I am a new airline pilot, been flying a 737 for the last year now, I paid all my training by way of savings and family help, got offered a job with a self funded type rating.
I prefer the self funding over bonding, bonding might be more secure in the long run as the airline are invested in you, but i do perfer that there is no reduced wage to cover the type for a few years just a bank loan and i am in my own right to move around should i feel the need with no finantial penelty.
these old magical fully paid courses by the airline are all but gone now and this seems to be the way in from what I can see, I dont mind as it was my decision to be a pilot and the way I see it is that I have invested all this money in me as a business rather than buying a bar or something, if I had gone into that trade I could have taken a low paying managers job or shelled out loads of money to buy one (same thing as training and a type to me)
as to these old boys complaining saying its guys like me erroding terms and conditaions,,,,,, well this is whats on the table these days so I put it that its you guys that have been sqrewing us over the last 30years and your hanging on now at the top of the tree thats taken you a long time to build upto, this is whats waiting for us at the bottom these days when we finish training so its either accept that pilots are not seen as movie stars any more and get on with starting a decent career or bitch and moan on here and get a job at McDonnalds (where i worked during college)