To give a specific example in this case.. a type rating to fly a Gulfstream business jet is on the order of $100,000. If a pilot works for a few months and quits, the employer is out a pretty significant chunk of change.
An alternative arrangement to direct employment is that the pilot could pay for his/her own type rating, and work as a contract pilot. But that requires having $100k to plunk down, and taking the risk that the job market will be strong after the type rating.
In this case, the employee may prefer the "indentured servitude" route versus having to front 6 figures to get their own type rating.
Contracts that include the employer footing the bill for professional (transferable) licensure are an entirely different thing than discussed in this article, and I think it's reasonable to have some kind of agreement. Even then, I'm not sure I feel sorry for the employer if something like this were to happen as the requirement to even provide this training would be due to market requirements. Many pilots spend a large chunk of their lives paying for their own training and working underpaid jobs (banner tow, instructing) just because it allows them seat time without it deducting from their bank account.
Of course many other factors would sway my opinion of the matter into different directions. Who made the decision to change the fleet to Gulfstream multi-engine jets versus single-engine, or from flying cargo to adding the option to carry passengers, etc. Was the pilot already part of the company when these new qualification requirements were added, etc?
A type rating allows you to fly a specific type of jet.
So, if you know how to fly Cessna Citations and Hawkers--- and you move to an employer with Gulfstreams, you're going to need expensive, type-specific training.
If you have $100k in type-specific training for what's now a popular jet, your employability and value to new employers grows.
Also, bad for the employer that trained you, they may be employers willing to immediately pay you more because you have already been trained and so they don't have to bear that cost.
It is zero-sum when the employee burdens the cost of the training when they leave and makes up the difference in that higher wage in the new job, but that's what is considered a problem here. The suggestion is that a zero-sum situation isn't fair to workers; that the employer should both burden the cost of training and pay a higher wage to those already trained. That is not zero-sum.
I mean some people will sell themselves into slavery in desperate situations. That doesn’t mean it should be allowed.
There are other ways to get around this problem either through deferred compensation or through the company being able to retain the certification lisence for a period of time as property that another company or the employee can buy out.
Where would the pilot be going in this example? Presumably to fly other planes, so even if the employer eats the cost of training, they're supporting the overall job market for pilots.
If the pilot is unable to work because of disability, conviction, etc., they're 6 figures in the hole and unable to use the training to get out. Seems like a pretty bad deal.
Sure but the DoD with probably ~1.5M* Tier 5 employees doesn't have this requirement of having to stay for your job or pay back the cost of a security clearance (~5.5k). That's a collective 5 billion fronted by employers.
I have no problems with a business making a job offer contingent on the candidate doing something (i.e. acquiring a rating or finishing a college degree). Presumably the salary you offer would reflect the skills that they have as well (Plus this is way better than student loans since you actually have a legitimate job lined up). But if you want a current employee to have a set of skills or certificates that they don't already, it's on you to do that.
* Google has ~170k employees [1] with ~2.5k job openings [2] (~70x multiplier). clearancejobs.com has 20.5k job openings so with 70x multiplier is roughly 1.5M.
I don't think security clearance is a good analogy as they are administered by the government itself. You may be sponsored by a private company, but I believe that work has to trace back to a government contract. (Maybe I'm wrong here and someone can correct me).
However, the DoD often does give these types of contracts for other training. A friend had to sign a contract for university training where they agreed to stay on for 3x the training length or reimburse the expenses.
> I don't think security clearance is a good analogy as they are administered by the government itself. You may be sponsored by a private company, but I believe that work has to trace back to a government contract.
To be clear, "sponsored by a private company" involves that private company paying either the government or some other private company money for you to get your clearance (not too sure how the money exactly moves about).
Sure you need to be working a job that actually requires a clearance to have one (but effectively there is a grace period if you get fired/quit). But if Company A and Company B both have a job that requires Tier 5 then you can move from A->B no problem. IIUC, the Jet example is even worse (for job mobility) because it's a rating for a plane so you'd need to go from a pilot at A to a pilot of that plane at B while for the DoD you could go from a programmer to a manager or janitor and it's all Tier 5.
The vast majority of security investigations are done by the govt Office of Personnel Management and paid for by other government agencies with appropriated funds. What contractors may often pay for is hiring someone and then paying their salary while they wait for the clearance to go through (i.e., they pay for them to do something else while they wait for the clearance to do the job they were actually hired for). But that's more about their hiring pipeline than the cost of clearance.
Do you have a source for the Gulfstream type rating cost? Most type ratings cost around $10-15k, and the most expensive I’ve seen is around $35k. Very few pilots pay out of pocket for type ratings, but the vast majority who do only need to take a low 5-figure hit. An aspiring airline pilot could self-fund all the formal training they ever need for under $100k.
$100k is probably from zero to Gulfstream-rated ATP, not including opportunity cost. But yeah $100k for a single type rating is unlikely to say the least.
I don't understand why the employer merits protection from the employee in this case.
The employers could, offer bonus payments for the employees tenure, top of market salaries, equity in the business, or secure private insurance to cover losses if the employee leaves.
Asking an employee, to pay you money so that you can make money from their labor shouldn't be legal.
My best attempt to steelman this argument is that training is a transferrable asset that the employer can't recoup.
Consider if you are an aircraft mechanic who is given a set of tools by the employer. Most people don't think it's unreasonable for the employer to ask for those tools back when you quit. In contrast, they can't ask for the training back.
Imagine if you agreed to work as a doctor for a charity if they agreed to pay for your training. Then upon completion of years of training, you quit to go work in the private sector to get more money. That seems like an extreme example, but it illustrates the point.
It would be interesting to see if employers give the equivalent funds as a bonus to an employee who comes onboard pre-trained. My guess is they don't, which would undermine their point somewhat.
It seems like an overall bad policy. If you hold someone against their will, you're bound to risk sub-standard work for the duration of the contract.
Exactly, but the tool analogy hinges on the skills actually being portable to a new job.
I can see the case for repayment agreements if the employer is (say) sending someone to a local university to get an MBA. That training transfers directly to other jobs and its price is set on the open market: you’d pay the same if you self-funded the MBA instead.
On the other hand, niche or employer-specific training doesn’t have either of those properties. Knowing the SOPs at Sally’s Beauty may not help much at other salons, let alone other industries. The price is also arbitrary and the employer has every incentive to inflate it.
I tend to agree with your point, but the focus of the article was on trucking and nursing. Those aren't niche skillsets and would be highly transportable.
The last example in the article, where the employee got a CDL, seems reasonably fair.
The first one though, where a licensed esthetician was charged $1,900 for pro-forma on-site training that she already had, seems like it should be legislated out of existence.
The esthetician skills are also transferable. That one seems to just reek of bad management. It’s hard to come up with a scenario where I’d want to send an employee to training they already have, unless it’s a currency/continuing education issue. Absent those, it’s “training” that adds zero value to neither the employer or employee.
Even so, I’m not sure how legislation would work. It’s once thing if you can point to a license and say the training is unnecessary but I would venture a guess that the majority of training isn’t of that type.
FTA: "She argued that the trainings were specific to the shop and low quality."
It depends on what the skills are. At one extreme, the employee might pick up actual skills, like how to dye hair. I can also imagine some stuff that's much closer to "onboarding": how to use the in-house booking system, workplace safety training, etc. That doesn't really transfer, either practically or legally. The line is really thin and a cynic might be tempted to blur it to retain employees.
As for legislation, one really bright line might be whether similar training is available to the general public (and at what costs). People enroll in Javascript bootcamps all the time, so an internal one is probably fine--and the repayment should be similar to their costs. If it's MUMPS instead, tough break for the employer.
>"She argued that the trainings were specific to the shop and low quality."
Then I think this undermines the employees stance that the trainings were unnecessary. The employer is essentially saying licensure isn't enough to ensure their quality standard, so additional training is necessary. (Granted, there's probably a likelihood of legal gamesmanship going on with both sides). To me, it would really depend on how "specific to the shop" it was. Since the lawsuit was dismissed, I'm assuming it was specific enough to be what you classify as "onboarding."
I get your point on the legislation, but just to illustrate my point about the lines being blurry: you brought up MUMPS and that being niche training. However, it's also the program that underlies the Veterans Affairs VISTA platform. Meaning, if you're trained in MUMPS you could foreseeably transfer those skills to one of the largest healthcare networks in the nation, as well as the companies that have gotten billions of dollars to upgrade that system. So even a "niche" program has plenty of wiggle room to determine if it's really transferable. Not only that, they've now trained you on a system that has billions of dollars in demand and little supply of programmers. That seems pretty valuable.
Then they can claim it on their taxes. Otherwise, losses shouldn't be offset by taxes and they should eat the entirety of their bad investments like the adults they claim they are.
Why is the type rating so expensive? I assume someone getting this rating already has all of the pre-req ratings. Do they need X hours in the jet and sims, and each of those hours is expensive?
Assuming you are being sarcastic... if not, well, there's a HUGE shortage of pilots. Regionals are requesting FAA exceptions to lower the requirements for PIC (pilot in command) time so they can broaden their applicant pool.
Being forced to participate in society doesn’t mean that’s what people prefer.
Your last line is like the mocked meme of “if you hate capitalism so much why did you buy a shirt”. The logic doesn’t work. Of course many anti-capitalists are going to consume capitalism because they live here and not everyone can leave.
The same logic would hold for pilots. Regardless of the numbers.
I took my Cirrus SR22 airplane across the pond and back a few months ago [KFRG CYHU CYZV CYYR CYKL CYFB BGSF BIRK EGPC]. Two things surprised me: the manner people live up North, and how modernized technology is changing the risk profile of the flight.
People up north (well, native people anyway) live a sustenance lifestyle of of necessity. Far from being a "cultural attraction," for them, it's a choice between a $20 stick of butter and a free whale from the ocean. When you're living on government subsidies in a town plagued by joblessness, there's not much of a choice.
The economic condition up in arctic Canada was saddening in other ways. Imagine living in -40F climates, and not having a place to stay. There are often 15-20 people per tiny house, with children's mattresses strewn across the ground of the living room. On top of the living quarters, the communications infrastructure was horrendous - a satellite backbone for internet that was next to useless for getting a weather briefing.
While the situation on the ground was... enlightening, from the air, things are becoming immensely more modern. Historically dangerous aspects to ferry flights are now void: communication, navigation, and rescue are all radically transformed.
Communication used to be a huge challenge (think clunky HF radio with a 25 foot trailing link antenna), but is now a non-event with a satellite phone. My Iridium candy-bar phone, while expensive, now gives me the ability to call ATC worldwide and let them know my exact position. By next year, ATC will automatically get real-time position updates from any ADS-B equipped aircraft: https://aireon.com/.
Navigation used to be a combination of LORAN, NDBs, and looking at the stars (no joke). Now, it's GPS direct. You know exactly where you are at all times, with 0 ambiguity. And you have an iPhone in your pocket as a backup, even if your plane goes totally dark.
Rescue is now a matter of hours instead of days. I carried a PLB with me. If I pressed a button, satellites would be pinged with an SOS signal and my exact GPS location. Rescue aircraft could be dispatched immediately and on-site within hours.
For anyone thinking about this trip, do it! The adventure will give you an appreciation for the frontiers of technology.
While this is true, many of the aircraft that are ferried lack this equipment. Even plenty of airliners are still crossing the pond with just HF and SELCAL.
I have to wonder about the point of your comment. The one you replied to is an interesting tale posted in the comments of a very similar story. It seemed to have many points: technology is making the trip easier, it’s well worth making, and there are a lot of seriously poor people living along the route.
Your point, on the other hand, seems to be that the other poster should feel really bad for being wealthy enough to make the trip. Which is a pretty crappy point to make.
Ok, now I don’t understand what your point is at all. I know all of these words, but I can’t combine them into a coherent thought when arranged in this sequence.
The best I can figure out is, we’re not supposed to call people “poor” just because they live in bad conditions and have little money, because that is somehow imposing our values on a culture that doesn’t share them?
I couldn’t imagine it, no, because I care more about the number of hairs on my scrotum than whether you consider me boring or, really, any larger opinion you’d have of me at all. HN opinions of my character are like fruit flies: annoying, tiny, and wholly irrelevant once disposed of appropriately.
You started this flamewar with a vicious personal attack and then elbowed everyone who came near. That's totally unacceptable.
Moreover, I'm dismayed to see that you've gotten into other gory flamewars recently, as well as made quite a habit of being uncivil in arguments.
Because of this, I've banned your account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
Thanks to Elon Musk, we have real-time tracking for modern airplanes! Iridium NEXT has ADS-B receivers on each of their satellites which can see all ADS-B equipped airplanes around the entire globe. It's mostly up-and-running, you can follow the progress at: https://www.iridiumnext.com/
"Thanks to Elon Musk"? Seriously? This is exactly the type of Musk-worship that makes people angry.
Elon Musk has hardly anything to do with Iridium NEXT. SpaceX launched the satellites, but that's it. If it wasn't SpaceX, it would've been any other launch provider (just like how China, Russia, and McDonnell Douglas provided 23 Iridium launches, compared to SpaceX's 8 Iridium NEXT launches).
You really should be saying "Thanks to Bary Bertiger, Raymond J. Leopold and Ken Peterson", who were the three engineers who actually came up with, designed, and developed the entire Iridium constellation, as well as Motorola, the company that financed Iridium, Lockheed/Orbital ATK/Thales, the companies that built the satellites, and of course Iridium Communications, the company that actually runs it.
Give credit where credit is due. And it's not due to Musk.
You both are talking past each other. Sure Elon had nothing to do with developing iridium technology. The question is whether Iridium would have been brought back to life without SpaceX. Iridium went bankrupt because it's costs were so high, they went 15 years without replacing a satellite, even though they were only rated for 8 years. They had plans to replace them, but kept postponing. It really looked like they couldn't raise enough money for the huge launch costs and were were just going to ride them into the ground (literally).
Then they suddenly got new funding and started launching satellites again in 2017. Right at the same time Falcon 9s dramatically cut commercial launch costs by well over half compared to other launch providers.
So Elon deserves some credit here, just as Bary, Raymond and Ken do.
Iridium "got new funding" in 2001 when it was bought by PE firms and restructured to generate piles of cash from selling satellite communications to the government, long before your claim of 2017. It had nothing to do with the Falcon 9 other than coincidence. Trying to claim otherwise is misleading.
And what did they do for 15 years with that money? Made plans to replace their dying satellites and having every single plan refused to be funded because of the massive costs.
Suddenly SpaceX cuts launch costs by 4x and Iridium is able to get funded and launch again. Trying to claim coincidence is misleading.
I agree with you about Musk worship in general, but I bet the financial viability of a satellite constellation is at least somewhat dependent on launch costs, and SpaceX has undeniably brought those down significantly. IIRC, the original Iridium company went bankrupt and the constellation was only kept in service by a U.S. government bailout.
What does it have to with Elon? The owner is Iridium Communications and the satellites are produced by Thales. They're being launched on Falcon 9 but they could have been launched on anything.
Iridium was able to be resurrected only because the Falcon 9 slashed the cost to replace their satellites, it was a shell of a bankrupt company for nearly two decades.
Iridium was "resurrected" from their bankruptcy over 17 years ago, in 2001. Their resurrection has nothing to do with the Falcon 9, and they were planning on launching The NEXT constellation before Falcon 9 was even on the scene. If not F9, they had plans to use the Ukrainian Dnepr. The Falcon 9 ended up letting them do it for cheaper, but that still doesn't mean Musk or SpaceX were necessary (or worthy of thanks) for it to happen.
They went 15 years post-bankruptcy floundering around post bankruptcy without being able to replace a single one of their rapidly decaying satellites. They made numerous plans over those 17 years and none could get funded because they never made financial sense.
They could never get funding to use Ukrainian Dnepr rockets even if they were cheaper than SpaceX. The Ukrainians rockets payload capacity is far smaller than a Falcon 9, quality is questionable, and clearly would never have been able to hit the cadence Iridium needed (only 9 launches this decade, barely more than one per year).
Then SpaceX came along. No-one thought the Falcon 9 would be a success, because it was so ambitious compared to the Falcon 1. Then no-one thought SpaceX could be competitive on pricing, and SpaceX blew everyone away on pricing way before they even started re-using their rockets (because Musk and his team were smart enough to design the Falcon 9 to be the first rocket that could be mass assembled. He's not Tesla or Edison, in reality he's Henry Ford). SpaceX's success proving the Falcon 9 was a big reason iridium got the massive funding they needed for the new satellites.
I’m able to track aircraft around 100 miles away using a cheap receiver and a 50’ wire antenna. About $50 total investment. I would guess commercial aircraft must have fairly high watt transmitters.
IMHO, the commercial vs. private distinction doesn't make sense when applied to drones. For airplanes, the logic is that paying passengers expect a certain level of safety which cannot be provided by someone with 40 hours of flight time. In essence, the FAA is shielding paying customers from the risks of low-time pilots. For drones, this logic doesn't follow. A private operation inherently has the same risks as a commercial operation. There's no passengers to kill - only people on the ground to hurt. The people are there regardless of whether you're flying for hire or not, and have no say on your flight.
I do think drones pose a significant risk to the NAS (National Airspace System) unless regulated correctly. To me this doesn't mean that we need to start fining people who post YouTube videos. I believe a pragmatic approach is best - people are going to be dumb and use drones for illegal / dangerous things. The best action the FAA can take to mitigate this is to require manufacturers to include an ADS-B transponder to broadcast the drone's GPS position at all times. At least then, pilots can safely avoid reckless drone pilots.
I fear the stupidity and ignorance of inexperienced drone operators. Our airspace is complex with lots of rules and regulations to ensure safe separation of aircraft. Trained pilots have enough trouble obeying the rules and being safe, so I question whether someone who has no formal training is capable of doing so. What happens if an inexperienced drone operator is going down the Hudson River corridor without reading up on the radio procedures, while I'm barreling down at 140 knots? Pilots are trained to look up special airspace before doing a flight, but how would someone who just bought a drone off the shelf be familiar with these practices? There's no inherent reason that drones can't follow the same procedures and be just as safe as airplanes today, but it's dangerous to have the attitude of "buy it off the shelf and go fly it with no training."
The privacy issue doesn't concern me as much, since it's already possible to rent a helicopter and follow someone around all day. The only attribute that's changing is the cost: rather than paying $300/h for a helicopter, you can pay a couple bucks an hour for constant surveillance.
Very good points you make, and I relate. I own a drone that I use for photography purposes, strictly as a hobbyist and hacker/tinkerer. It makes people uncomfortable. Once I learned proper control I went into a few areas where there were a few people, and I could definitely see a few "uncomfortable" looks. I couldn't even imagine what would happen when more people start using drones in crowded downtown areas.
Being small, lightweight and silent actually makes a good case for their use in many situations. Impact against aircraft becomes less probable and a lot less dangerous; silence undermines the case against disruption and noise pollution.
Drone seem like a very simple matter to me, it seems americans are ignoring a long of history with model aircraft and simply common sense, specially when it comes to privacy concerns. Simply making drones unregulated wouldn't mean the city would be dominated by them overnight. Common sense snooping regulations should apply. Do you frequently see people snooping their neighbors intrusively? Why would they use a drone for that? Common sense should dictate the operator is responsible for it's misuse and any accident.
In Brazil you are essentially free to use drones however you wish; there's no relevant regulation so you'd have to do something really bad to have someone come after you. Yet there's no drone abuse, and plenty of cool applications. I've been to a bike race some time ago and the finishing line was filmed by a drone, it was pretty cool. People are using drones for mapping, agriculture, media, etc. I haven't heard of a single problem with aviation or privacy.
Fairly small RC aircraft have occasionally killed people. So it's not so much safe as it is simply rarity that's allowed RC aircraft to be unregulated.
IMO, if your willing to fly it into yourself at full speed it's safe enough to fly without any regulation. More dangerous than that and basic certification seems like a reasonable precaution.
If you hit someone with a frying pan it's considered assault with a deadly weapon so it's not considered 'safe' just stationary without direct attention. You basically have to have to attack someone for frying pan's or Pencils to hurt someone, where all it takes is intention or any number of mechanical / software failures to cause harm with a drone which is a vary different situation. It's the difference between a car and a gun and you need a licence to drive a car on the public roads.
Genuine question, but does it change much compared to a wild bird ?
Yhey don't respect regulations nor space rules either, and I hope it's OK. If we lump drones in the same category shouldn't it be OK as well ?
"Most accidents occur when the bird hits the windscreen or flies into the engines. These cause annual damages that have been estimated at $400 million within the United States of America alone and up to $1.2 billion to commercial aircraft worldwide."
Relatively few fatalities for humans, but very high cost. And they are not made of metal or durable plastics. They are also less likely to fall onto your head with rapidly rotating blades due to technical failure.
I would trust bird reflexes more than those of a random drone operator, birds aren't made of metal, and, without regulations, drones could weigh whatever the customer wants to pay for. News crews might replace their helicopters by drones weighing a thousand pounds.
Regulations do not necessarily mean that you can't fly any drone without a permit.
Have you seen the kind of damage large birds do to aircraft?
This wouldn't be an issue if we were only talking about upgraded small RC aircraft being used as drones, but some companies are selling much larger drones that are way outside of existing "bird strike" parameters.
You can't have dozens of unregulated news drones the size of a small car flying through the same airspace as rescue choppers.
Maybe the problem could be solved at the software level, rather than through operator training. Drones would have the different rules governing airspace built into them, and would either override illegal operator commands, or at least warn the operator that he is doing something illegal, and log the incident. This would make them considerably more expensive, but it would solve the whole issue of regulation.
Not going to happen. There's nothing special at all about the hardware to fly one so if anyone can make their own there's no point even trying to put DRM on it.
This is the same as trying to ban certain 3d printer files the gov. doesn't like.
I have a somewhat off topic question about airplane companies' attitude towards engines. As a private pilot who flies Cirruses, it's always baffled me that a FADEC is not standard equipment. For non-pilots, starting a plane requires priming the engine by injecting fuel into the lines, and fiddling with the fuel/air mixture until the engine fires. Totally different from a modern car where a computer electronically controls the injection to get the engine started almost immediately. Is the attitude in the industry still that FADECs are dangerous because of bugs/malfunctions? Or is it more of a certification issue?
Well the new jet has dual FADECs, so you can solve your problem by buying one of them :) I think that for the piston plane market, it's more of a cost/value ratio issue - would you (and customers in general) be willing to pay an extra $50-100k for a FADEC-equipped plane that costs $500k for the whole rest of the plane, just to have the convenience of eliminating manual mixture control? Also some pilots don't want to give up having the ability to control engine temp, power, fuel burn rate, etc manually using the mixture. I know that FADEC-equipped engines have been tested, and will probably be available in the future, it's more of a question of marketing and costs (certification etc) than anything technical.
Fellow Cirrus owner here. My assumption has always been the deterrents are cost (both development and production; many fewer engines to amortize over) and reliability (if you lose all electrical power in a FADEC system, the engine dies; not so with magnetos).
For FADECs on single engine piston planes, in addition to being powered by either alternator automatically, there's usually a dedicated FADEC emergency battery good enough for 1+ hours of engine runtime.
Understood :) As a fun note, i just remembered that the emergency FADEC power on the turbine engines is provided by a tiny hydro generator powered by the fuel flow itself, so it can run in case of total electrical failure. The throttle position sensors are energized by the same emergency circuit so they continue to work too :)
One potential solution could be to adopt a UK-esque legal process whereby the loser of a tort suit pays the legal fees. If you risk paying huge legal bills by filing a lawsuit, you'll be less likely to do so unless the case is a slam dunk.
As an NYC resident, I feel that Bloomberg has made the city a remarkably better place. Probably the most transformative effect of Bloomberg's initiatives has been making the outer boroughs appealing. Young people who might have otherwise lived elsewhere because of ridiculous Manhattan rents (~$2-$3k for a studio in downtown Manhattan!) are now flocking to neighborhoods like Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant. These young people with disposable income create demand for more great restaurants, shops, and venues like the Barclay's center, all of which make the city a much more fun place to be.
It isn't all roses. The poorer residents in Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant are being forced to move elsewhere as their neighborhood gentrifies. However, this is part of the typical cyclic trend: artists / poor people move into a cheap neighborhood, make it trendy, then get forced out when the rent goes up. The starving artists move to another more affordable neighborhood, and the cycle starts all over again. Trying to stop the cycle by preventing development is just delaying the inevitable. Bloomberg has simply accelerated the trend of creating more upscale neighborhoods. I can understand how someone in a less fortunate socioeconomic situation might feel differently, but it's hard to argue that the changes haven't been beneficial from an outsider's perspective.
But the neighborhood improves without its residents. The economic situation of those living there doesn't really change and they're forced to relocate to other neighborhoods with similar locations to where they were but much further away.
Bascially "we're going to make this a nice place to live, please gtfo".
It's not an argument against improving a space. It's one against improving a space at the expense of its residents.
This assumes everyone is renting which while probably true in NYC is far from universal. In other places people on fixed income have been forced out though propery taxes but it's closer to here is 100,000$ GTFO simply from the difference in propery values.
Neighbourhoods change over time and we have to be comfortable with that, but we also have to seriously consider what the long term effects of displacing residents are. If there are other obvious neighbourhoods people are able to easily move to, then that's the best case situation, but it's troubling if there aren't, and all too often I find that people hand wave at that problem and say that people will just go somewhere else, but don't seriously consider the effects of displacement.
However, this is part of the typical cyclic trend: artists / poor people move into a cheap neighborhood, make it trendy, then get forced out when the rent goes up. The starving artists move to another more affordable neighborhood, and the cycle starts all over again. Trying to stop the cycle by preventing development is just delaying the inevitable.
I partly agree, but artists move to an area partly by choice. Poor people are often born there, and then forced to move because the area has become trendy underneath their feet.
it's hard to argue that the changes haven't been beneficial from an outsider's perspective.
The city might be better off in the aggregate, but the poor people presumably ended up in other places, which are slightly worse off.
My guess is that it's because browser support is inconsistent, and Apple needs to have a 100% flawless experience on ahem less-well-engineered browsers. Positioning the SVG elements precisely ensures that nothing is cut off, and there aren't any visual oddities. Writing your own layout engine is a great way to ensure a consistent experience across multiple rendering engines.
An alternative arrangement to direct employment is that the pilot could pay for his/her own type rating, and work as a contract pilot. But that requires having $100k to plunk down, and taking the risk that the job market will be strong after the type rating.
In this case, the employee may prefer the "indentured servitude" route versus having to front 6 figures to get their own type rating.