Hold on a moment there. You are making a few assumptions.
- you assume that they had the cash to go off and do some flying. Remember one of the main reasons people go for sponsored schemes is to save coin. I wonder how many people could raise some cash for a flying course post 9/11?
- many of these chaps and chappesses will have been young wannabees. Perhaps when they were offered a sponsorsip they dropped out of university or gave up building a career and then found after they were let go that they had missed the boat. How do you know that some of them didn't end up as labourers on the bones of their butts?
- they had as close to a contract of employment as you can get and that was taken away from them. They took up a legal right to be reemployed when opportunities came about and there was nothing that said that they had to keep themselves current in the meantime.
- They were also training during one of the darkest periods in the industrys history so maybe they made a calculated decision to put aside their training until things got better? How many wannabees actually go through that thought process? Hardly any, which is why you read countless stories on pprune of banks about to foreclose cos little timmy went off and got into hock to train and had no idea, no smarts, no contacts to get a job at the end.
You clearly have a grudge or missed out on the cadet scheme. Good on them I say and what a great airline Aer Lingus must be for honouring their promise/contract of bringing them back.