"This brings me onto another point that its clearly near to impossible for young people without dependent parents who have wads of cash available to attend courses like these. With the airline sponorships ceasing, its not enabling the low incomed participants who want to achieve their dream actually achieve it!"
This is not true!! I worked while I trained on a very basic salary (15k pa), it took me 4 years but thats the same time a respectable uni course takes. The trouble is being inpatient and wanting to start yesterday! I was the very same!
My total costs were 55k and that was with a career developement loan of 8k. I could've saved around 8k on variables (hour building on complex, doing residential GS rather than D/L, doing multi CPL etc).