I have finished L3 in recent months and have been lucky enough to secure employment as an integrated whitetail cadet. Despite performing well throughout training, I got the job on my own - literally not one person from the "dedicated placement team" helped me secure employment. Here's my thoughts on events since the latter stages of my training.
Employment
At the moment L3 have "placed" very few people. Realistically at the moment, the only options have been Turkish airlines or Wizzair - or if you speak French, Easyjet as Air France are taking a lot of their pilots - The majority of people who have secured employment have done so on their own back, despite obtaining credible results. There was very little support and to quote on their website that there is a "dedicated Placement team" is absolute nonsense - airlines come to present at Southampton and such and invite people to apply - BUT in no way shape or form do L3 offer interview advice / feedback for interviews etc - You are very much left to your own devices - anyone who disagrees with this has been indoctrinated to the high heavens! This is a common misconception with the academy. The only other option is to interview for an instructor position with L3 - this isn't really placing either as why would you spend >£100,000 to become an instructor?
Post - Training Costs
L3 don't state very clearly what cash is required post training. An Easyjet type rating costs in the region of £32,000 on top of the ungodly amount of cash that is required already - And this doesn't include accommodation and living for a couple months either in Southampton or Burgess Hill near LGW. Furthermore most of the whitetail cadets (despite being successful early on) won't start Type ratings 4 to 12 months later. This is a struggle as A. finding work can be tricky and B. Interviews themselves are expensive. Airlines such as Thomas Cook ask for £760 for interviews! And that doesn't include hotels / travel.
Bournemouth
Is an absolute disaster at the moment. Some CP's have been given delays of 5 months or more. The whole point of doing an integrated course is to fly as often as possible (weather permitting). So why pay >£100,000 to stay in some terrible accommodation for such long periods when you could save £60,000 and do it modular? L3 decided to close Phoenix at the wrong time because they were keen to avoid contractual & finance issues with Lufthansa who run the training centre at Goodyear airport - instead of phasing Goodyear out they weren't patient, and jumped to Ponte Sur in Portugal which is still having teething problems months on. BOH has taken a huge hit because of this and has been over-capacity for months. This has led to disgruntled staff and cadets - L3 have been full of empty promises. Whilst it occurred throughout some other phases of training, when you were in Bournemouth it genuinely felt like you were constantly at school and were spoken to like a 15 year old frequently which was highly unprofessional - a view shared by many from my time there, and multiple cadets who are currently there just now. Not only this but some people waited over 2 weeks between the penultimate flights and CPL & IR tests! *Remember it's an integrated course apparently...*
*Make no mistake - if you are a whitetail cadet you will constantly be delayed because L3 prioritise Easyjet cadets & RAF*
Furthermore the introduction of the RAF will only make things worse. To keep cadets sweet they are being offered a couple hours of sim time in the B737 - 300 / 700 to give them something to do in the 2/3 weeks where they don't fly...
Maintenance
BOH have some of the oldest DA42s and have been plagued with issues for a very long time. L3 have also had a change of maintenance providers which have also caused more delays...
Social Media
Do not let peoples Instagram and Blogs paint a rosey picture of training with L3 - it is far from it. The main reason they do this is to get free marketing through cadets - many millennials who don't know any better do this innocently through instagram and blogs. It has even been rumoured that some people have obtained employment just because they have a social media presence. This is because if they sit there without a job for too long it looks bad on L3 when they constantly rattle on about a 98% placement rate - I wouldn't be surprised if that is 98% of around 30 people - as I have said the majority get jobs on their own backs, particularly when Easyjet are not hiring.
I appreciate many cadets will have different experiences, however L3 is far from the finished product.
I must also re-iterate that I have a job & I am obviously delighted to have secured employment - I just feel it's right that before people invest an astronomical amount of money into a flight school that they know what they are getting themselves and their families into.
Last edited by MrZed; 2nd Oct 2018 at 16:31.