It's £43 an hour. Loan repayments are £1200 a month, living costs (rent, council tax, bills, insurance, breakdown cover, tv licence, phone bill and BALPA subs) are just over £500. That excludes petrol, road tax, MOT, clothes, a social life (who wanted one of those though right?) and food. So actually I tend to spend around £1900-£2000 mainly because my car has needed a bit of work lately.
Remember you will also need to pay for your own medical, your own uniform (and topups), your own loss of licence insurance and term assurance for your loan. I can't afford medical insurance so if for some reason I just can't fly but don't lose my licence I won't get anything.
Also, your student loan payments will be relatively high because it's taken out before you pay your professional studies loan.
So to be able to live "comfortably" (without saving anything and really without going out at all) you need about 65 hours a month. Each standby counts for 3.5 hours. So 60 hours and 2 standbys would be ok.
November was exactly 24 hours plus several standbys. December isn't much better. Yes, during the summer I was working about 75 hours a month, but had to pay off some of the professional studies loan - which I couldn't pay off during the initial 8 month period where we all get £1200 a month. So had nothing saved. But now, once again I'm unable to make full payments on my loan so am back into arrears.
Anyone who is considering flexicrew, unless you live at home and have wealthy parents to feed you and clothe you I would think twice. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention I had to borrow £8000 for the inital Type Rating? Still paying that back too.
For those who are going to say "well you shouldn't have done it - you knew the risks" because I know you're out there, then yes, you're right, I shouldn't have. But then I'd still be working behind a bar on minimum wage, with the loan STILL sitting there in the bank. At least I've started paying it off and I'm doing a job I love (once the door's closed), but would I do it again, or recommend it to someone starting out? Hell no. And it wasn't anything like this when I started training - remember that.