Right,
Thanks all for the comments.
I drove over to Oxford on Friday and met with Mike Griffiths, Brand manager. He was very helpful indeed, seemed to be quite unbiased and weighed up the positives and negatives or Oxford. The only negative really seemed like the price. He said that if you can fork out £120k for an integrated course including a TR (£87k for course, £35k ish for TR), you are pretty much guaranteed to be placed with an airline. However, to me it didn't really make sense to me as a business model - spending £120k and then starting at £35-40k.
He also mentioned an interesting point that other people may have a different outlook on:
- Easyjet, BA and other major airlines will NOT take any modular students, this is a black and white rule with no discrepancy.
I also visited Bonus Aviation in Cranfield and on the whole, it seemed like quite a friendly school but their facilities seemed a bit 'outdated', just a few porter cabins with no glass cockpit aircraft, hence it seemed a bit pointless as it's quite far from home.
Stapleford is looking like the best option. I could get a CPL with M/E, IR and night for minimum £45k but I'm budgeting for £50k, and then around £20-25k for a type rating on 737, 320 etc. That's still saving around £35k from OAA, it seems like OAA is the best place to study when money is no object, but if you think of it as an investment and think about ROIs, does it make sense??
Hence, Stapleford at the moment seems like the best option??? Right?
I'm not too fussed about not wearing a uniform all the time, in fact I prefer being casual and feeling more comfortable when LEARNING how to fly; I've got all my life to be wearing a suit and gold stripes.