I never really post on pprune and I normally sit on the sidelines and observe, but I just wanted to clear a few things up! I can't remember exact figures as the FAQ's have been removed from the OAA website now.
Firstly, the contract that the pilot would be on at easyJet is actually very good.. I think the wage is about £50 per hour which increases when you build up experience. It works out at around £38,000 minimum but with standby pay and the flexible contract this can go up by quite a bit if you are flying the maximum amount of hours over the summer. If you pay the BBVA loan off at a rate of £10-12k a year you will still have a very healthy £25-30k left. I don't see how this can be classified as slave work.. perhaps I'm just naive.. yeah that salary is nothing in comparison to BA, Lufthansa, Emirates etc. but in terms of a salary it's still a decent amount of money and a young first officer would be able to live off of it.
There is also a winter hours guarantee which basically means you will be payed for 200 hours over the winter period if you do less than 200 hours. However, if you do more than 200 hours you will be payed however much you should be. This works out as about £3300 per month as it is split over two 3 month periods. 200*50/3=£3333. If you take away the loan repayment from that you are still left with plenty of money to spend on getting fat over Christmas and heating the house.
You'd also have to take into account that with this course, unless anything happens that shouldn't happen, you will start line training almost straight after graduating from OAA with your type rating. Well, this takes what 8 months? And for that period of time you will only recieve a basic training allowance I believe. But, you don't have to start loan repayments until 18 months after graduation which means for the first approx. 5-10 months of a full wage you can get some money under your belt to support yourself if there are any months where you encounter any problems.
Yes, the course itself is very expensive but I just don't see how anybody can say this is a form of slavery.