Jazz is planning to take direct entry Seneca students and I don't believe this one is a rumour anymore as I've heard from quite a few reliable sources. There is also 12 slated to go to Bahrain apparently (Gulf Air I think). I'm not trying to be a party pooper here folks, but surely we haven't reached that point in Canada where we have to hire 250 hr grads into the right seat of an airline operation eh? Still plenty of good candidates out there and I just don't want to see those that have had to work so hard to get this far get bypassed.
What do some of the great minds here at Avcanada have to say about this? Just wondering? Doc?
As a side note I can just picture next year's jackets. They will probably say "JAZZ CAPTAIN IN TRAINING" or something along those lines with a too cool for school logo. Hehehe! I can make fun cause I am a product of theirs and no I never had a "Seneca Aviation Jacket", just the daily dose of sunshine up the ...... Hehehe!
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Last edited by Nightflight on Tue Feb 13, 2007 8:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
I don't know what to make of it. I think it's great for the kids - but I really think this is going to inflate their egos.
I'm a low-time pilot myself, and am only just now getting to the stage of looking for my first job. After 6 years of flight training/time building (and only 2XX hours to show for it), I've learned to appreciate things in life a little more - I'm realizing how tough it will be to cut it in this industry, and as some people say - it's beginning to look like you really DO need to enjoy the journey more, instead of just aiming for the destination.
To me this program is saying that all the other non-"cadet" pilots (some with hundreds of hours of real world experience, dealing with shitty-ass conditions (pay and flightwise)) are NOT qualified enough to go to Jazz or Gulf Air, but some kid with 200 TT and a nice report card is? Goodstuff.
Yes, I know this is how they do it in Europe, so maybe it's time for a change over here......
Will Seneca have a "Continuing Education" cadet program, for all the dumbass pilots working the ramp or working their asses off to progress up the food chain?
Who cares about egos? Can somebody explain to me why an airline would take a 2XX pilot with no practical experience over a pilot with real flying time? The question is not whether it can be done, because it is done all over the world... the question is; why would you when there are so many better qualified pilots out there?
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Success flourishes only in perseverance -- ceaseless, restless perseverance. -The Red Baron
I would guess A/C could pay these guys a lot less than experienced guys. The next step in the competition of low fare budget airlines. Lower cost wherever possible to make a profit.
Off topic, but I got a real good chuckle when a Seneca grad showed up at a place I used to work at for an interview wearing not his, but his Buddies jacket, complete with wrong name on the arm and everything!!!
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"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. -- James Baldwin "
They'll get past it somehow. Some, special type rating. Probably some sort of ops spec Jazz can put in place. Not like every airline in Europe isn't doing the same thing already? When Seneca first started out, Air Canada hired everybody. Stuck them in the back seats of the DC8's. So, this is not a new thing. Good deal too! The government pays for most of the cost....and they all end up with better jobs than the rest of us? I can hear the violins from here. And they'll still know far more than the rest of us....just ask them.
My biggest concern with becoming an F/O straight out of school is the time it will take to go left seat. They'll need roughly 3000 hours right seat to get the ATPL 1500. What about the ATPL PIC requirements which you can't do double time for in the right seat? Will this be a career F/O deal?
This is going to be great for aviation in Canada. Now that automation in airplanes is so good a 200 hr college kid can go direct into an RJ and the ridiculously high wages we've been paid can finally start to come back down to reality, similar to the US. $20,000 sounds about right.
This does make me a little pissed actually. I've busted my ass for years to finally earn my place at Jazz, I've been captain on numerous turboprops and flown shitty airplanes, living in shitty places. All that hard work translates into a little pride when I put my uniform on and go to work.
It's very true that a 200 hr pilot can succesfully complete the training and safety won't be diminished in the cockpit. There are those one in a million cases where an accident may be prevented because a pilot had a more diverse background and more experience than the norm, but those are rare.
I don't think you can compare aviation in Canada to that in Asia and Europe. In those places the number of airline jobs is disproportionate to the number of time building jobs so they had to get creative.
Here we have tremendous opportunities for new grads to fly crappy Navajos and King Airs in the middle of nowhere. Not all of the experience is directly relevant to an RJ job, but enough of it is. It teaches great decision making, that's for sure.
The problem here is, now these companies are going to have even more trouble finding guys to fill the right seat, and the ones they do get are going to feel entitled to more because they got the short end of the stick and they think they should be flying an RJ.
We should all be concerned about the long term effect this will have, I know the lowtimers are jumping for joy. My fear is the gradual decline of a pilots worth. Number crunchers in head office are going to realize this works and pay rates will slowly come down.
I for one will feel a little less pride wearing my uniform, knowing that some 20 year old kid with a fresh commercial is doing the same job as me.
I should have been a stripper
I'm really looking forward to hearing a comment like this some day:
"What do you do for a living?"
"I'm a first officer at Jazz"
"Oh, really? You must have started your career late, because the kid who lives across the street from me flies for Jazz too and he just graduated high school a couple of years ago!"
If I was an experienced pilot who has been working my butt off for the past 5+ years trying to get on with a company like Jazz, I would be frustrated to the point of pulling my hair out.
Had I gone directly to Jazz after graduating university, I know my perspective on this industry would be different. I would appreciate it less, much less in fact. I think there is greater satisfaction when one person works his way from the bottom (ramp/instructing) living in shithole community to reach their dream job back home. It's kind of like comparing a poor immigrant in Canada to someone who was born here and had their life handed to them on a silver platter. To the immigrant, every day would be a blessing because he knows how shitty life used to be. The Canadian wouldn't know this kind of joy since they never experienced the shittiness of life elsewhere.
Oh well, if it's true, good for the grads who get on. They will be missing out on a lot of great experiences, but I'm sure they will make it through training and enjoy their time.
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"Never travel faster than your guardian angel can fly." - Mother Theresa
C-HRIS, I keep thinking about all the young guys who were slaves on ramps/docks (no names) for a year or more, just to get a stinking 185 job (not that there's anything wrong with that) or a right seat in a Navajo, working for some "fly by night" operator in Upper Arm Pit Sask, and can't even get an interview with Jazz, getting passed over (yes, passed over) for some kid, who didn't even have to clean the snow off a Navajo, eat KD, or sign a bond, or even pay for his flight training! It's like Stinky says. You're doing the same job as a kid, who, lets face facts here kids, has no phuquen idea what aviation is all about. These guys will not even know how to FLY! Anyone can operate a Nintendo!
And people wonder why Seneca grads think their shit don't stink?
