But yes, this is going to hurt some. It's going to hurt those that have put their everything into flying (education, time and money) and have nothing left, not even a backup career path. See how fragile this career is???
Absolutely. It really does seem fragile right now. Th Wannabes forum has always preached the importance of a back-up plan; to go into ATPL training in the coming year without any escape strategy should the worst happen would be complete financial suicide.
Over the past couple of years we've seen people getting away with placing all their eggs in one basket and blowing 80K on a quick integrated zero to hero course ala Oxford and making it straight into a shiny jet with absolutely no prior commercial experience. Many of us think that is about to change, and in fact to an extent, it already has.
Borrowing thousands of pounds that you simply have no way of paying back, should you fail to find a job on completion of training is a gamble at the best of times. Right now is not the best of times. Some will see all this as downright pessimism no doubt, but there are many of us who just see it as an economic reality. Too many people living beyond their means on borrowed time. Read the FT, read the finance section of any decent broadsheet and see what the city analysts are saying. If people are dead set on training they will do it anyway, but they need to be aware that next year could be an interesting time for our industry.