Olster I can't access the actual figures as I'm now out of the circuit but believe the €750000 would be accurate.
Take into account the costs of selection - paper sort, transport, accommodation, the selection tests and the board. After that a first-class medicaland thousands of applicants are whittled down to a couple of hundred.
From them'the selected few, usually 15, then begin an intensive course at IANS or Toulouse or Langen.
Add in the cost of the physical plant (buildings, simulators etc.) The costs of staff (instructors aren't cheap. Even though a lot of the time not spent instructing, preparing instruction material, etc., they may be sitting around)
Factor into this the costs of those who fail/withdraw from training at this stage.
Assuming they pass (usually about 12, though it has been as low as 5 - which caused a major re-think) and go onto an operational unit this starts all over again. Lectures in unit specific practices, letters of agreement, then back into a simulator to familiarise them with the airspace they will be controlling and the specific equipment they will be using (€ millions for the sim. which might have an operational life of 10 years but only be used for 3 -400 hundred students) Each training position on our sim. required one instructor (usually a training officer or experienced controller (who will also have attended specialist courses before starting as a coach), two "pilots" to fly the blips (ours were temps. to keep costs down) a controller, as co-ordination partner (he sat with the pilots and could throw in the occasional spanner) plus the Sim. Boss (full time and responsible for keeping everything working) Throw in the costs of preparing the traffic samples and wrting the program up.
Should they get through this and make it to the Ops. Room the preferred method is one-on-one, so for every student all the costs of one controller have to be added as he is no longer generally available to perform duties. Also each team will have a Training Officer watching over progress, or lack of it, and preparing progress reports. Again. at this stage, but only after a lot of discussion, change of team/OJT Coach, it is possible to fail right up to the last Validation Check-out.
Don't forget, when a trainee fails it is normally a 100% loss of all the investment made in him, although it is sometimes possible that he finds employment in another part of the organisation.There is no possibility of going back and trying again, even with another provider as they will be looking into the student's background. Failing the ATPL along the way still would leave the student with possibly CPL/twin/IR ratings so still with a (limited) job market and the possibility to re-sit the ATPL at a later date.
PS Millerman Junior Jetset and LH2. troll twins?