Ryanair, Wizz, Jet2, BA and CityFlyer do not worry about where you trained. Instructing will get your foot in the door with companies like Eastern and Loganair. I know a few 250hr modular pilots that have been taken on by Aurigny amongst other airlines straight from training. Air Tanker occasionally take low hour pilots, some come from the modular instructing route. Think it’s important to broaden horizons away from just airline flying initially, but also be cautious not to get stuck in a rut flying smaller aircraft around for specialist operators, unless you want to make a career out of it of course. TUI will take applications occasionally from people with 500 hours of flying no matter what, though admittedly having 500 hours on a multi crew jet/TP with minimum MTOW of 10tonnes will cut a chunk of competition out. There is a heavy bias towards integrated students, there always has been unfortunately. Other aviation jobs can help, though it’s by no means a guarantee. What working in the industry does is provide contacts, and those contacts can materialise into jobs that sometimes barely get advertised.
When it comes to life though, I have to agree. Sacrifices do have to be made. Instructing is a great way to get a foot in the door, it’s also highly rewarding. Only do it if you want to give something back. Do not use it purely as a way to build hours, it’s not fair on your students.
Yeah and I think this is really important to note for those that are looking to get into it; For the bigger companies there aren’t actually too many of them. I think if you are looking to spend 100k + on very niche qualifications consider the size of the market by the number of companies alone. It was awhile ago now but I ran through a list on the CAA website for how many AoCs there were and there was a 100 or so, a good number but some are held by the same company.
and 100% right regarding instructing, unfortunately it might be one of the only options available after training and if you can’t/won’t instruct you limit your options.