The 6 month contract is standard and has, to the best of my knowledge, always been used. It is up to the operator to decide whether or not they want to keep the pilot after the 6 months, but if they decide not to keep him, then the pilot will have a TR with several hundred hours on type with no bond and CTC will help with placement in another airline.
Some of the charters have used the guys for 6 months and then let them go as winter season approached. EasyJet has kept all of its CTC pilots after the 6 months and offered permanent contracts. In fact, a bunch of guys who flew for Thomas Cook under the CTC scheme just joined us in November this year.
So, be happy
I went through the same scheme, but at a time where there was about a 1 week wait between finishing the AQC and starting the TR. I have only good things to say about CTC that provided me with an easy entry into the elusive first job with less than 200 hours.