What does this mean exactly? I've heard this sentiment expressed elsewhere and as a student pilot I'm not sure I get it.
Companies that charge people for their jobs are considered reprehensible in aviation; for those who have been to certain places such as Gulfstream, being blacklisted is a real possibility.
It's one thing to go get a job, compete with everyone else, and be picked for the job after being considered the best applicant for the job.
It's entirely a different matter for someone to take a job because their sole qualification to be there was that they paid the employer. The concept of employment, of course, is to give a service to the employer, for which one gets paid. One works, one gets paid. Very simple.
In aviation, some companies cater to the curtain-climbing gotta-have-it-now crowd who try to buy their way into a career. Continental Express, for example, only hired applicants for many years who would pay for their training. Were the applicants there because they were the best ones for the job, or simply because they were the only ones willing to shell out fifteen to thirty thousand dollars to get a job that paid them thirteen grand a year?
The justification is that they were getting their foot in the door. In reality they were paying out to the company more than the company was paying them to work. They were paying for the privilege to work. You'll see the ads in magazines; pay us thirty thousand dollars and get two hundred fifty hours in your logbook of genuine Part 121 airline turbine time, and the possibility of actually having permanent employment thereafter.
This is defecating in one's bed. The same people who do this, lowering the bar for the industry, are the first to cry and complain as their career eventually takes off, about low industry wages. The truth is, these people are the ones who lowered the bar for everyone and poisoned the business.
Comair wasn't much different; spoiled kids who shelled out money to hop in an airline seat; train in house, jump in the airplane, make dirt wages, and call yourself a shining star. Two hundred fifty hour wonders who couldn't find the door with both hands.
Those same two hundred fifty hour wonders years later still haven't ever been exposed to real experience; they decided to pay to run without ever learning to walk or crawl.
Someone shows up with their experience with Comair, it's a quick way to flush the resume. I'd much rather see an applicant who's been vetted, tried and tested, and who's worked for a number of employers. An employee who's competed for his job, been found worthy of hire time and time again, that's the one to look to...not the one who bought his job and did nothing else.
. I remember when Comair used to do a ton of flying out of CVG.