Been reading with slight interest, both suprised and amused at the anger and tension created by a simple question
'which is better?'
I would have expected a slightly more mature attitude from some, I mean a question which could promt a good, productive and fairly useful discussion subject has turned into a football hooligan style slanging match, just without the beer glasses and violence (bitchy arguing on PPrune??!! Never!) I would dread to think that our beloved profession's workforce has changed from a mature and well respected one, to one of a bunch of moaning kids who get all p*ssed off when a "rival" FTO says something they dont like! Grow up people!!!
I am currently out with CTC in NZ, and im not going to do the whole OAT-bashing thing, because quite frankly, I dont know what theyre like, I never looked into them, I stumbled across CTC first, was impressed, and signed up. One thing I would say though from speaking to many airline pilots is that the dominating concern for many new pilots is simply finding a job, almost everywhere you look, airlines are offering jobs to pilots with +1500 hours or a huge number of hours on a specific type, usually a jet of some description, how is one to find a job when this seems to be the general requirement?
I am not asking a rhetorical question, to which I will put a witty or persuasive comment, I am genuinely asking, I have never been through this process of job-hunting, as well as the whole finance issue, I saw the career possibilities associated with being a low-hour pilot as quite concerning, its a catch 22, you need hours to get a job and you need a job to get hours.
This will probably get argued against no end by one of the many short-fused and angry people who post on this forum, and before I get a load of nasty replies contradicting what I just said, I would like to make it clear, I am not implying that this is fact, this is just what I have been told by many Pilots, from a variety of different nationalities and a variety of airlines.
This prompted me to prioritise the negatives of the industry, finance and job availability topped my list in big bold letters, and this lead to the attraction to CTC, it is true that a job is NOT A GUARANTEE, and they make no effort to hide this fact, it is printed everywhere, probably for moral and legal reasons combined, however, after being told that a new pilot has a very hard time getting a job, I was confronted by a company who not only had airlines pulling pilots in by the dozen (literally in alot of cases), they were paying for the priviledge!
I was thinking whether or not this is natural, this seemed to be an industry where you need to have a Pilot CV the length of an A340 and more hours logged than a DHL 727 to get a job, and suddenly, airlines are turning away from experienced Pilots and rushing to CTC? Thats what pulled me in, thats what made me apply, it took one of the huge negatives away, yeah, I didnt have a guaranteed job, but I had a big chance of getting one. As a bonus, the other big negative, finance, that was taken care of too.
A few months ago whilst on my lunch break at Bristol Ground School, I got an e-mail telling me EJ wanted to offer me an interview along with another 14 cadets at CTC, I have since been selected for employment by them, without lifting a finger, I can only assume this is purely based on the reputation of CTC.
As I said, I have made no attempt to imply that my assumptions are fact, so dont go bombarding me with nasty comments about how wrong I am, please, by all means prove me wrong, I would be interested to find out some FACTS, however I dont care for the usual mindless "youre a
" etc etc.
It is human nature to take a perspective on what we are told and shown and make up assumptions on it, I took the info given to me by Pilots and CTC and based my career decisions on it, and now I am out in NZ, training hard and waiting to start with EJ, so its not exactly done me a huge misfortune applying to CTC has it?
Again, to the angry people who post on here, please, feel free to call me names, insult me, tell me I am stupid, tell me I dont know what I am talking about, etc etc, it doesnt bother me, I know as much as anyone that this profession is hard enough to get into and I wish anyone and everyone the best of luck in the future (even you angry posters). I just hope I can get some feedback as to whether my views are correct or not and/or some closure on whether or not my opinions are fact. I also hope some people find my post useful.
Best of luck everyone