All to true.
I wish it was 2 to 4 yrs here in Australia. That would be the time you'd have to wait for a salary instructing job or a job in the bush driving a C206 around with smelly people on board.
Here it's alot more like 5 to 10 years before you can start paying back that loan. This has a tendency to make it a rich kids game and therefore the airlines arn't really getting a good cross section of talent. Only the cross section of the people who can afford it. It's a bit like going out and buying that rating on the 737 or Airbus just to make yourself that more employable. Fantastic if you can afford it. Lets just hope that the sim checks cut these guys and gals if they can't actually do the job. Would those airlines be willing to look at those that can't afford that rating and do it for them, like the ol' days. I think not, those days are gone.
Its a bit like working for free and I won't go there because thats been done to death all around the world yet it still happens. Its like a cancer in the industry.
Question.... how did it come about that the airlines in the UK no longer pay for LOFT/MCC courses? Now that too has been put back on the cost of a licence. Now little Johnny going to the flying school has to pay for all the flying, the theory to ATP std, the MCC (not cheap I believe) and possibly the rating. Very sad. Maybe you should pay the airline to let you fly it until you get 500 hrs on type. Sounds a bit like Formula 1 racing. I really feel sorry for the guy who is 18 and is hell bent on getting into an airline but the oldies can't afford it.
A rich kids job????