Is the ATPL dead? It looks like it is judging by the comments above:-
1. Only Airline pilots can teach MPL – It’s the end of the line for ATPL self improvers.
2. The ATPL will be the route to (vocational) air taxi work – but would you spend 100K on an ATPL or MPL?
3. The ATPL is the route to career instructing. I think not:-
a. No sensible student will spend 100K on an ATPL knowing it’s not a route to the airlines. The market will dry up.
b. As of 2012 EASA are removing the CPL prerequisite for FI instructors teaching PPL.
c. CPL FI’s losing out to the MPL will have to compete to teach PPLs with unpaid 200 hour PPL FI’s.
4. The MPL is a sensible development. The single pilot ATPL is an anachronism. We are adapting our courses to accommodate airline demands for a more MCC approach and are already preparing for the change to MPL.
5. The MPL is airline specific. Therefore who teaches, and who is taught is entirely at the discretion of airlines. BA’s Future Pilot Scheme has no requirement for ATPL’s.
My advice to wanabees is not to invest in the ATPL route – unless they have a private income or a passion for clapped out singles or twins which will last a lifetime!
PS: A last polite point to Excrab and a great many confused people out there: instructors are not a special breed of pilot who touch their forelocks obligingly for every hour they have flown for free. Nope, they are normal pilots who enjoy flying, enjoy teaching (very much) and welcome the opportunity to build real piloting skills that were traditionally of value, but sadly no more.
I don’t know of a single pilot that found themselves in the right seat of an aircraft without a great deal of time spent being taught by an FI. And strange though it may seem, FI’s, as normal human pilots, also aspire to lay their hands on heavy metal, just as non FI pilots do.
Please do drop the fantasy that FI’s are a species that wish to remain forever in a twilight zone of penury.
