The money is less available from the banks, which is probably no bad thing, since much of the lending and the borrowing proved to be irresponsible. However all the other traditional windfall resources continue to exist: Savings; Inheritance; Pension lump sums; Property downsizing; Equity guarantees and gifts. These continue to be the prime resources for this type of financing, and nobody should be perplexed by the significant sums that sufficient people can raise from these resources. Unfortunately that doesn't apply for many individual cases, and of course for the majority it won't.
I have said it before, but will say it again. Airlines have never employed anything other than a tiny percentage of low houred pilots. Almost all of that tiny recruitment came from approved (integrated courses) usually tied to that airlines own cadet programme. The changes that came about with the introduction of JAR, reduced the non-approved experience requirement for the issue of a CPL/IR from around 700 hours, to around a third of that level. This enabled the licence to operate as an "aerial work" type licence, in much the same way as it did in the USA and most other countries. At the same time as this change came about, so the requirement for a flying instructors rating, required the holder to have a CPL, rather than only a PPL as had been the case previously.
A lot of people thought that this massive reduction in the experience levels required for licence issue via the modular route, was some sort of bonus that meant airlines would snap them up with far less experience than they had in the past. This misconception was fuelled by one or two new entrant Lo-cost airlines who also exploited the situation in order to change the role of the First Officers seat. Some of their more flamboyant CEO's made absolutely no secret of their desire to eliminate this seat altogether. Fortunetaly, neither the regulators nor the manufacturers gave this idea any serious consideration. Instead those airlines turned the seat into a revenue opportunity, that satisfied both their shareholders and the regulators basic requirements.
Most companies have taken some advantage of the situation, but only in so much as they have expanded their own cadet schemes whilst still tying themselves to integrated full time training schools. This enables them to employ cadets whose continuous, integrated, training regime is something that they can understand, monitor and to some extent control. Not only that, but they can obtain the output at a very attractive price, often with built in bonds and often on a probationary (no risk) basis.
If I were 30 years younger and looking at the best prospect of a fast track airline career, there is no doubt that in the UK at least, I would be looking at 2 primary training providers, and one other long established provider.
The primary providers, would be those two who have direct seamless links with the end employers. The employers are those companies that have either contracted to take on a variably defined number of cadets, or those companies with formalized cadet programmes linked to the training school in question. In both cases you are likely to find yourself in New Zealand or Spain.
The secondary provider would be a well established school whose previous track record included provision of cadets to both UK and overseas airline companies. These days it seems to be running third to the competition, but nevertheless has a reasonable recent record of providing candidates to a large lo-cost airline.
For those whose finances, or whatever other reason, don't allow for these options, then things are more difficult. The chances of airline employment at the licence issue level are largely unrealistic, and likely to remain so until and if they can raise their experience levels elsewhere. Once they do, they are still likely to be in disadvantageous competition with ex-military pilots, career advancement experienced pilots, and unemployed experienced pilots. Indeed this has always been the case, but the expansion of the "integrated cadet" market, is likely to put significant additional pressure on this end of the job seeking market, even in an improving economy.
I appreciate this isn't necessarily what some people might want to hear, but it is what I have experienced and seen happening over the last 30 odd years, coupled with what I see happening now.