I yield to no man in my urging of caution upon wannabes in respect to training routes and debt. Many have castigated me in the past for being the Dr Doom of these forums.
But. We have to deal with the world as it is, not as it was nor how it ought to be. Between them FlyBe and Easy represent nearly all the available UK airline job hiring and both airlines are now MPL only. Yes the terms are poor and the risk is placed almost entirely on the wannabe not the airline.
However, when I undertook my ATPL exams in the late 1990's and paid for my own IR and my own CPL and my own FIC I was taking an expensive risk entirely on my shoulders. In my first year I earned £8,000 net. In my second year I earned £18,000 net. I got lucky in my third year and got into a UK airline flying a B737 where the salary was £33,000 gross. I moved three times to three countries to climb each rung. I was lucky. I got breaks. I was never unemployed.
Typical training costs at the time were £61,000 for the CAP509 course at Prestwick. Interest rates on loans were around 7% and you could buy a freehold house for £60k.
So.
£105,000 now is not that different. Your 200th hour TT will be sat in the RHS of a factory fresh A320. You will be on £50k pa in three years time. There will be a reasonable chance of promotion within 7 or 8 years. Your employer is unlikely to go bust.
It certainly ain't no fully funded BA Cadetship. But neither is it quite the gamble and graft many people undertook at the start of their career either.
If you don't like it do your own thing, pay less money and climb the ladder the old fashioned way. You'll be doing very well to be taking home £4,500 a month net like dozens of easyJet FO's I know who are based in such hell holes as Paris and Rome..
Bit of perspective.
If finding £100k is no great problem for you and your family - and for a lot of people it seems it isn't - then you'd be mad not apply.
In a world where a crap degree from a crap university will cost you £35k and where private school fees are £10k a year for 13 years and where Grannies 3-bed-semi is worth half a million - hell maybe £105,000 is cheap. Crazy world.
WWW