What Studi and Lucifer seem to (conveniently?) forget is that the great majority of airline pilots have had to self-sponsor their flight training, go the modular way and work their way up in the industry. Those who are "lucky" enough to benefit from some kind of sponsorship and then sometimes go straight on a heavy jet are but a tiny fraction of the overall professionnal pilot output of a country such as, say, the UK.
Therefore, quite apart from the finance side (how will they afford an even more expensive course if the MPL goes ahead), how would a typical modular, self-sponsored course be organised, bearing in mind that most of us have to train THEN find a first flying job - and that for a number of us, it will be on a turboprop
. What would be the point of training on a jet simulator for a good part of the MPL if you have no idea what you will be flying for your first job? Jet sims are only
partly relevant to turboprop ops - and I know which type are actually harder to fly...
What about those that accumulate flight hours (and a great deal of useful experience) as Flight Instructors? Is their hard work to be discounted as not relevant to multi-pilot ops?
What about those that work in airline ops or dispatch for a few months (or years) while networking to get their lucky break - an invaluable experience for later on?
I'm not saying that one can't go on a heavy jet with 250 hrs and strive in that environment; a number of my friends have done it and are doing just fine. There are also a great many guys/gals who reach that goal having worked their way up and are great flyers - yet there are also failures in each system.
With a proportion of ex-fighter jocks in the airlines, does anybody really believe that these make lesser airline pilots - just because they haven't been trained in a MPL environment from the outset?
The industry as a whole will be all the poorer if it comes to favour a single type of training background; airlines strive (or
should strive) on the diverse experience of their aircrew - a fact often overlooked in recruitment, and which may help in emergencies, when people trained in a like manner will tend to react in the same way, when thinking "out of the box"
might be called for (cue Sioux City/Baghdad).
While cost may not be the issue (at least not initially), the airlines would like "ready-made" pilots straight out of the same mould, and to spend less time, effort and money on selection with a lower chance of getting it wrong. These are, unfortunately, conflicting requirements. In SAA's case (the starting point of this thread), the driving requirement is affirmative action, not to remedy some perceived deficiency in training (which is of a very good standard).
Cheers
