Bealzebub:
Personally, I don't care if people habit these forums to fulfill a fantasy. I don't care if they train, don't train, waste money, fail or succeed. From a position of experience within the industry, I can tell you the way it is in this segment of that industry. The advice is free, so take it or leave it. I would however aver that it is correct. You don't care but you care giving advice? What is clearly your advice here?
And about the 14 students or so you know they found a job (great for them!), do you have any position available for the future pilot students reading this thread? You gave them some hope afterall, it would be good to deliver.
I beleive today is the perfect time to save some money and find a job. Because I can feel the economic times ahead of us won't care if you have a CPL or not, your financial situation will be important.
Let's say that you make a huge loan with you parent's help, and your father then lose his job (a scenario possible today and tomorrow), and on top of that: no job for yourself.
That's why I spoke about the ones who have to pay for their CPL only in the first post of this thread.
Further more, the oil price (we forgot about it due to the government debt crisis, but the price is still hurting the airline in some ways) didn't go down. Even now with the west close to a recession, the oil remains expansive. Not even to mention that for the long term (20 years maybe less according to some, so before your retirement) the oil reserve are beleived to be not enough to continue the way we are living now energy wise.
Somebody wrote: "follow your dreams". Do you honestly beleive that this "image" have not been used enough by the training industry for YEARS so that you have to remind it to some young person that may have forgotten it or not seen it?
This is the difference between being a kid/teenager and adult: an adult is free, he is not his dream's slave. That's a psychological condition. You dream to marry Nicole Kidman, you end up marrying your highschool sweet heart, who might be at the end not a bad choice, pretenting you had the choice.
Of course we have to do our best. Of course we have to reach some goals in our life. Of course we have to be positive. In order to do it, we have to adapt and accept the reality to avoid a financial bankrupt that might put down many of the others opportunities you have in the realistic and real life.
Thousands of CPL holders (you call it "frozen ATPL") are without job right now (and will never find one). Times ahead don't look good for the airline industry, especially in the western world (when I say don't look good, my meaning is: not as good as today, today's being already quite messed up already).
I won't even discuss the fact that some are paying to work, it has become so terrible for some pilot that it's not even healthy anymore to speak about it.
Point is: if you start your training today, of course you might find a job in the future! But most likely not, so investing a huge amount of money in it looks like a gamble. Is that what future pilots became, money gambler? It doesn't make sense right? So when it doesn't make sense, better to avoid it if possible, that's common sense
Where I work (not in a western country), we have hired people for years, but mostly local people, or foreigner captain who like adventure, not really the definition of the standard newly CPL holder.