My assessment of the job market
Gidday all
Just thought I'd cut-and-paste the test of an email I just wrote today to a fellow wannabe who's just about to embark on a modular course. He emailed me asking what I thought in general of the current job prospects for FATPLs ... why he picked me I can't tell, but it pretty much sums up my thoughts at present so here it is for anyone who's interested ...
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Mate ... 'will I get an airline job with a low time FATPL?' ... ah that's the million dollar question isn't it.
In my experience the anwer is a qualified 'yes'. The airlines have in the past taken on plenty of low hour FATPLs, but, not just any low hour FATPLs. It's very much a case of right place, right time, and right connections (or have been recommended by someone who has).
I've trained two guys who are now flying big jets (one on the A319 and one on the 757/767, both with British Airways), they both did their RAF cadet courses at my company in Scotland and then went and did the BA cadet sponsorship course at Oxford. In fact the only guys that I know that have gone straight from training and into big gear, have come from one of the big full time 509 schools. I can't speak for or against *name of modular school deleted*, because I haven't been there and don't know anyone.
You need to understand that the whole straight-out-of-flying-school-into-a-jet fairy tale is talked about a lot more than it actually happens (especially on that hotbed of bull**** called PPRUNE). Even in the good times, I'd guess that only about half of self sponsored CAP509 students get straight into an airline from flying school. Doing it the modular route, no matter where you go, you'll find your chances of getting an airline job with 2 or 3 hundred hours are pretty remote ... and don't let any flying school marketing hype department tell you otherwise. My impression of airline employers is that they are a pretty conservative lot, and when they're in the rare mood to take on low time pilots they'll stick to the tried and true ... that means they'll tend to take CAP509 guys first, modulars from the well known schools like Oxford second, and the rest of us only when they've run out of other CVs to pick and choose from.
To give you a basis for comparison, I've got a modular FATPL myself (issued on the basis of a New Zealand CPL conversion and upgrade). I've got 1600 hours total time, 1300 P1, a couple hundred multi IFR command and a whole filing cabinet full of airline rejection letters that I've accumulated over the last 3 or 4 years. I'm lucky in that I recently scored myself an air ambulance job to keep me current and keep building up the multi, I instructed for a good three or four years to even get this far.
Right now there are simply NO JOBS to be had, its been that way ever since September. The market is busy absorbing all the type rated airline guys that got laid off last year, and it looks like it will take maybe another year or so before that process of re-absorption gets finished and they start even taking on non type rated people. Right now I have a mate who's just this week got the golden phone call from Japan Airlines, but he was out of work ever since Sept 12th and he has over 5,000 total hours and 3,000 on jet, he couldn't even get an instructing job let alone a regional turboprop job over the winter though. That's pretty typical of the state of the industry in Europe right now I'd say.
And to be blunt, when the jobs do come up again, for the first year or two you'll be competing with the likes of myself and my colleagues for anything that's going. Some of the guys here have got over 3,000 hours now and over 1,000 multi piston, and they are absolutely bloody desperate to move onto anything that burns jet fuel. It's people like ourselves who will hopefully be the first cabs off the recruitment rank. There will undoubtedly be also quite a large number of instructors with very high time on single engine, and a vast quantity of people who have already graduated from 509 courses over the last couple of years who are still on the scrap heap at present. If you read PPRUNE you've no doubt seen the figures which I have no reason to disbelieve, about 800-1200 qualified pilots out of work in the UK right now and another 400 to 500 per year coming out of the flying schools with nowhere to go at the moment.
If I was you, and I was determined to go and start my flight training RIGHT NOW, I'd beg borrow or steal the money for an integrated course at one of the 'big three' schools (OATS, Bae or Cabair). History dictates that when low time hiring does resume, it'll be those CVs that get looked at before the modular ones. If you go and do a modular course right now then at least walk into it with your eyes open and be prepared to spend two or three years waiting, probably working in some other profession (or instructing if you can get it) and paying to keep your ratings current meantime.
Anyway nice to hear from you ... makes a pleasant change ... normally I only get emails from people telling me to keep my opinionated trap shut :-)
All the best, let me know how you get on
- *******
a.k.a. Luke SkyToddler
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Opinions from the rest of you would be great, am I barking up the right tree, or am I in fact telling this poor individual a load of equine droppings?