FO 737-800, everyone here is free to give whatever advice they want. Your point of view is welcome and my own has no greater weight than yours.
I do think 18 is a bit young to be throwing £60k+ at training in the expectation of getting a FI or airline job a year later. If you are anything like me you will be markedly different a person at 22.
At such a young age it is more normal and preferable to be targetting some type of sponsorship/cadetship scheme. In all likelihood CTC. I have flown with several 21/22/23 yr olds in recent years who all came through CTC cadets schemes straight from higher education.
Its a great way to start a career.
I suspect you might have self sponsored at GECAT and been one of the courses that was in the right place at the right time when a couple of airlines, my own orange one included, needed self type rated recruits NEXT WEEK. I flew with one just a month or so back who had seen a £20k course launch him immediately into a major airline on full non-cadet pay with the shot at a command in 3 years at the age of 25. Naturally the grin took hours to punch off his face.
But that sort of luck is very rare.
I can't bring myself to use examples like him, concrete living breathing examples, like yourself to recommend to people at 18 to self sponsor a Frzn ATPL and possibly even Type Rating.
I can't because I have seen so many other over the years, dozens and dozens and dozens fall by the wayside, never qualify or most commonly just run out of money.
It would be very hard to be 20, £45k in debt with a lapsing IR following a year of fruitless job hunting and then witnessing an industry downturn as in 2001 or 1990 which means you don't stand a hope in hell of flying professionaly for the next 5 years. You'd have to go to Uni late, if you could afford to at all, or go and get any old job with a handful of A-levels a few worthless pieces of CAA paper and a lot of broken dreams.
Not easy.
But as you say. The industry is buoyant. Who Dares Wins and all that.
I remain (hopefully) a voice of cautious advice.
Good luck,
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