I must admit to personally being unsure of why everyone is praising this scheme? If BA want applicants to fund their own training that is no different to any other airline... but it angers me they are trying to make out that they or APL or anyone else is 'sponsoring' you- you are paying for your training, pure and simple.
The drivel about APL 'sponsoring' the applicant is tosh, as £84,000 still has to be forked out by the applicant. Yes 84k will be returned tax free, but it will most likely be on a much reduced 'cadet' salary, just like the old CTC scheme (opinion, unverified- CTC cadets used to join BA on a reduced salary, without the bond refund. Cadets joining Easy used to be on a reduced salary, which plus bond redund = normal JFO salary. I therefore can't believe new cadets will receive a full JFO 'renumeration package' plus the bond. I stand to be corrected).
Furthermore, look at the figures.
CTC used to demand £60,000 for the Wings Course. Once you joined your airline (easyJet for example), they repaid to you £84,000- £1000 a month tax free for 7 years. Why? Because at the typical interest rates at the time, £84,000 would be the repayable amount to HSBC including interest.
BA are demanding £84,000, and offering to repay this same amount, thus the interest (which over the life of the loan you could expect to be around £33,000, probably more if you take the BA associated loan- opinion, unverified) is to be born by the applicant. So if your bank agrees to delay repayments for 2 years, then a 7 year repayment term, the amount to repay will be significantly more each month than the £1000 BA returns to you. Or if the bank agrees to £1000 a month repayment, after 7 years you will still have several years worth of repayments left.
Yes, if you want to buy a fATPL and a type rating, you could do a lot worse than paying £84,000 with a chance of a job at the end of it. But please BA, don't pretend that you or anyone else is going to carry the financial burden.
Go in with your eyes open- old CTC wings applicants were led to believe their bond would be repaid and there was no cost to them- the cost was a salary of £1000 a month for 6 months then a salary reduced by the amount of the bond repayment each month- in other words, the applicant ended up paying for everything in the end. Someone has to!
Flame away