They hire them on a contract basis, where the pilot has paid for his own specific aircraft type rating. This is a cost normally put upon the company as training for each aircraft can range between lets say $20-60000 on top of pilots previous training and qualifications. By hiring a "type rated" pilot, the company saves this large expense, neglecting the fact there is a huge number of Canadian pilots, fully qualified (Minus the specific rating to fly a specific aircraft) to take such a position.

It is a huge downward spiral in the industry, safety will be the next thing to be compromised if it has not already.

"Zabeen Hirji, Chief Human Resources Officer for RBC, responds to allegations that dozens of Royal Bank employees are losing their jobs and being replaced by temporary workers from overseas."

RBC responds to outsourcing allegations - News - CBC Player






Zabeen, like RBC, is so full of bullshit.

what kind of pilots pay for type rating by themselves? :suspicious:

I heard some pilots had to pay for Beechcraft 1900D or Dash 8, but I would imagine most airlines will pay for pilots' type ratings.

From what I heard, WestJet only operates 737s so that they can cut the type rating cost for both pilots and AMEs.

having worked in IT industry for over 15 yeas. what i get from her response is, RBC is moving IT (outsourcing) operations to India . these workers are here only to transition the move (as they are here till 2015 only)

my old company, CGI handle Bell Canada's IT work, similar to supplier she is talking about, eventually CGI decided to move its operations to India, advised Bell, (probably gave them a discount on operating costs). and moved operation overseas. At that time also, folks from India were in Toronto, understanding the work and getting ready to transition. in bell's case the supplier stayed the same, but work was outsourced to CGI"s india division. Stuff like this happens all the time.


im not sure if this is any different from what CGI-bell did years ago.

Most large airlines make pilots do that.. ever wonder why they pay them so much?

But why are those workers getting rid of?

They have worked for the company for many years. Suddenly, workers from India that are new to the company can do pretty much the same work?

Your 100% right. Any career airline will pay for your rating. Some companies will make you sign a "bond", which states if you leave within a certain amount of time you will pay for the rest of your rating. But the only time companies
request a type rating is for contract work.

If you think all pilots get paid so much, do a little more research. Yes, after 35 years I will make some decent money. For now, I struggle to live on my own in a major city (Single) and hold a somewhat interesting social life. If I had to pay off my aircraft specific type ratings, I might as well have a mortgage.

ohh yeah I think the Air Force do that too. You must work for 9 years or else you would get a HUGE bill.

huh? :suspicious:

^ this.

Aviation is very unstable industry. Airlines are always trying to rip pilots off to save cost.

Although they're not a major airline, Central Mountain Air for example, they will require you to have ATPL, Multi IFR and type rating for Beech 1900 + over 500 PIC time for F.O.

Wow that's a shit load of money you would have to spend to get that, and guess what? The starting wage for F.O. at Central Mountain Air is like $24,000-$28,000 if you're lucky. I heard as low as $18,000-$19,000 range.
If you work at Orca Air, it's munimum wage. And you only get paid for flight time.

You would wonder why they would accept that kinda job but that's because they had to spend all the money to be a pilot + when you get a job at company, most companies will NOT hire you as a pilot. They will make you throw baggage for a while. (usually several months to years)
To make a long story short, aviation isn't that easy industry.

A friend of mine's brother worked the ramp at CMA for a year and got moved up to FO. He didn't have his BC type rating, and only 200 hours. Based on talking to a number of pilots, CMA has one of the best low time pilot programs out there.
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actually PC handles their banking by themselves, CIBC provides the infrastructure of banking to PC (have a look at the bottom of PC cheques, the institution number is 010 which is CIBC);
however CIBC cannot access PC accounts and vice versa. even if it's the same institution number, if you try to look up the transit number/account number, or try swiping the PC card at the tellers it'll come up as nothing.

you might say that how come you can use PC cards in CIBC machines? that's because the machines switch to a totally different system when you insert a PC card, then defaults back to CIBC's system after you're done.

ontopic: all banks increasing fees yet can't afford canadian workers? dafuq...a lot of people mentioning credit unions seem like a good idea now. rbc may just be the first glimpse of outsourcing work...

I've been struggling with the decision of whether to work locally at a place like CMA on the ramp and "hope" for my shot. They guy I know who worked there ended up moving on to AC and loves it there now. So the path to the big guys are there if you work on it. Or if I should go to Sask/Manitoba or some Caribbean island and fly bush/floats for a year and come back to work somewhere like Seair or Harbour Air. Lots of options out there, and I know it will be a hard grind for a number of years until I get the hours and the chance to fly.

Yeah I guess you could try...it's all about how lucky you are + how desperate they are for pilots.
Also having a good connection in aviation is a HUGE key.

I don't know him personally, but my friend's friend got a CPL and Multi IFR. He got a job at the ramp. I'm pretty sure it was CMA. (If not Pacific Coastal)
He has been throwing baggage for almost 4 years for minimum wage now.

First off, throwing baggage is NOT going to make you a better pilot, now his knowledge and skills as a pilot are worse than when he got his license (because it's outdated and been a long time), + his suffering from minor back pain.
Pretty crappy deal, he spent almost 4 years to get a back pain and outdated brain as a pilot.
He doesn't quit his job because he doesn't want to waste his 4 years working there in hopes to be a FO. But seems like aviation is pretty rough industry to get into.

I'm sure there are lots of success stories too, so if aviation is what you're passionate about I guess you could keep going but realistically it's good to keep in mind that it's a pretty rough industry.
People tend to start as an instructor or bush pilot but it's very common to see those commercial pilots making less money than 15 year old kids flipping burgers at McDonald's because they don't get much hours.

4 years is a long time. From what I understand, hearing from the guy I know the average at CMA is 18 months. Sounds like he got in at a bad time when everyone was healthy/not retiring etc. Since most people move on from the regional to the big planes I'd imagine he'll get his chance sooner or later. Does Pacific Coastal have a number system like CMA? Or is it the more you suck up to the boss the better chance you have? From what I've heard from a few people CMA has good management and while the pay isn't the greatest it's a good place to work. IIRC their F/O's log 1 PIC hour for every 2 hours in the F/O chair? Any other airlines do this?

As for instructing, I guess it depends where you work. The instructors at my school (the busiest in the LM) make decent money but log a lot of hours. In one week after returning from vacation I was chatting with my instructor and he had added up 25+ PIC logged hours since coming back. That's not bad. The winters suck, but the summer's can be hectic and long especially since BCIT's program flies out of there.

This reminded me of how Facebook is going to hire workers in Vancouver and eventually take them back to the states. Kind of a reversal of what RBC is doing.

LMAO read this in the metro paper....

http://i.imgur.com/dTJqFGil.jpg

CBC tonight showed a few people closing their RBC accounts and then reported that the other banks do the same thing

RBC CEO gave a comment stating he hopes companies they contract out to follow Canadian laws -_- cop out

Hmm I honestly have no idea how Pacific Coastal is like.

And the 1PIC = 2 FO time thing depends on the company.
Pilot's can't legally put their FO time as PIC in their log book, but what they're trying to say is...say you apply for a job, you have 200 PIC time but have 1000 FO time...they would count 500 of that as a equivalent of PIC time.

So they might say you need 500 PIC time, but if you have tons of FO time, that might count when you apply for a job.

So, basically Zabeen is saying, they are going to move whole IT dept and eveyone will lose their jobs? :rukidding:


LOL UBC add for IT course, next to IT ppl getting let go :okay:

I find it kind of funny that 50-60 year olds are the IT support staff though. They're probably replacing them so people who actually know how to use anything other than DOS are working there.

I feel for these workers, but loyalty is cheap these days. You have to stay ahead of the curve, make yourself valuable, and continue to develop new skills.

People should buy RBC stock. I hate to say it, but the majority of people closing accounts at RBC probably don't bring value to the company anyway. If you have mortgages and maybe a million in liquid, then sure, moving your business elsewhere may raise some eyebrows. After working at a major bank, I learned that they don't give two shits about the average person with some GICs, mutual funds, and maybe 50 grand in liquid.
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Yeah, that's a pretty bold statement. My dad worked in IT for 30 years and could likely walk circles around a large majority of younger "IT" people. There's something to be said about actually working through the advances of technology and being on the front edge of change as it comes and implementing/maintaining new systems as you go.

who cares really? everyone/majority of corporations are already doing this...

Outsourcing bank jobs is common practice, say employees - News - MSN CA

^ yeah no kidding.

A lot of Canadian manufactures build factories in China, hire Chinese workers instead of Canadians to save cost. Those manufactures don't get accused for not hiring Canadians, or not doing business in Canada.

List of


"Between April 25 and December 18, 2012, more than 2,400 ALMO guest-worker permits – which are supposed to be reserved for highly-skilled employment – have been granted to fast-food restaurants, convenience stores and gas stations.

“You look down this list, and it’s McDonalds, Tim Hortons, A&W, Subway Sandwiches. Are we supposed to believe that these are ‘high-skill’ employment opportunities?” Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan said. “These applications have been rubberstamped in as little as ten days, and the vast majority aren’t subjected to any kind of review.”"



Its only a matter of time, better start sprucing up that resume.