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BBVA
I'm reaching out to cadets that are currently training, as well as those that have been through their training and are now employed. Specifically those that have had to use BBVA for financing themselves through the self-sponsor route at either CTC, OAA or FTE.
I want to try gain an insight into your experience with BBVA, and what they are like to deal with. It would also be great to get an idea of what living conditions are like after completing training and managing repayments once employed.
The reason I am asking is because I am considering starting training towards the end of this year/start of next and just trying to get the final few questions I have ironed out.
I have saved over the last few years, but will still need to loan circa £60,000 to be able to start and finish the training. I have been to a number of sponsored scheme interview days and assessment, passing the assessment to the schools' standards, but just not quite making onto one of the schemes yet.
Thank you.
I want to try gain an insight into your experience with BBVA, and what they are like to deal with. It would also be great to get an idea of what living conditions are like after completing training and managing repayments once employed.
The reason I am asking is because I am considering starting training towards the end of this year/start of next and just trying to get the final few questions I have ironed out.
I have saved over the last few years, but will still need to loan circa £60,000 to be able to start and finish the training. I have been to a number of sponsored scheme interview days and assessment, passing the assessment to the schools' standards, but just not quite making onto one of the schemes yet.
Thank you.
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Just a few thoughts for you based on my own experience.
About 2 months ago I finished repaying my loan from BBVA after 10 years. On average I paid about 1150 Euros a month, for 8 and half years. Therefore (very rough maths) I borrowed 92,000 and paid back 117,000. I did an integrated course with FTE. When I finished my loan (and since the financial crisis really set in 6 or so years ago) I've been paying a very low interest rate, I think when I cleared the loan it was sitting at 1.75%.
I was 23 when I started, I'm 33 now. I was a "white tail" cadet and was extremely lucky to find a job on the A320 almost as soon as I finished training. I was paid about £40,000 in my first year, with all sorts of extras like medical insurance, flight pay, excellent pension etc. I've since worked for an orange airline and I now work for a flag carrier so I've seen low cost and "legacy" too.
The important point to highlight is that as you can see, I've been very lucky (as I now realise so much of aviation is about luck) but it's STILL not been easy at times. Yes, I took a large loan out and interest rates collapsed. However, I foolishly took the loan in Euros - be VERY careful about borrowing money in one currency and getting paid in another - and the pound collapsed too. Still, it's not been a bad deal and I've always been paid well. The trouble is, living in the south east of the UK is expensive and I do concede this depends on where you end up being based. However, only now, even after all my luck and 10 years down the line, have I scraped together a 5% deposit for a pretty modest house.
Now lets fast forward to today. You will need a bigger loan than me, and the interest rate BBVA now offer is 3% above bank rate, so 3.5% at the moment. Its variable so when interest rates go up, your repayments will go up - this should be a BIG consideration. At the same time, the deal offered to new pilots has got significantly worse, at least for the first couple of years. You could, if you are lucky and the economy continues to expand, be a captain with the orange airline 5 or 6 years after you start flying. But you can't bank on that. What would worry me starting today are the following questions. Can I repay the loan if bank rate rises to 3% (hence 6% on my loan)? How much money will I have left to live every month after I've repaid my loan? Will I have enough to run a car? To pay rent? Do a spreadsheet and figure it all out.
My advice? If you can, apply to a sponsored scheme with a big airline and at least then you should (no guarantees) have a job lined up at the end. You're young enough to give the BA FPP scheme or the easyjet MPL scheme a few tries before you even consider anything else. Don't rush in to anything and especially don't rush into anything because a flying school tells you that "now is a wonderful time to train and you don't want to miss the boat". No one knows where the boat will be in 6 months, let alone when you will finish your training.
Good luck and feel free to PM me - can't promise I'll have all the answers (or even any of them) but I'm happy to share my own experiences with anyone who's interested.
copied from modular vs intergrated not mine!
About 2 months ago I finished repaying my loan from BBVA after 10 years. On average I paid about 1150 Euros a month, for 8 and half years. Therefore (very rough maths) I borrowed 92,000 and paid back 117,000. I did an integrated course with FTE. When I finished my loan (and since the financial crisis really set in 6 or so years ago) I've been paying a very low interest rate, I think when I cleared the loan it was sitting at 1.75%.
I was 23 when I started, I'm 33 now. I was a "white tail" cadet and was extremely lucky to find a job on the A320 almost as soon as I finished training. I was paid about £40,000 in my first year, with all sorts of extras like medical insurance, flight pay, excellent pension etc. I've since worked for an orange airline and I now work for a flag carrier so I've seen low cost and "legacy" too.
The important point to highlight is that as you can see, I've been very lucky (as I now realise so much of aviation is about luck) but it's STILL not been easy at times. Yes, I took a large loan out and interest rates collapsed. However, I foolishly took the loan in Euros - be VERY careful about borrowing money in one currency and getting paid in another - and the pound collapsed too. Still, it's not been a bad deal and I've always been paid well. The trouble is, living in the south east of the UK is expensive and I do concede this depends on where you end up being based. However, only now, even after all my luck and 10 years down the line, have I scraped together a 5% deposit for a pretty modest house.
Now lets fast forward to today. You will need a bigger loan than me, and the interest rate BBVA now offer is 3% above bank rate, so 3.5% at the moment. Its variable so when interest rates go up, your repayments will go up - this should be a BIG consideration. At the same time, the deal offered to new pilots has got significantly worse, at least for the first couple of years. You could, if you are lucky and the economy continues to expand, be a captain with the orange airline 5 or 6 years after you start flying. But you can't bank on that. What would worry me starting today are the following questions. Can I repay the loan if bank rate rises to 3% (hence 6% on my loan)? How much money will I have left to live every month after I've repaid my loan? Will I have enough to run a car? To pay rent? Do a spreadsheet and figure it all out.
My advice? If you can, apply to a sponsored scheme with a big airline and at least then you should (no guarantees) have a job lined up at the end. You're young enough to give the BA FPP scheme or the easyjet MPL scheme a few tries before you even consider anything else. Don't rush in to anything and especially don't rush into anything because a flying school tells you that "now is a wonderful time to train and you don't want to miss the boat". No one knows where the boat will be in 6 months, let alone when you will finish your training.
Good luck and feel free to PM me - can't promise I'll have all the answers (or even any of them) but I'm happy to share my own experiences with anyone who's interested.
copied from modular vs intergrated not mine!
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The advice reposted above by wonder88 is similar to my experience and well worth paying attention to.
I had no problems with BBVA themselves, but I was employed and paid everything back on schedule. Getting the loan sorted did drag out and your house needs to be a significant percentage higher in value than what you are borrowing. Don't forget to factor in paying your solicitors and theirs as well. From memory that was between 1-2k extra. In your spreadsheet consider the wages you might earn and where you might live; flybe are employing a lot of brand new CPL/IR holders at the moment but your wages won't go very far at all there if you are paying BBVA back £1100 a month, even worse in the likely event that you are sent to ABZ. And all that's before any possible interest rate rise. Your wage will stay the same, but your debt costs will increase.
The bottom line is, you are taking out a mortgage. Except instead of that mortgage paying for something tangible that you could sell like a house, it's paying for a piece of A4 paper to be folded up and shoved in a tiny blue wallet.
For what it's worth, my advice is to get onto an airline scheme, and not even consider self-sponsor/'white tail'. Preferably a scheme where the airline will pay for it or at least guarantee your loan. But I digress, you wanted to know about BBVA.
I had no problems with BBVA themselves, but I was employed and paid everything back on schedule. Getting the loan sorted did drag out and your house needs to be a significant percentage higher in value than what you are borrowing. Don't forget to factor in paying your solicitors and theirs as well. From memory that was between 1-2k extra. In your spreadsheet consider the wages you might earn and where you might live; flybe are employing a lot of brand new CPL/IR holders at the moment but your wages won't go very far at all there if you are paying BBVA back £1100 a month, even worse in the likely event that you are sent to ABZ. And all that's before any possible interest rate rise. Your wage will stay the same, but your debt costs will increase.
The bottom line is, you are taking out a mortgage. Except instead of that mortgage paying for something tangible that you could sell like a house, it's paying for a piece of A4 paper to be folded up and shoved in a tiny blue wallet.
For what it's worth, my advice is to get onto an airline scheme, and not even consider self-sponsor/'white tail'. Preferably a scheme where the airline will pay for it or at least guarantee your loan. But I digress, you wanted to know about BBVA.
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Does anyone have experience of trying to get a mortgage whilst you still have a BBVA loan?
Assuming you're in a steady-job and earning enough to comfortably meet the repayments, will banks consider a mortgage application like any other or does the 50k+ of debt you already have automatically rule you out?
Ie, if you earn 40k p.a. and have loan repayments of 1k/month, would you be eligible for a mortgage of roughly ~3/4 x your "remaining" salary of 28k?
Assuming you're in a steady-job and earning enough to comfortably meet the repayments, will banks consider a mortgage application like any other or does the 50k+ of debt you already have automatically rule you out?
Ie, if you earn 40k p.a. and have loan repayments of 1k/month, would you be eligible for a mortgage of roughly ~3/4 x your "remaining" salary of 28k?
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My old man is an IFA and he said that you'd not likely get a mortgage until it was fully paid off -- for me we worked that out to be mid-30s which doesn't bother me too much. I know many people who haven't yet bought a house that age & isn't really the end of the world anyway.
I think you might be ok getting a mortgage around half way through repayments, as then you should be on a very reasonable wage, with hopefully a solid credit rating provided nothing goes terribly wrong.
Do note though, not talking from experience and likely hood is, if you owe someone money you probably won't get a mortgage.
I think you might be ok getting a mortgage around half way through repayments, as then you should be on a very reasonable wage, with hopefully a solid credit rating provided nothing goes terribly wrong.
Do note though, not talking from experience and likely hood is, if you owe someone money you probably won't get a mortgage.
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Had a similar situation myself. Saved up a lot but still needed around 60.000€ but borrowed 75.000€ to include Type Rating and some other stuff. No mortgage needed in my case, but I was very very lucky (and some people helped me out). With that amount you will have to go down that way, which is not pleasant.
Went to a big school, hired straight away by a good airline, permanent from day 1 with good salary. Around 50.000 pounds before tax on year 1 I would say and around 65.000 pounds on year 2. More or less.
My repayments were initially 900€ a month for 7.5 years, although I was paying very little interest thanks to the people I know in the financial world.
With that in mind, I had a decent life in year 1-2. Could afford living by myself and not sharing, bought a little used car and went on holidays (European) twice a year. I was able to save up a lot every month, around €2000 every month. That including the loan repayments. I used to give some money in advance so my repayments went from 900, to 750, then 450, then 215.
My parents faced the repayments during my training, I continued straight after. 2 years down the line, I paid off my loan, so that would be around 4 years after I got the loan.
Now I was very lucky, because:
-Interest I was paying was not the one offered to general public.
-Pound/Euro exchange rate went through the roof and I was lucky to exchange big amounts of money when it was at its peak (1.40).
- I had tax advantage in the UK, as many cadets.
- As I said, permanent from day 1 with very good salary.
So it all depends on how you want to manage it. Different people do it in different ways. You can either:
- Accept the debt and continue to the last day. You will have to pay every month but apart form that, the rest is for you.
- Try to pay it off asap and put every single penny in your savings. That means no shiny new car, no Australian trips, not many nights outs, no expensive toys, no nothing. But you will be free of debt sooner. Much sooner.
Nowadays I changed airline, country. Salary is less but free of debt, I could afford buying a shiny new car and saving up for a deposit on a house. First years were tough but I sleep a lot better knowing that I do not owe any money to the bank.
But this is, of course, the story of a lucky one. Know some people who finished training with similar or (much) higher loans and still no job. Some are trying to pay it back working somewhere else, some are "lucky" and their parents are helping out. For them of course, the situation is much much worse.
Think twice about borrowing this amount of money. I was very lucky, but I have seen some people in a real mess, being in their late 20s with no money and no job whatsoever (even worse, owing 100K to the bank).
Would I play again and risk my money?
To be honest, I would not, or I would take less risks.
Went to a big school, hired straight away by a good airline, permanent from day 1 with good salary. Around 50.000 pounds before tax on year 1 I would say and around 65.000 pounds on year 2. More or less.
My repayments were initially 900€ a month for 7.5 years, although I was paying very little interest thanks to the people I know in the financial world.
With that in mind, I had a decent life in year 1-2. Could afford living by myself and not sharing, bought a little used car and went on holidays (European) twice a year. I was able to save up a lot every month, around €2000 every month. That including the loan repayments. I used to give some money in advance so my repayments went from 900, to 750, then 450, then 215.
My parents faced the repayments during my training, I continued straight after. 2 years down the line, I paid off my loan, so that would be around 4 years after I got the loan.
Now I was very lucky, because:
-Interest I was paying was not the one offered to general public.
-Pound/Euro exchange rate went through the roof and I was lucky to exchange big amounts of money when it was at its peak (1.40).
- I had tax advantage in the UK, as many cadets.
- As I said, permanent from day 1 with very good salary.
So it all depends on how you want to manage it. Different people do it in different ways. You can either:
- Accept the debt and continue to the last day. You will have to pay every month but apart form that, the rest is for you.
- Try to pay it off asap and put every single penny in your savings. That means no shiny new car, no Australian trips, not many nights outs, no expensive toys, no nothing. But you will be free of debt sooner. Much sooner.
Nowadays I changed airline, country. Salary is less but free of debt, I could afford buying a shiny new car and saving up for a deposit on a house. First years were tough but I sleep a lot better knowing that I do not owe any money to the bank.
But this is, of course, the story of a lucky one. Know some people who finished training with similar or (much) higher loans and still no job. Some are trying to pay it back working somewhere else, some are "lucky" and their parents are helping out. For them of course, the situation is much much worse.
Think twice about borrowing this amount of money. I was very lucky, but I have seen some people in a real mess, being in their late 20s with no money and no job whatsoever (even worse, owing 100K to the bank).
Would I play again and risk my money?
To be honest, I would not, or I would take less risks.
