RVR800
15th Oct 2001, 14:32
Observer Sunday 14th...
Looks like WWW is right, guys
Hundreds of trainee British pilots are facing the prospect of unemployment and financial ruin as demand for their skills slumps in the wake of the terror attacks on America.
The aviation industry has shed 150,000 jobs in recent weeks and recruitment has been frozen by almost every British airline, leaving air cadets facing a bleak future.
Some trainees are as much as £50,000 in debt after paying for lessons and dozens of hours of flying experience in the hope of landing coveted jobs with airlines such as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. Most of the jobs command six-figure salaries.
An average of 600 trainee pilots graduate in Britain each year - roughly half of them self-financed. The rest are part-sponsored by the leading airlines, which pay half of the students' £50,000 fees, in return for which they get the chance - but no guarantee - of taking jobs with the airlines and paying back their sponsorship.
BA, British Midland and Britannia have already frozen their annual cadet sponsorship programmes for next year, which would have generated around 200 pilots.
Mike Briggs, chief instructor with the Triple A flying school based at Humberside Airport, said the situation was 'dire'. 'We knew bad times were coming before 11 September, but it's been a shock and I have not seen it as bad as this before - it's depressing,' said Briggs.
He said many of his cadet pilots were just 'kids who scrimp and save and send their CVs to the airlines every five minutes'.
Some of Britain's largest flying schools - such as those at Oxford, Cranfield, Elstree and Biggin Hill - are likely to suffer reductions in the number of trainee recruits, and Briggs warned that smaller flying schools could collapse.
One cadet at Biggin Hill Airport in Kent said: 'I'll fly for anyone, but people are only being laid off at the moment. It's as bad as it can get. It's a case of if BA goes bump, God help us.'
One victim of the slump is pilot Ian Driscoll. When not teaching students to fly tiny Cessna aircraft, he earns money working as a lifeguard at his local swimming pool in Hertfordshire. But his dream is to be a Concorde pilot for BA - an ambition dealt a massive blow by recent events.
Surrounded by charts and log books in the hangar at the tiny Elstree Aerodrome last week, Driscoll, 35, reflected on his waning prospects. 'I've got all my qualifications. But as soon as someone as big as BA starts laying off pilots they flood the market with experienced guys who can get a job ahead of me if the industry starts recruiting again.'
British-based airlines have already laid off or put on three months' notice 750 pilots since the 11 September attacks. A spokesman for the British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) told The Observer that up to 1,000 pilots - out of the 13,000 working in the British industry - will lose their jobs in a matter of months.
Driscoll, who earns around £16,000 a year from lifeguarding duties and flying instruction with the Firecrest aviation school, has remortgaged his Watford home three times to absorb the burden of his £30,000 training debts.
'I have been hanging on by my fingernails for a long time. I've got no savings or pension because I'm so skint. My fiancée Rachel and I have been engaged for about 10 years but we can't afford to get married and start a family,' he said.
Driscoll had hoped to be taken on in the next six months by BA or any other airline. However, he said he had no idea when he would ever get to pull on a professional pilot's uniform.
John McGurk, a spokesman for Balpa, said pilots being laid off from the large airlines, including BA and Virgin, were the younger, inexperienced crew on a 'last in first out' basis. He said many still had not paid back the £50,000 in debts from their training fees. 'The pilots at the very top of the pile do earn around £100,000 but these people are earning more like £28,000 to £35,000,' he said.
These are the pilots who are likely to be first back in a job if things pick up, ahead of cadets still funding their way through air school like Driscoll. But he is determined to fulfil his dream. 'My ultimate ambition is to fly Concorde. I will never give up.'
[ 17 October 2001: Message edited by: RVR800 ]
Looks like WWW is right, guys
Hundreds of trainee British pilots are facing the prospect of unemployment and financial ruin as demand for their skills slumps in the wake of the terror attacks on America.
The aviation industry has shed 150,000 jobs in recent weeks and recruitment has been frozen by almost every British airline, leaving air cadets facing a bleak future.
Some trainees are as much as £50,000 in debt after paying for lessons and dozens of hours of flying experience in the hope of landing coveted jobs with airlines such as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. Most of the jobs command six-figure salaries.
An average of 600 trainee pilots graduate in Britain each year - roughly half of them self-financed. The rest are part-sponsored by the leading airlines, which pay half of the students' £50,000 fees, in return for which they get the chance - but no guarantee - of taking jobs with the airlines and paying back their sponsorship.
BA, British Midland and Britannia have already frozen their annual cadet sponsorship programmes for next year, which would have generated around 200 pilots.
Mike Briggs, chief instructor with the Triple A flying school based at Humberside Airport, said the situation was 'dire'. 'We knew bad times were coming before 11 September, but it's been a shock and I have not seen it as bad as this before - it's depressing,' said Briggs.
He said many of his cadet pilots were just 'kids who scrimp and save and send their CVs to the airlines every five minutes'.
Some of Britain's largest flying schools - such as those at Oxford, Cranfield, Elstree and Biggin Hill - are likely to suffer reductions in the number of trainee recruits, and Briggs warned that smaller flying schools could collapse.
One cadet at Biggin Hill Airport in Kent said: 'I'll fly for anyone, but people are only being laid off at the moment. It's as bad as it can get. It's a case of if BA goes bump, God help us.'
One victim of the slump is pilot Ian Driscoll. When not teaching students to fly tiny Cessna aircraft, he earns money working as a lifeguard at his local swimming pool in Hertfordshire. But his dream is to be a Concorde pilot for BA - an ambition dealt a massive blow by recent events.
Surrounded by charts and log books in the hangar at the tiny Elstree Aerodrome last week, Driscoll, 35, reflected on his waning prospects. 'I've got all my qualifications. But as soon as someone as big as BA starts laying off pilots they flood the market with experienced guys who can get a job ahead of me if the industry starts recruiting again.'
British-based airlines have already laid off or put on three months' notice 750 pilots since the 11 September attacks. A spokesman for the British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) told The Observer that up to 1,000 pilots - out of the 13,000 working in the British industry - will lose their jobs in a matter of months.
Driscoll, who earns around £16,000 a year from lifeguarding duties and flying instruction with the Firecrest aviation school, has remortgaged his Watford home three times to absorb the burden of his £30,000 training debts.
'I have been hanging on by my fingernails for a long time. I've got no savings or pension because I'm so skint. My fiancée Rachel and I have been engaged for about 10 years but we can't afford to get married and start a family,' he said.
Driscoll had hoped to be taken on in the next six months by BA or any other airline. However, he said he had no idea when he would ever get to pull on a professional pilot's uniform.
John McGurk, a spokesman for Balpa, said pilots being laid off from the large airlines, including BA and Virgin, were the younger, inexperienced crew on a 'last in first out' basis. He said many still had not paid back the £50,000 in debts from their training fees. 'The pilots at the very top of the pile do earn around £100,000 but these people are earning more like £28,000 to £35,000,' he said.
These are the pilots who are likely to be first back in a job if things pick up, ahead of cadets still funding their way through air school like Driscoll. But he is determined to fulfil his dream. 'My ultimate ambition is to fly Concorde. I will never give up.'
[ 17 October 2001: Message edited by: RVR800 ]