Ability to repay flight training loans?

[lockton9334]

I have been looking into the cost of flight training and it seems to cost £75.000+ (plus type rating) I was wondering how easy current employed or otherwise, FO's (i.e. OAT/ FTE grads) are finding it to pay off this amount of debt (with monthly payments being around £500+) as well as living on the ~£30.000 starting salary?

Thanks for your advice.

Jonathan

[CAT3C AUTOLAND]

The prices you quoted seem to indicate you have been looking at the integrated route. Do remember that you will save yourself probably half that if you go down the modular route.

With regard to paying off the loan, I really think it depends on your circumstances. Having a family to support and a mortgage to pay may prove a struggle, however, being a single man/woman without any of those responsibilites wouldn't be so much of a problem. Mind you on saying that, I think I will have to get another job soon to cover my loan :{.

All the best with what you decide.

I noticed you are learning on the Terrahawk, have you stalled or spun it yet?:eek:

[lockton9334]

Those prices where integrated, as this seems the best way to secure a job (however, lets not turn this into a integrated v modular post)

I've done about 38hrs in the PA 38, stalls and spins where...ermmm..."fun" lol :P

Are you thinking about getting another job as your instructing wages are per flight hour rather than a basic airline salary?

[YYZ]

If you can get a job once finished:(

Or you could be on a TP earning 18K whilst paying for the type rating & having to relocate!

I have recently finished all my training and I am searching for any job at the minute, as the debts need paying! I can manage about another month before I have a problem!

So anyone out there with a job in aviation, preferably flying, PM me:8

YYZ

[wbryce]

Jonathan,

With a bit of thought you can bring down the amount of money you need to borrow dramatically!

For example, presently i'm working full time, have my PPL and 80hrs TT and currently doing my IMC rating. I'm using my monthly wages to pay me upto 150hours TT and save enough cash to complete my ATPLs and will try and do this too for my CPL! so when the times comes i only really need a loan for my IR and MCC! which lets say 15k max! or 20k with FI rating!

Do a few extra months saving and you further reduce the amount of money you need to borrow! my game plan is to try and reduce any financial burden upon training completion!

wbryce.co.uk

[Rote 8]

There seems to be a longstanding myth on this forum that a modular CPL/IR can be obtained for around the £35,000 mark.

I took my first flying lesson in June 1998 and have maintained a spreadsheet of the costs from that date.

The spreadsheet covers every penny spent on flying and any ancillary costs right down to the stationary that I brought for my ATPL groundschool and also lost earnings for periods when I took unpaid leave from work. (Yes I am anally retentive).

I completed my IR last August and renewed in the sim this year. I have also done an MCC course, nothing glamorous mind, just the King Air sim at Atlantic. I have gone over the minimum hours for PPL, CPL and IR but not unusually so, only a couple of extra hours on the CPL course and the IR.

The spreadsheet really does include every penny that I have spent on this ludicrous mission since that date.

At the moment the total figure is a little way north of £69,000.

Of course it is a complete myth that an Integrated course can be completed for around the £75,000 mark, particularly if you have to give up a full time job in order to complete the course.

[CAT3C AUTOLAND]

Lockton, yes you are absolutely right, and now with the winter approaching, it will prove difficult, but hey ho I will use the force :D.

WB, has a point. Remember, that depending on your age, you do have time to save some cash, this is what I did. I managed to save around 3/4 of what I needed. Even though I do owe a fair amount of cash, it is not £75K! It is manageable.

Rote 8, that is interesting, and £69K seems like an awful lot of cash! I did a similar thing, with regard to a spreadsheet. I didn't get much change out of £50K which included a FI rating and beer (but not loose women ;) ), however, I did do my PPL and hour building in the USA. I think if you are shrewd with your money you can get away with around the £35K - £40K mark, but bloody hell, we have to eat!

Cheers.

[wbryce]

Rote 8,

I know numerous people who have completed the modular route between 35k and 40k!

Just because you have paid 70k to complete your training by modular courses doesn't mean everyone else will be paying this price!

I estimate to have spent around 12k by the time I have 150 hours! call it 6k for my ATPLs (generous amount, incl accomo and an additional percentage to cover any unknown factors), 6k for CPL! 3K for MCC and an overly generous 15k for IR! even splashing out on a type rating and FI rating, I would still probably be under 70k!

I purchased a share in an aircraft for my hour building! and get my flying hours at basicially half price to club aircraft hire costs! at the end of my hour building, I resell my share and get my money back! A route I would recommend to anyone! Although, do your research, joining a group with a low fund can sting you badly should the unthinkable happen!


wbryce.co.uk

[YYZ]

Multi CPL/IR & MCC cost me £27.100
Hour building £5000
PPL £5500
ATPL,s £3000
Medical £600 total so far

All include VAT, landing, approach, one re-take and issue fee's.

Its the loss of earnings thats a killer!
:(

YYZ

[silverknapper]

You don't earn on either integrated or modular. What a ridiculous cost to factor in. It changes for everyone. If you earned £100k a year you going to tell everyone your fATPL cost £135k?

[YYZ]

I didn't factor in the loss of earnings; I just said it was a killer?

Also, I was Modular, so the loss of earnings cost was minimal; you still need to consider it though?

YYZ

[wbryce]

YYZ,

I think Silver was referring to this comment:

The spreadsheet covers every penny spent on flying and any ancillary costs right down to the stationary that I brought for my ATPL groundschool and also lost earnings for periods when I took unpaid leave from work. (Yes I am anally retentive).

:}

[silverknapper]

Cheers WB, thats what I meant. I know it's a killer but you can't include it in the cost of any course. To insinuate that a modular course cost £69k is ludicrous. Rote 8 obviously was on £30k a year before he left, allowing for a few extra hours.
Why not start a new thread - what our course cost - including lost earnings. Could be interesting!! Bet there are a few high flyers (no pun intended) who packed in 6 figure salaries to learn to fly. Couple that with an APP course and we could be looking at £200k to learn to fly.
Ouch!!!

[Rote 8]

Silverknapper

It is precisely because you don’t earn whilst training that this is a cost that I have factored in. If someone is earning £100,000 a year and they take a 12 month unpaid sabbatical from that job in order to do a modular fATPL then yes, surely the fATPL has cost them £100,000 plus the cost of the training and other expenses. It is money that they sacrificed in order to complete the training and they could reasonably argue that for them, given their circumstances the fATPL did cost them £135,000.

I did not suggest that they end up paying any more for the training, just making the observation that people should look further than just adding the headline cost of a PPL, CPL, Multi and IR together.

Reading between the lines I believe you have made an assumption that I jacked in my job in order to complete the training and simply added a years salary to a base cost of somewhere near to £35,000. This is not the case. I have remained in full time employment throughout the entire course and I am still in the same job now. I have taken two periods of unpaid leave, one in the summer of 2003 to do some hour building and the CPL and another in 2004 in order to do the Multi and IR. When all is said and done the “lost income” portion of the spreadsheet whilst not to be sniffed at is not significantly more than the amount of money I have paid out to the CAA in ‘Administrative Fees’ – (my contribution to the subsidised canteen).

The point I was trying to make is that there are a mountain of other incidental costs to consider when calculating the cost of completing this training and that people ignore these at their peril.

Cheers

[wbryce]

Not many people use that assumption when calculating total expense.

Using that assumption then the average university student debt figures would increase rapidly too as each student wont be in full time employment over their education period, therefor loosing 4 years salary and at an average of say 20k per year, that means going to university would cost 100k (assuming an average of 20k debt from university)!

Give me a fATPL at 70k please! :E

Rote 8, out of curiousity how much did you pay for your training without adding your loss of income?

[jetay1]

I think that lost salary is a factor in the calculation only if you are initially comparing the profitability of getting a license to other options, like staying in your current job and burying your dreams about a pilot career. I think that most that participate in this thread have already made that decision and are only interested in the actual costs and how to minize them. If you have already decided to get that license, the income during training is lost no matter what and can be eliminated from the calculation.

[Rote 8]

Wbryce

I would have to breakdown the figures within the spreadsheet but I could come up with a very precise figure.

I should add that the spreadsheet covers all flying costs to date. I finished my IR in August 2004 and since then have obviously spent more on an MCC, IR Renewal and the flying that I have done since then – which unfortunately is nowhere near enough to make me attractive to employers and is barely maintaining club currency.

I will try and get you the figures next week.

Jetay1

You could eliminate the costs from your calculation but this will not eliminate the costs from reality.

You will still need to eat and pay the mortgage or rent during training.

[ACN_Pilot]

Multi CPL/IR & MCC cost me £27.100 YYZ I'd be very interested to know how the above courses could amount to 27,000 pounds.

Cheers
ACN_Pilot

[Dude~]

Rote 8,

As you will see from my recent post "Frozen ATPL - the real cost" (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=196270) the cost from zero to 300hr Frozen ATPL with MCC in the UK was just under £40,000.

That includes everything. It can be done.

You need to continually search out cheap flying and cut costs. Of course, if you pay £100/hr to hour build it may cost a lot more.

[EGCC4284]

Those prices where integrated, as this seems the best way to secure a job????????

[duir]

I concurr, it's jibberish to think you can go modular for £35000

CPL/ME/IR/MCC/FI + living costs/loss of earnings £49500

All training done in UK including an IMC rating and share in aircraft

Now working as FI and had to relocate so no change from £50000

Will start to panic in spring when repayments start!!:(

[A320rider]

if you don 't find any job after your training, you are screwed!!!

[Dude~]

How on earth do people manage to repay such huge loans? £500 per month is large ammount on top of rent, and all the other costs.
Instructing certainly won't do it, I worked out that I would only be able to afford about £250 a month on repayments as an instructor.

What sort of debt are people finishing with?

[buster172]

Hi,

I have a loan for 45000 and had worked out, in great detail that that would be enough. However... I seem to have spent far more already than I had plannd on 'life' and all things other than aviation. As I near the part where the big bills come I am begining to get a little uneasy!

I should still have enough but my contingency is already being nibbled away. There are other factors, not finishing exams on time, weather delays etc, all things the contingency was there for, but still :ugh:

It would have been nice to have ten grand sitting there to help with an FI course or relocation costs should the gods be shining and I get a job!

It aint cheap and unless I get an airline job its back to the old one and joining the ranks of the unemployed pilot. Still, thats all I ever wanted :)

Regards,

Buster

[A320rider]

most people I have met in this industry are in debt and with no flying jobs. Most have taken back their previous job, and are still paying their loan.It can take up to 10 years before to be debt free(and with NO JOB GUARANTY).

you reach 35 years old, you paid all your debts back,...And now airlines ask you if you are ready to retake a loan for a type rating and you have to be not older than 28...(with no job guaranty)

ARE YOU MAD???

the best way is not to invest one peny, and ask airlines to pay you a full intergrated course, but dont put money from your pocket....(job guaranty)

good luck!!!!!

[Özcan]

how do you guys get these big depts? it's not that expensive even here in sweden!

i live at home and i work at a supermarket at the weekends where i get twice the pay for working weekends and i work as a musician with my cousins where we play at weddings and such and if things go the way i've calculated i won't have a bigger debt then £10-15k when i've got my fATPL! but of course everyone isn't as young as i am that has the ability to live at home (i'm only 17) but i think you should consider working part time and go with cheaper alternatives and try to live at home if possible. It's better to be safe and smart and let things take a little longer instead of going right on with the quickest and most expensive alternative that doesn't allow you to work on the side either!

aspecially when you should keep in mind that you won't have a job until after around 5-10 years after finished fATPL unless very lucky!

[duir]

Not all FI jobs are badly paid. I can certainly manage on my wages. It depends on lifestyle I suppose, but after living on £350-400 per month during training, FI wages are a large scale increase.

[Rote 8]

Wbryce

Sorry it took a while to come back to you with the figures. I have been a bit busy.

I have removed from the spreadsheet all costs arising that fall under the category of ‘loss of income’ and also all the money that I have spent on gliding (I was a member of a gliding club for a year and the spreadsheet records all the money that I spend on flying).

The total cost to date without loss of income is £55,146.48, which to be honest surprised even me. I had no idea that I had factored in that much due to income loss.

Of those costs £41,938.82 are what I consider to be ‘direct costs’ and the remaining £13,207.66 are indirect costs such as travel and accommodation costs, books and equipment, landing fees, CAA charges, stationary and so on.

I completely accept that it is possible to do the course for less, for example savings can of course be made by doing some training in the states. I would have saved a significant sum by doing a ‘three week’ PPL in the US but when I started learning to fly all I could afford was an hour every three weeks and the PPL took me a couple of years to finish. All my flying has been done in the UK. This may not be the cheapest approach but it was the one that fit my circumstances.

A number of people have suggested that I have paid over the odds for some of my training. I do not really believe that this is the case and I think misses the point I was trying to make, which is that the ‘additional costs’ mount up and should be considered by people who are thinking about undertaking the training.

[Leezyjet]

I just found out yesterday that the £25K loan I applied for has been approved. Just waiting for the paperwork to come through.

Bit unsure now it's all getting real. £450/month for the next 10 years is a huge commitment. :uhoh:

I already have my PPL that I obtained in South Africa for £3,300 and will do most of my hour building over there where it is around half the price of the UK.

I will have to keep working to pay off the loan, as there are no deferred payments with an unsecured loan, but £25k is much easier to get in the first place than £40k.

I'll see how far this can get me then revert to the flexible friend to finish the rest.

:)

[Charlie Zulu]

Sorry Leezy but £450 per month for ten years sounds like a huge amount of interest... in fact it works out to be £54k you're paying back to the loan company.

I'm looking to obtain a loan for £15k to cover the JAA CPL/IR "conversion", MCC and FI rating (with my own funds topping up the difference and the FI rating will be used only on a part time basis as I can't afford to give up my day job - the loan has to be paid back and I still have to live, anyway this is getting off topic).

I have had a rough estimate from the branch of the building society that I have my current account with that over 5 years this will cost me £300 per month or the more likely option for myself £340 per month to include the loancare cover option. This works out to be a total repayment of £18k or £20k respectively.

Just been looking at their website and the quotation calculator. £25k over 7 years (max) would be £448 including loancare cover, thus a total repayment of £37.5k over the seven years. This seems a much better deal than the same amount over 10 years...

I know your circumstances probably differ to mine like mine do to everyone else's on the planet. However I would suggest that you look around, if you haven't already done so. Sorry and no offence intended but a repayment of £54k for a £25k loan sounds an awful amount to me.

[mad_jock]

Rote8 that sounds about right.

As you say you can do it for less. And you can get it down to 35k if you try. Starting in 2000 and finishing in early 2002 I managed to get MEP/IR/FI all done scraping 35k. Then did the MCC later.

500quid a month sounds about right for the loan repayments for an unsecured loan. If say you start on 18k a year as a TP FO you will clear about 1300 a month. Say 240 a month in rent so before you even start to live its down to 560 disposable. You will need to run a car because public transport doesn't work at O my god its early/late time of day. So call it 100 quid a month fuel and insurance. Down to £460.

Which you can survive on. And normally you will get flight pay on top of that and overnight expenses. So its more likely to be about 600 quid.

It just means for the first 2-3 years you can't afford to buy a house until you get your command.

Persoanlly I wouldn't get a loan for that amount. After you have your bits of paper your looking at 2-3k a year keeping them current. Then if you don't get a job within 6 months your looking at a FI rating or buying a type rating. Which will stick another 15k on for a TP or 25K for a jet. And unless you can continue with your job and pay the loan your knackard.

MJ

[flyingisgr8]

As you will see from my recent post "Frozen ATPL - the real cost" the cost from zero to 300hr Frozen ATPL with MCC in the UK was just under £40,000.

I had a PPL-Multi and 240 hrs at the start, so no hour building was required, but other than that it is likely to be similar for everyone else.

Having a PPL and MEP with 240 hours doesn't exactly consititute zero to 300 hour frozen ATPL does it? Working by that you paid 40k for 75 hours flying! For a realistic comparison you should include how much the PPL, MEP and hour building cost you (though to be pedantic you had more hours than the minimum required to continue on with the CPL).

You can only compare costs if you compare the same course i.e. ZERO (nothing, nada, no hours, zip) to CPL/IR with MCC including accomodation, fees, food etc etc. There's lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics!!!!

[Dude~]

flyingisgr8,

A slight misunderstanding - my fault because the other thread Frozen ATPL - the real cost (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=196270) is not very clear.

To clarify, the point of that thread was to show a breakdown of just the CPL and IR courses, ATPL theory and MCC (no PPL and hour building). That all came to £23830.

Then at the end of my post I said that from zero to Frozen ATPL cost a smidgen under £40,000. That is to say that my PPL-Multi and 240 hrs cost just over £16000.

So just to reiterate, 300 hrs and a Frozen ATPL cost me £40k and that's it. It can be done. Total debt now stands at about £15k.

[bad credit]

The total cost of my training was £55,000 That included my living expenses a few beers and day to day living over 15 months. I did a modular course and came out at the end with little over 200 hours. I have been very fortunate to get my first job flying 737s..... The airline I work for were more interested in me as person and could I fly the sim, than did I go through a modular / intergrated course. Perhaps for other airlines it is important. I dont see it being an issue and am thankful that there are some airlines out there that dont either. It can and has been done.

[Leezyjet]

CZ,

Yes you are right, I got my figures a bit wrong, I was just thinking off the top of my head, but when I went back and looked it actually works out around £350/month with the soopa doopa loan protection cover. (It's £100/month cheaper without any cover at all - just shows what they are making from this part alone !!)

My loan is going to be with Northern Rock for those who are interested. I believe they are offering the best APR at the moment and you can repay early too.

Not too worried about a flying job at the end, as I will be keeping my current job so will be able to afford the repayments until I get one - which obviously I hope will be quickly (but hopefully 12 years in the industry already and a few contacts here and there should help)

edit: The £450 was over 8 years not 10, so I'll probably take this option to get it paid off asap.

:)

[High Wing Drifter]

£350/month with the soopa doopa loan protection cover. (It's £100/month cheaper without any cover at all - just shows what they are making from this part alone !!)
What! I suggest that you find alternative cover elsewhere. I bet you 2000 Mongolian Togrogs you'll save a packet.

[Leezyjet]

Didn't realise you could get cover elsewhere !!. I'll look into that. Got any suggestions ?

:)

[High Wing Drifter]

Just use your Google googles, they'll find anything. "Income Protection Insurance" is a start. The general rate seems to be around £2 for every £100/mo, but I'm sure that depends on a number of factors.

You'll also find plenty of links to the FSA and other bodies who have published their concerns about lenders practice of charging extortionate rates!

[Leezyjet]

HWD,

I now owe you 2000 Mongolian Togrogs !! ;)

Just done that google search and can get £1100/month cover for around £45 - much cheaper than the £100 the bank was quoting !! I think I will now be declining the banks cover and take my own seprate cover out instead.

Thanks for pointing that out to me - can save a few more ££'s now to spend on more flying !!.

:)