The implication is these schemes are only adopted by the young fly-hungry brigade, no so.. the last four guys we had for recurrent were all late 20 to mid 30s. They had re-mortgaged their houses and decided to take a change in career, many with very supportive wives or partners. Some smooth sales person has sold them a vision and is happy to wash their hands of these guys once they do the SSTR as the responsibility for the actual " Line training" timing is up to the "airline partners". Very often these guys sit around at their own expense waiting for sectors, once they do the OCC they can't really pull out without huge financial loss. As employed pilots we can't stamp this practice out as there are too many back handers and "special arrangements" in place, what we can do is try and force some honesty into the process, a contradiction I know!
The "traditional SSTR" with Easy, Ryan, Wizz, Jet2 etc is somewaht regulated and that is precisely why it is difficult to get on these schemes.