I can certainly see the logic of your concerns Scroggs, but I am not entirely convinced that it means the end for modular courses.
Although it might do at some time in the future.
As I said in my previous post, at EPTA we have been invited to put forward a number of our students in recent weeks and a good many have been successful. All EPTA students are modular and some of those put forward did not even do their groundschool with us. This does not suggest that the airlines are insisting on taking only integrated students.
I think that the potential problem lies in the way the favoured schools choose to use their advantage. There will clearly be an incentive for OATS for example to put forward mainly (or only) their APP students. This is because OATS make more money from their APP students and obviously want to encourage more students to sign up for the APP.
For students taking the modular route, at other schools it is still possible to be put forward by their schools. But it is important that they understand how this system works. The schools select their best candidates primarily on the basis of the attitude and ability displayed during flying training. Their attitude and performance during groundschool is largely irrelevant.
This means that doing the groundschool at one of the non-favoured schools then moving on to fly at a favoured school will not prevent a student from being put forward to an airline (some of the EPTA nominees did exactly that). But doing only the groundschool at the favoured school then flying at a non-favoured one will certainly eliminate a student from even being considered. Some excellent students who did their groundschool at EPTA and then moved on to other schools or other countries to do their flying at lower prices have put themslves in this position. This is quite simply because we will have no idea how they performed during their flying training.
For the future it all depends on how the jobs market developes. If demand outpaces supply (unlikely I know) then even OATS will be obliged to put forward their modular students after their APP pool has been exhausted. If on the other hand the market remains oversupplied, then the schools will be far more restrictive in their selection process.