Trust me all airline pilots have watched the Pay To Fly tumour grow with increasing apprehension and concern. It all started with paying for your own MCC back in 1999 and way back then those on the flight decks just knew that this process would creep up and up to paid for type ratings, paid for base checks, paid for line training etc etc.
We did all know. We did all do nothing. Because there was nothing that could be done.
There is no legal right to strike in the UK. There certainly is no right to strike because somebody else is willing to apply for a job with another company on terms you don't like. Or your own company come to that. The contract terms between your employer and their next recruit are none of your legal business. Go on strike if you want but it will be illegal and you will be sacked and sued and lose your home. Which is why you've never heard such mumblings from BALPA or anyone else on the matter.
The real blame, and this is a view settled over decades of being involved with Wannabes, lies with people's willingness to spend a bit more than the other guy to give them the advantage. Very common human trait. Sometimes commendable and useful but in this instance harmful. House price inflation provided turbocharging to the engine and the rapid growth of LCC's with well mapped growth schedules provided the chassis.
The Wannabes themselves yanked open the drivers door and did the driving themselves.
Europe will have its Colgan Air. After which the regulator will probably follow the FAA and tighten up slightly on minimum pilot requirements. Even after that though the Wannabe financial arms race will not be over. Here's why:
Your Son is bright and doing well in school and expresses an interest in aviation sustained over a couple of years by his membership of ATC/Gliding Club/PPL et al. He's doing his A-Levels and so your are all thinking about University. He has no particular yearning to enter medicine or law or similar professions nor the military. Uni is going to cost 3 * £9k fees + 3 * 5k rent/living expenses. That's £42k for a likely 2:2 or 2:1 from some red brick somewhere that isn't OxBridge in something or other discipline.
Pilot training is going to cost double that but only take 18 months tops. Lets say Junior can work (and do a bit of travelling maybe) for 2 years after A-levels and live at home and earn £14k a year. It is possible with a bit of shift work and bar job, easily. Two years of that and he's matured a bit, learned how hard working at a boring job is, and had £28k towards the £42k you haven't sunk into Uni.
Suddenly the premium of a CPL/IR Frzn ATPL from CTC/OATS over a degree doesn't look very big. Enough Dad's will be persuaded by these sorts of figures to ensure that there will be queues around the block for £80k pilot training courses for years to come. Many recent graduates spend time unemployed and then time on unpaid internships and trainee schemes. For the CTC/OAT graduate this takes the form of pay by the hour flex cadet work experience/evaluation in the RHS of a B737/A320.
It ain't no different really.
Its not going to go back to how it used to be.
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