Grivation, for the majority you are right, although I would question modern turbo-props or the often quoted air taxi as being easier than a FO position on a B737/A320, and hence more suitable for someone who has just graduated from a flight school.
You are very wrong, though to say CTC is a wannabee funded recruitment agency. It is a TRTO, whose primary customer is the airlines, but offers a small number of flight school graduates the opportunity to fast-track to a jet or airline turbo-prop FO position through a sponsored type-rating.
A very few potential pilots are suited to fast tracking to a jet airline. These are the few who are sponsored from the start, or after getting their licences, by the airlines directly or through the CTC ATP scheme or Astreus’. A very few more get first jet jobs directly themselves, usually during the occasional hiring booms.
Why should the likes of BA and bmi bother with this? A number of reasons, including:
- those who represent ‘the cream’ before training generally remain ‘the cream’ through training and beyond. Would you like to employ the best or second best?
- by the time you have worked for a couple of airlines, you have picked up lots of habits – not necessarily bad, but different habits. These are difficult to train out. Airlines prefer a clean sheet of paper rather than an employee coming with a load of baggage.
- if someone had offered to pay all your training costs, just how loyal would you be to them?
- ‘junior’ employees cost less than ‘senior’ employees. Those savings are offset if the airline has to pay for some or all of their training.
That said, I don’t think there is any airline who would like all their new employees to come from one age group, with one experience level or background. That’s why there will always be a ‘self-improver route’ for those who have not been successful in applying for sponsorship at the ab-initio or type rating level, e.g. the CTC ATP scheme.
I’m not connected directly, but a number of my ex-students have got onto the CTC scheme and are now working for jet airlines. It’s a great opportunity for those who can crack it. I’ve never heard anyone slag it that has succeeded in passing the selection. Most of the many who fail to get on it recognise its merits and only wish they had made it, but there are always those with chips on both shoulders.