It's about time that the industry started to show some investment into future pilots, I applaud Bond whole heartedly, it is an absolutely amazing offer and limbs will be bitten off to get on the scheme!
I am surprised though that Bond didn't just dip their toes into the pool of investment rather than dive in head first. I would have expected them to maybe first offer sponsored twin ratings combined with IR to existing self sponsored students (of which I'm in that category). I would have thought that approach would have been a more likely half way house; the student investing a substantial amount and then the employer taking the student onto further ratings and qualifications. This way both the student and employer have shown a level of financial commitment and both have taken a substantial risk and as such both are in a proven partnership to see it through to completion.
If there truly is a shortage of experience pilots/captains out there then this surely needs to be addressed. What we need to put a stop to is this chicken and egg scenario - "need to get a job to gain more hours/can't get a job because I haven't got enough hours" - if this isn't addressed the gap will only get bigger. Operators need to start putting schemes into place to help give the low hour pilots a helping leg up into the industry.
If you read the Ts & Cs on the website they are making it very clear that they want to take you from scratch. A clue is that even if you have passed all your ATPL theory exams, they'd want you to take the ground school and exams all over again, I'd rather not go through that pain again! You also can't apply if you're currently with any other FTO.
At my stage, I'm happy to offer limbs up for sacrifice for my twin and IR rating if someone were to offer it; but I suspect that a reduced number of limbs may be detrimental to my Class 1
If only this was around 7 months ago, I just might have been able to save myself £50K. Hopefully some other operators may follow Bond's lead and start to offer sponsored twin and IR schemes.
As a parting note, I wish that posters wouldn't get flamed for asking what the pay packet is like, I think it's a perfectly legitimate question (but yes of course, it shouldn't be the first and foremost question at an interview!); for the students that have self sponsored themselves through their training they need to know that they are going to be able to pay it off and still not be on the bread line. Just because we will hopefully be doing something we are passionate about doesn't mean that we should tolerate poor pay conditions, after all we are supposed to be "professional" pilots so it's not unreasonable to expect a "professional" level of renumeration. To think that a London Underground Tube driver earns around £31K per year without having to self sponsor and without having to go through as many grueling qualifications, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a salary that reflects the personal and financial inputs made by a low hour self sponsored pilot. For the majority of people, putting at least £50K on the line is showing enough commitment and drive to be a professional pilot, so lets not try and bring their motivation into question, it's insulting as many of us "have put their money where their mouth is".
Last edited by Windy Pants; 1st Sep 2007 at 17:24.