If people kept going bankrupt then loans would become harder to gain. From that point only those with enough of capital or with security (and willing to risk the house) would be able to train as pilots. You socialists who would blame the nasty banks and training companies, who are basically doing what companies do and providing a service in exchange for profit, would surely not want the job to become the preserve of people with a chunk of spare money, would you?
FTOs can hardly be held responsible for the loans. The state of the industry, the cyclical nature and the difficulty of getting immediate flying employment is not hard to find out. Anyone who simply takes the marketing of the FTOs at face value is being naive. It is like blaming McDonalds for people being fat - of course they say that eating their burgers is fine, but it is not hard to find the information that they are not really good for you. The FTOs never guarantee employment, a few over-emphasise the help they can give but again that is just normal marketing bullsht. Everyone who persists does seem to get a flying job, so historically the FTOs are not pushing more people through than is justified by the market.
People have to start taking responsibility for their own decisions, and part of that is to research before deciding or accept the consequences of not doing so. The kid in the article seems to have this idea, and sounds like some day he might make a decent pilot. Good luck to him.
Last edited by 12Watt Tim; 6th Nov 2009 at 12:07.