Sorry, I don't see how the financial crisis is affecting pilot job prospects.
The main reason for the crisis in the aviation sector and the failure of multiple airlines is the high fuel prices.
High fuel prices are why Skybus failed, high fuel prices are why Frontier is under Ch.11, high fuel prices are why most major US airlines cut capacity, high fuel prices are why Ryanair and Southwest will not be making profits this year, high fuel prices are why Lufthansa and Singapore's profits are down, etc...
GENEVA, Sept 3 (Reuters) - The global airline industry is set to post losses of $5.2 billion this year and $4.1 billion in 2009 as a result of oil prices, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Wednesday.
Nov 3-The year 2009 will bring a dose of optimism to major U.S. airline carriers due to the effects of lower oil prices, falling domestic capacity and revenue-per-available-seat-mile growth, senior analyst Michael Derchin with FTN Midwest Securities Corp. said Monday.
There's people who have predicted this fall in oil prices in this period.
The only way the financial crisis is going to affect trainees is when they try to secure loans. The times when a pass at a selection test would guarrantee you a loan with HSBC are over.
Rightly so, there is nothing more irresponsible than to sign up on 7 year loans at over 1000 pounds a months without the prospect of a job.
Imagine you find a job straight out of school, putting aside the potential for an additional 30k for type-rating and supposing that this is an imaginary perfect world where banks don't charge you interest until you start working, if you borrow 50k and pay off 1000 pounds a month, the nice present you will offer to the bank under the beautiful name of "interests" during the first year on the job is a beautiful 7% or 3.5k, or over 2 months worth of hard work.
Year 2 that present goes down to 2.9K, still worth about 2 months of hard work. Year 3: 2.2K Year 4: 1.6K, etc...
All-in-all, in the real world, you'll end up working over a year for interests only and 3 to 4 years for your training expenses. Put that on your job application, there's no better way to prove that you are motivated!!
Bad judgement in day to day life reflects potential for bad decision making in the day to day job environment.