Hey bigbob - maybe it's escaped your attention ( and I know I'm repeating myself when I say this ) but - except for a very small group that are fortunate enough to be fully sponsored - every training provider has been making a profit off your endeavours ( which is, after all, why they are in business ) – this extends from the school / flying-‘club’ that gave you your first lesson right through to the CAA who might eventually issue you with a shiny jet type-rating..... but we don't hear you bleating about that !
Perhaps an analogy is that it’s similar to when you took to gaining your driving license wherein you paid your driving school so much per hour.
However, using
your logic, you would be arguing that you really should only pay for the petrol that you’ve used, which would therefore prohibit the school from making provision for administration costs, wear & tear on the training vehicle, accruing of funds for eventual vehicle replacement, recruitment & training of driving instructors plus any (re)training / (re)licensing requirements they may need, the pay of the instructors and admin staff, vehicle / company licensing & insurance, etc.... to say nothing of trying to make a modest profit.
All of your training providers have made a profit, regardless of whether you may have passed / failed – they’re in the
training business <-- with the emphasis on that last word.
You wrote above ‘
I don't know of any airlines that charge for a selection procedure’ – well how about RyanAir ? ( see:
RyanAir Pilot Applications )
RyanAir will charge you £50 just to apply ( on-line ), and then a further £150 to look at you in the sim – where this
requires that you are already type-rated on the B737 - albeit that this money is refundable
if they give you a job.
Nb. They’re actually making a loss on this, which is not like O’Leary ( perhaps I should give him a call ).
Furthermore, I have never been to an airline interview where they’ve offered to refund my travel and / or out of pocket expenses, and so yet more expense on the way to the shiny jet cockpit.
Now as I understand it, the GAS ‘assessment’ is just that; it is
not, as you put it, a ‘selection’, as there is nothing to be selected for.
It is a chance for wannabe airline pilots to put themselves through a completely realistic airline interview / selection process ( complete with psychometric tests, interviews and simulator assessment ), albeit without the pressure of a job riding on the outcome.
What the wannabes get at the end of the day is not a pass or fail. They get debriefed and are told what they need to work on in order to improve their future success when, hopefully, they are doing this for actual employment with an airline ( and are therein up against everybody else ).
That said, some of the wannabes who attend the assessment actually have ‘what it takes’ to complete the transition to a modern shiny jet, but it is up to them to decide if they wish to take the risk of paying for a type-rating; just as it was up to them when they took the risk of getting involved with aviation in the first place – wherein from the outset there have been NO GUARANTEES !