I though that I might chip in a note of caution regarding L3 in particular and MPL courses in general, I should point out that I have never received any training from L3 and I have absolutely no axe to grind with L3 or any L3 employee.
My son is a member of the RAF section of the Combined Cadet Force at his school, recently he was part of a group that went to visit an Air Experience Flight unit hoping to get some training flights in Grob Tutors. Sadly the weather was too bad to fly, but being a social type and an aviation geek he had a wander around the unit and talked to some of the people working there. One person he spoke to is going through his CPL training with a local modular school. He has three other students going through CPL training with him all of whom started training with L3 self sponsored but quit due to training delays, he mentioned that they were getting 3 or 4 hours training in 3 months.
More disturbingly he mentioned one of their friends at L3 who was on the Easyjet MPL course, he completed the course after incurring a six figure debt and contacted Easyjet to get his start date and was told that he was no longer required. The MPL is taught using destination airline procedures throughout and is next to useless in any airline other than the intended destination airline. This individual now has a six figure debt, no job and a licence that is next to useless other than with Easyjet who do not want them.
L3 have met their commitment in that they have delivered the training and have received their money. Obviously neither L3 or the airline care about the hardship endured by the cadet if the job does not materialise at the end of the MPL. I am sure that this would be true of any training provider (not just L3) and of any airline MPL (not just Easyjet).
This poor individual now has a couple of options, either walk away and find work to service a six figure debt for a career that they will never have or build up flying hours (I think that MPLs do about 70hrs flying) and then CPL, MEP, MEIR and APS MCC and then take their chances with every other unemployed freshly qualified pilot. If they take the second option then their total spend is likely to be North of £150k with the possibility of no career at the end of it, not a situation that anyone should face. In an ideal world the MPL course loan would have some sort of insurance built in to pay the loan if the job isn’t there on completion.
In the past L3 have relied heavily on Easyjet taking their self sponsored candidates but if Easyjet are rejecting graduates of their own MPL course what chances have self sponsored graduates got of getting in with them?