I see no light at the end of the tunnel
(apologies for the pessimism but I really think aviation is in a bad place in aus)
I'm kind of at a breaking point,
for a long time now, ever since I was about 7 (I'm now 19) I was obsessed with aviation and wanted to become a pilot. I moved to Sydney in 2015, and after finishing year 12 in 2023 I started working for Rex as a bag chucker in February of 24. My goal was to earn enough to pay the upfront cost of starting the rex cadetship, then slave away to get good hours and eventually do something better. I only got to work there for half a year until they went broke, and the last thing I heard about the AAPA was that their building was being sold, but that was from a friend so idk. If anyone knows something about it please do share!
I basically procrastinated for the rest of the year and got into an unrelated Uni degree as a backup. Recently the passion came back to me and I started researching ways to get a CPL through different schools. This is what I've gathered:
Bankstown:
SFC and Basair - just want that sweet sweet vet loan money and are a complete scam, as you pay twice the money as in aeroclubs and have an indexing loan above your head for the majority of your life
Australian Aerobatic Academy - seems ok but their website doesn't provide a lot of info so I'll have to go visit them
There's other but their websites seem broken and idk if they even provide CPL training. (Please correct me if I'm wrong though.)
Also, with the construction of the western Sydney airport I assume some schools will close.
Camden:
Curtis aviation - heard good things from them but also something about it becoming worse after some instructor left (CFI probably)
altocap - haven't heard anything about them except all the google reviews talk about getting their FIR
Phoenix aero club - seem to offer some pretty good rates but very little info as well
Additionally, on this very thread I learned about the central coast aeroclub, which seems like a good place to learn but is quite a way's away.
The main problem for me, and I assume everyone getting pumped out of the sausage factories is finding a job. I spent a good part of the day looking through all the major job finding websites: Seek, Indeed, Jora, even LinkedIn, and the only positions I could find in Australia below 500 hours were two Cessna boat jobs in WA and SA, both of which asking for flying boat experience. Even the 500 hour jobs weren't plentiful, it's just pretty much Quantas and Rex looking for regional pilots.
The job market seems as dry as a lake in a desert, and yet when I went to talk to SFC, they were talking about a pilot shortage! How does that make any sense?
What I assume most people do is get their FIR and try to get their hours up that way while earning near minimum wage, which feels like an absolute pyramid scheme.
sorry for the rant, just really don't know what to do. Aviation is my passion, but it just seems like Australia doesn't want pilots. I'll be looking into international opportunities next.