It might pay everybody to remember that anybody who attempts a type-rating ( regardless of who is paying for it ) has no guarantee that they’ll pass the course ( it being much dependent upon ones ability and application ).
Similarly, a TRTO’s modus operandi is to train you ( and make a profit doing it ), not to employ you – where I’ll admit that this is probably a bit of a brutal description of how it works, but it is true for all commercial TRTO’s and training organisations ( wherein the PPRuNe Fund is in an entirely different bracket
)
Furthermore, just so we’re clear about it; some people do indeed dropout of, and / or fail, Type Rating courses ( where the course,
as I’m sure you’ll agree VHF1, is not easy ) just as some ( read, ‘many’ ) people fail at various steps of the process in their attempt to ultimately obtain paid employment as a pilot.
E.g. some (many ) fail to obtain their PPL, ATPL exams, GFT, IR, medical, etc. but where they no doubt started out with a vision of themselves someday sitting in the cockpit of a Scrog's Heavy Metal Wonder Jet with a four bar epaulet on each shoulder.
Indeed it is truly amazing how many people are prepared to invest huge sums of time and money ( myself included ) into an activity which
has no certainty at its end – where getting to paid employment as a pilot probably has more to do with luck and who you know than anything to do with first time passes in this, that, or the other, or indeed having a Type Rating ( albeit which for some, e.g. VHF1 plus other folks on his TR course, it has helped ).
Yep, anybody who has paid for his or her own training spends their money hoping that it'll be a good investment - but veritably however, and all together, please repeat after me:
“THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES WITH ANY OF IT !”
VHF1 – taking on the points you raise ( albeit without being fully privy to all the facts ):
You say you attended and completed the B737 Type Rating with Astraeus - wherein is this not what you contracted with them to deliver for you, and that you received ?
I.e. you wanted a Type Rating, and you got one, plus you say that you now have a job as a result. QED – so what’s your problem ?
W.r.t ‘promised line training’ - One would hazard a guess it was more likely that Astraeus would have said something akin to 'we promise line training
will be available'.... wherein one would have to pay for it ( just as a good number of people are doing at this very moment ), assuming one wanted it and remembering that it is not actually part of the required syllabus for a Type Rating, i.e. it is an optional extra.
W.r.t. ‘
Imagine what it feels like to pay for a 737 rating,’
( which – as you have said above - is indeed what was delivered for yourself and your TR colleagues ) ‘
only to be let down by the organisation who promised you the moon.’ – err, what precisely do you mean when you say ‘
promised you the moon’ ?
Again – and at risk of repeating myself – from the start to the finish, getting oneself into paid employment as a pilot is
A Huge Gamble; and self-funding a type-rating - with or without line training
- is (imho) just about as risky as it gets !
Encore:
“THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES WITH ANY OF IT !"