Pilot charged for bond he never signed

[Redneck_pilot86]

[url]http://www.ecns.cn/2014/02-18/101345.shtml/url]

Pilot has to pay $346,230 to resign
2014-02-18 16:26chinadaily.com.cnWeb Editor: Wang Fan
1
A flight captain worked for a branch of an airline company in Jiangsu province was ordered to repay 2.1 million yuan ($346,230) of training costs to the airline when he wanted to resign, Modern Express reported on Tuesday.

Liu Bin (not his real name), the captain, applied to resign in September 2013 and was surprised to find his company considered he was breaking the contract he signed with them. The company asked him to pay compensation of more than 7 million yuan, including initial training costs and subsequent training costs, as well as flight experience costs, depreciation of the training aircraft, fuel and landing fees.

The airline said that pilots who were trained by the company at a cost of more than 600,000 yuan should work for the airline for 35 years, and that Liu's training costs were some 2.1 million yuan.

Liu said he did not know the company had such a rule and he had not signed a contract including such rules.

The Jiangsu labor arbitration department ruled on the case on Monday that Liu should repay 2.1 million yuan in training costs to the airline.

[arctic_slim]

Holy S**t! 35 year training bond? I guess we should not compain here haha
I wonder if he means that he did not sign a bod at all or hemeans that he did not sign a bond that had specified those specific costs. I mean, really? depreciation of the aircraft and landing fees? That's insane.

[timel]

The Chinese that do study in Canada or USA in our flight schools are for many contracted for 40 years to their agencies from what I heard.
20 y. copi / 10 y. capt / 10 y. training capt

[nightbird]

99 years I heard from some of them. 15 years if they finance all the training themselfs.

[MIQ]

[...] depreciation of the training aircraft [...]

Wow, I don't even know what to say to that. Except for that we should keep that off the internet as much as possible before Ryanair's O'Leary comes up with more ideas to charge ridiculous fees to his customers.

[Rowdy]

[...] depreciation of the training aircraft [...]

Wow, I don't even know what to say to that. Except for that we should keep that off the internet as much as possible before Ryanair's O'Leary comes up with more ideas to charge ridiculous fees to his customers.

You're worried about ryanair? I'm worried about canadian operators pick up on that

[slam525i]

Keep in mind, this is in China... The legal system is "different". Different as in the laws depend on who's got better friends. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi

Now I feel bad for all those Chinese guys running around at Buttonville.

[clearmyside]

We went to a remote airport in northern China a few weeks ago and had to take a navigator, because the aerodrome wasn't in our database, nor did the controllers there speak english. Turns out the navigator is a pilot for Air China. The company trained him ab initio and since he got several type ratings from them including 747, CL605, 7X and Global. He told us the same story about being tied to the company for life, otherwise he'd have to pay out the training to the tune of 2-3 million RMB.
Thing is this fellow is making RMB 50K a month and Hainan Airlines apparently pays double that. We discussed him leaving Air China and taking out a loan to pay the "bond". Then take the extra income from the other company and use every penny to pay off the loan asap.
It would take approximately 7 years to pay off, with no real change to his current lifestyle and making double the money after that.

Don't know if he'll actually do that or not, but the current situation of labour "laws" for pilots over in China is not good.

[DareDevil]

here's an idea….if pilots stopped being such pussies and signing these ridiculous contracts, the companies would be forced to adapt.

i am not against the idea of a training bond, they are ok for both parties if they are reasonable and both parties live up to their word. My favourite is in Maldives so far…$26,000 over 2years for a twin otter!

[Rowdy]

When did they start that shit in male? Jesus! I guess thats gonna keep a lot of skippers from every applying.

[ettw]

It could be worse. I believe if you sign on with the Sea Org/Scientologist, it's a billion year contract.

Cheers

ETTW