geturwingover,
some good points but...
The accomodation is free minus two cleaning bills throughout your entire stay in NZ (all bills are paid for in NZ also). You do pay bills in Bournemouth but the standard of accomodation is excellent.
OAT guys pay £60k and on top of that have to pay for all their accomodation.....and quite possibly a type rating (another £25k).
The lamination of maps is a strange one though....
Regarding the issue of taking family/friends up on flights. Well basically cadets were taking family/girlfriends up on cross country flights on a frequent basis. What CTC have said is that these are training flights, so you should be concentrating on preparation for the end of phase test, not showing friends/family the sites.
I think thats fair enough. You can obviously take other cadets up.
As for the CTC cadets going to BA. Well they are basically self sponsored.
The scheme is essentially designed around EasyJet and Thomas Cook. Cadets not going to either of those airlines obviously lose some of the tax advantages. However, BA being the exception, they won't have to do any formal selection to get into any of the partner airlines. This is the major benefit of CTC. Access to all the best jobs around, with no experience. You can also turn two airlines down if your not interested. But you have to take the third offer or your on your own!