Airline Pilot 'Apprenticeship'
Much has been said here and elsewhere about wannabes with new frozen ATPLs who aim straight for a jet job, but should be working some sort of apprenticeship through instructing, night freight, passenger turboprops before a jet job.
This has ranged from polite advice from Danny, Scroggs et al. that wannabes who miss out on this are missing out on an important and fun part of their career development, to some posters who imply that 250 hour wannabes are being arrogant to aim at a jet job and are somehow not worthy of this.
Contraction of the flight training industry
The UK PPL training industry seems to be suffering due the general economic downturn and the more onerous and costly JAR licensing requirements. I also have a theory that the PPL training market has been to a large extent supported by the IT boom, which is now well and truly over and shows no sign of returning. Currently the airlines are not hiring, causing the turnover in instructors to be much reduced. All in all this means that there are fewer opportunites here for newly-minted fATPLs getting an instructor rating and gaining experience by instructing.
Less airlines operating turboprops
Many regionals are moving to all regional jet fleets. Some turboprop operators have gone bust (Brit World, Gill), others are effectively closed to UK pilots (KLMuk). Some of the regionals' traffic has gone to the 737-operating low cost airlines. All this means that there are less opportunities for turboprop flying.
My question is, is the 'apprenticeship' becoming less relevant these days due to fewer opportunities in these career steps? Is this just due to cyclical factors, or is there a deeper change happening in the industry?
Discuss...