Originally Posted by
richpea
In P2F schemes you are paid no salary, or a nominal salary to satisfy visa requirements. You fly for the number of hours you pay for 500, 750, 1500... then your contract with the company is over and you're unemployed. This is clearly not the case with Ryanair, where most of their cadets continue on with long careers for the airline. Most P2F schemes also cost far far more than 30k euros.
Ryanair is asking you to fund a type rating and line training fee which is comparable with what almost all airlines will charge you for a type rating as a non-type rated cadet just starting out, either by taking it back from your out of your salary (see Wizz) or by tying you to that company when you could have moved on and earning more (see also Wizz).
To be honest, the time of pilots having their jet type ratings and line trainings sponsored are pretty much gone... partly because back in the days when airlines did do that it was much easier to build lots of SEP and MEP time and experience before going to airlines. All the old boy pilots I know did a ton of flying before they ever considered moves to jet operating airlines, they were not the kind of risk that us very low hour wanting to go straight to big jet cadets are...
I've been to Ryanair's assessment.
They don't guarantee any type of employment after you're done. But they do need the pilots, so they end up absorbing about 80% of who stays.
That's why I'm comparing everything.