There are a few posters on other threads that could do with reading this one! There seems to be an abiding feeling/desire/irrational belief that 'everything will eventually return to normal, the world will settle down and find itself the right way up and someone will pay for my training, etc etc etc etc'
It's not going to happen and perhaps it's for the best. OK, hold fire with the flame - let me explain:
In the Good Old Days, plenty of people made it into airlines on sponsorship schemes, paid very little towards their training or at least had an almost certainty of a job at the end of it all. As a result, a lot of pilots became such by default, rather than through a real desire to live a dream. As with any career, it's a lot easier to keep enjoying your chosen path if you really,
really , REALLY wanted it in the first place. (It would be an interesting study to find out whether those pilots involved in excessive drinking binges etc etc were self-sponsored or not...hmm, [smells research project]!)
However, the world changed on September 11th, and before you start gagging, I think we lay too much at the feet of the great god of disaster. Many airlines were in financial poo before that morning and would eventually have slid into bankruptcy or been bailed out. It was a good - OK, bad choice of words - effective catalyst that made the inevitable happen faster. After 9/11 no airline could be accused of bad business practice if they downscaled massively. And they have. AND they have also discovered that they don't necessarily have to fork out for training pilots - there is a large enough pool of trained pilots and enough wannabes who are willing to risk everything for their dream. Airline management are businessmen first and foremost and will find whatever way they can to save money.
There is an endless discussion on another thread about paying for type-ratings and although the point is well made that us being willing to do so makes the airlines less likely to, we all have to realise that if you don't, someone else will. They days of (financially) easy routes into airlines are gone - they may make a slight recovery, but I very much doubt whether they will ever be back in the same way - wannabes have proved to the airlines that many of us will do whatever it takes to get the job we want -rich daddy to pay for it all or not (BTW - any rich daddies out there, please send details to Air Born at Box 1234).
This has been a long post - Oi you guys in the back - wake up!
