It appears that Ryanair have started a trend, this is from the Astraeus advertisement.
There are some commitments we require from the final five candidates that successfully pass all the stages. As we stated earlier, the funding of the 737 type-rating comes from Astraeus paying our Training Company, Bond Aviation Solutions, a standard Junior First Officer six month's salary.
To protect ourselves from the cost of anyone being unable to complete the type-rating course we would expect the candidate to put up £6,000 of his or her own funds to be held in a separate account. After successfully completing the type rating course and having started line training the candidate will receive the £6,000 back at the rate of £1,000 a month into their bank account. In the unlikely event that a candidate fails to complete the type-rating course successfully they may be liable to forfeit some or all of the £6,000 on deposit.
After the completion of six months line flying, should the candidate not be offered a permanent contract of employment they will be free to take the qualification and experience elsewhere and will not owe anything for their training. This, we believe, is what makes the PPRuNe Career Development Scheme unique in our industry.
This initial strategy has minimum impact on the PPRuNe Fund and its limited resources enabling us to carry on with our plans for a broader Career Development Scheme aimed at those not yet fully qualified. We would therefore expect the successful candidates to put something back into the fund.
The successful candidate will have to agree that once they have a permanent contract of employment as a pilot they will pay back to the PPRuNe Fund, over a period of three years, a total sum of £3,000. This money will be put to use helping other wannabes to follow in their footsteps, acknowledging the first step on the pilot job ladder that the PPRuNe Fund gave them.