OK. Time out. Get a grip you guys that cast aside SSTR guys due to some obnoxious belief we are all young (without commitment), rich, spoilt and privileged queue jumpers. Spare a thought for us guys at the lower end who have no other choice.
I graduated in 2008 after saving for over 5 years. No money owed to parents or banks. I had no connections; no friends owning aircraft charter firms and certainly no dad/uncle working within the aviation business. I was however a 20 something married father and payer of a mortgage and bills. I've mentioned the last bit because there is no way I could’ve taken up instructing. Why would I have done that anyway? Which recruitment pilot is interested in my puddle jumper hours? - Easy, Wizz and at least 3 other European airlines have factorisation tables that take your 1,000 SEP hours and spit out just 10 !
Fast forwarding a bit, from 2008 till now (2011) the only operator interested in interviewing newbies (regardless of where they trained) has been RyanAir and the odd ad by TNT (with no doubt hundreds if not thousands applying). I had a Ryanair interview (my only one since graduating). Didn’t get through.
What must one do to get hired? Scrap that. What must one do to get INTERVIEWED if one is not a pre-selected airline cadet? Just look around you, UK and an increasing number of European airlines are just not interested in fresh low hours graduates if they’ve not been trained integrated-stylee by the likes of CTC or Oxford! These two flight-schools have the monopoly in the UK. Modular guys go ignored. If you’re a modular schmuck like me, the doors are closed nowawadays – This isn’t 1999 or 2004. You can try the tight and insular corporate/GA world all you like but if have no connections, the chances are even less than getting hired by an airline. The GA positions which do hire low experienced guys tend to have a requirement for a minimum of 150-200 multi piston hours and they are of course very few and far in between. Without a job, 200 MEP hours cost around £200 x 200 = £40,000 if you're not into Parker pen hours like me. I’ve sent in the region of 500 applications over 3 years, easily. It's been the usual deal, you know the score.
As a lowly modular student, in order to increase my chances I've got to do something else with my blue wallet. Something drastic! The choices: 1.) Make up the experience (unfortunately, many do) 2.) Buy a multi-turbine aircraft and build time! 3.) Buy a type rating (the more niche the better) in the hope that someone looking to hire in a hurry may do you a favour. In 2009 I had no idea which to do! Then I looked all around me. SSTRs were big, and were clearly working. Just months before I started, I witnessed at least 5 guys walk straight into jobs with respectable carriers with less than 250 TT and an A320 rating. What was I going to do? Be the fool, and not follow suit?
What has happened since the TR is another story. The recession got deeper and deeper. Since I finished the TR, I’ve not heard of a single person getting hired on the back of a TR alone and that includes me. Oh well, you take your chances and sometimes you still fail. I’m not the only one though. I am one of thousands of pilots in my situation – nothing special.
The short of it is that the current breed of chief pilot at airlines is simply not interested in unselected (non CTC and Oxford types) who have trained modularly because of some bizarre belief that we make **** pilots. This decision is made without even reading a CV in detail, without an assessment or interview of any sort. All of this even though we have been trained to the same standards, pass the same exams and checkrides (often the same examiners are doing the checkrides!). EZY, Monarch, MyTravel, TCX, Thomson, BA CitiFlyer all only hire newbies who have attended CTC/Oxford. CTC/Oxford are big business, the bigger the business the closer the bond. The closer the bond, the closer the favours
The recruitment departments of airlines have quite literally sold out!
The UK pilot recruitment scene is a complicated mess. If you’ve not been a wannabe/newbie after the year 2007, I’m afraid you just don’t know the harsh reality of it. You’ve got your > 1,500 TT, you’ve got your magical 500 or 1000 on type. Unfortunately, this blurs your vision of what is happening at the lower end of the pilot recruitment scene these days. SSTRs are being increasingly taken up by modular pilots who are being ignored by airlines and who do not have the experience necessary to apply for coporate/GA positions. SSTRs may not drastically improve chances but even a 25% increase in likelihood of getting hired is worth it. Just an example, I saw an ad the other day for a Premier 1 rated FO, no experience on type required. SSTRs work and you can't blame us for taking advantage of what works. It's called being dynamic and adapting. They are in effect, no worse than bonds with the airline not having to wait 35 days for you to get trained. When you see it like this, your eyes will open.
I close this heartfelt response by challenging any chief pilot/recruiter to tell me I'm wrong about everything I say concerning low hours modular pilots and the reality that is the pilot recruitment scene in the UK today. We have no freaking way out due to lack of fair and equal assessment opportunities.