any one else can too. I am not a superstar!

Anyway, if buying yourself a job is fine then well see what happens to this proffesion of ours. It just keeps on rolling down the hill into a shithole. Thats why I left. Believe it or not there still are places in the world where pay is good and buying a PPC is not required.

Anyone who thinks buying a PPC is good, is an IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers

Kurwa · Post by **Kurwa** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 9:31 pm

Youngback, that is an opinion. The only time it isn't an opinion is when it's a fact.

Welcome to the free market economy. There is a solution to this problem (and as mentioned before, whether or not you wrote a cheque or not, with the wages a navajo/340/421 etc. pilot makes in either seat, somebody paid for the PPC, and I doubt it was the operator!) is communism. The entire thing is governed, prices are fixed for charters, pilots wages are fixed with a formula or otherwise nationwide, and the general public has no choice but to pay the price and it wouldn't matter what operator they used because the price would be the same anyway. Zero competition.

As soon as you introduce competition, then somebody starts looking for a financial advantage, and you're back to square one.

Just a question, would the PPC Buyer haters have something to say about someone who bought a PPC and never used it? So no advantage was gained; it's sort of like tax laws in that respect, no? That's what the PPC buying is all about, an unfair advantage for someone with money right? Well guess what? The very best of schools anywhere in the world offer the same advantage to those with money...regardless of the field of study. Deal with it.

I personally never bought a PPC, but I have many friends who have. Some used their PPC's...some didn't. Wasted them perhaps? Who is to say?

Kurwa · Post by **Kurwa** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 9:36 pm

Just in case anyone was wondering, I never had any money, I never had any financial advantages. So that's not the angle I'm working here.

punk · Post by **punk** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:25 pm

There's been some interesting points raised...man this industry is so frustrating at times...it takes a lot of hard work & determination to even make it to a CPL & MIFR...then what? Ramp, seasonal work, pay for a PPC or get an instructor's rating? We all try & make the best decision for us and then feel we've paid our dues...we deserve the next break & those behind should have to do what we did. I remember pounding the pavement looking for work with a fresh CPL & Group 1 IFR...the industry was good then but the only nibble I got was with a skdiving company...who said I had to pay for my training & then work for free..I asked him in all seriousness how I was suppose to pay my bills? Of course someone else with daddy's credit card came in & got the "job". wtf...money wins...anyway I elected to instruct & work the ramp...because I couldn't afford to pay my bills on instructing alone (that's a whole other thread). It worked out well for me because instructing gave me some PIC time & the ramp job lead to the next company...but while I think everyone's anti buying a PPC attitude is very noble, it's upseting to see it happening so much. While I was instructing the company I worked for asked another instructor & myself to buy a PCC on a clapped out machine that barely flew charters. I refused & the other instructor said he was on board with me & we would squeeze them...well soon enough he worked out a deal with management & was flying the machine...I hope the 80hrs a year was worth it...but my point is the other instructor's didn't talk to him for about a week but then he moved on to a twin job & is sitting in a turboprop today...he's moved along very quickly & most people don't even know what he did...what does that say about us...like the point that came up earlier about Jetsgo pilot's moving on to AC & others. Where is the line? When do we stop screwing ourselves?

Youngback · Post by **Youngback** » Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:33 pm

The not an opinion part (fact) I was referring to is that someone won't easily make friends here by buying a PPC. If someone doesn't gain an unfair advantage and works their ass off, no problem. How that would work, I don't know.

Kurwa · Post by **Kurwa** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 4:29 am

Guess what folks, the industry itself is not a union. Anyone that thinks they're 'paying their dues', or whatever helps you sleep at night, and that if they keep their ramp job, slugging it out, day after day, waiting in line for their turn, that eventually AC is going to call them because they're 'next in line' and have 'payed their dues' is a lazy pig. This isn't a union, and I know for a fact that this is most certainly not the attitude that AC (since that's the end all be all in this country, right?) is looking for, and I'm sure will brush the resumes of these people aside and look for those with lower time and less experience that are trainable not having being corrupted by the attitudes of the rest of you who are 'still paying your dues'. This attitude is an illness that no employer wants to become afflicted with.

Give your head a shake before it's too late for your carreer!

My two cents!

Cheers