Employment

[Fraser19]

Hi there

I was considering applying for CTC and OAA first officer programmes. Only thing is my mum and dad aren't too sure if its safe to put the loan against their house as they are unsure about employment. Thats why I will probably wait until I can apply for BA's Future Pilot programme where a job would be guaranteed providing you pass everything.

Lets say I don't get directly into an airline programme and I do get into CTC's or OAA's own programme what are the chances of you not getting employed does every cadet get eventually employed or do loads go away with a licence, but no job and a huge £80,000 to pay back?

[Bealzebub]

Then your mum and dad are very wise, as I suspect you already know. You also need to dispel any notions that anything is "guaranteed," because it simply isn't. Let me give you a quote from The British Airways FPP website:

15. What happens if British Airways does not require pilots at the time of my completing training?

We are launching the Future Pilot Programme because we foresee demand in our business plans for a number of cadet pilots in the years to come. That said, we, like many companies, are vulnerable to world and economic events that could cause our recruitment plans to change.
Should this happen and we find there are likely to be delays in employing cadet pilots upon their completion of training we will contact those affected and keep them fully up to date with the situation and our plans.

If you are successful in applying to any airlines cadet programme, then your placement (and understand that isn't a contract of employment or necessarily any promise of one,) is almost entirely dependent on that airlines recruitment requirements at the point that you do graduate. Certainly these are often great opportunities, but by no means do they eliminate risk or provide you with any guarantee at all.

The simple answer to your question is, yes, there is a very significant (likely) chance that you will not flow seamlessly from one of the courses into a placement with a subscribing airline. You may wait a substantial amount of time for a placement. If you have opted for a course outside of the recognised cadet programmes, you may not be offered a placement at all since any transitional opportunities would almost certainly depend on your performance and the priorities afforded to specific course candidates.
You will (if you have taken one out) have a very large loan to repay, and those repayments (which likely have been deferred and rolled up to that point,) will be demanded within a relatively short period of your course completion.

These are all realities that you would need to both be fully aware of, and have formulated contingency plans for.

[RTN11]

It's a tough market, because it doesn't work like other industries.

Most jobs that are out there aren't advertised, probably mostly because people blindly send stacks of CVs to companies anyway, maybe that's a bit of a chicken or egg situation.

So you can't just go to the job centre and look for a job, most jobs aren't advertised, so it becomes about contacts and networking, which is tough when you're new to the industry, fresh out of school.

The thing to do would be imagine you have your "fATPL" right now, where would you be applying and genuinely have a shot? If your listed only has Ryanair on it, then you need to seriously starting thinking about plan B, C and so on, because there are absolutely no guarantees of anything in this industry.

[Halfwayback]

Fraser
You will see from the replies here and from the replies you have received in the past on other threads that there is no guarantee of employment for self- funded students. A little more research in this forum alone will give you the answers you look for.

Good luck

HWB
Moderator