Pilot Pete and
WWW are both right: there is still much to be said for the traditional 'apprenticeship' route to an airliner flight deck, and I would always rather fly with a pilot who's done his time on twins and TPs, or in the military, than one who's only experience is his CPL course then a modern jet.
However, we all have to accept that the industry is changing. Not that long ago, air travel was rare and expensive. The airliner pilot was the pinnacle of the industry, was held in very high esteem and was paid accordingly. Now, the traveller wants air travel to be as ubiquitous and cheap as bus travel - and he will get that. To achieve this, all operators have had to cut margins, increase frequencies and drop many of the extras that made air travel special - and expensive.
The upside, from a wannabe's point of view, is that there are many, many more airliner flight decks to fill now than there were 20 years ago. This expansion has largely killed off the little turbo-prop operators who were so important in that apprenticship ladder. It's also destroyed forever the illusion of the pilot as some kind of special being, who deserved a vast salary in recognition of the risks he was exposed to, and the responsibility he held. The inevitable result of this is that more pilots will be employed straight from training, and that they will be paid less than those that went before them.
There is, however, still the requirement for that new pilot to gain experience before he can be considered suitable to command an airliner with, say, 170 people on board. Thus we are now seeing contracts for ab-initio pilots which restrict their pay for some years; in other words, the airline is aying that they are not yet fully useful pilots for the period of reduced pay. That period is spookily similar to the length of time the old self-improver would have spent working his way up. Swings and roundabouts!
So, there are fewer opportunities to gain that experience before getting an airline seat, but there is more opportunity for getting one soon after training in exchange for an extended probation. That's just the way it is, and neither you nor I can change it.
Scroggs
Virgin/Wannabes Moderator
[email protected]