It's simple supply and demand - I can understand that people can afford to want to get straight into the IR, BUT if only people would stop self funding their IR's with no guarantee of work then perhaps one day we'll be back into the more sensible situation where one can be bonded to it with the offer of work rather than expected to shell out another £45k before even being considered, and still working for peanuts in the meantime.
The problem can only be relieved if people stop self funding so ludicrously just to try and jump a rung on the ladder! We are as a group willing to set the benchmark too high, as if the cost of the CPL(H) itself is not enough
I remember meeting a Eurocopter instructor at Oxford who said 'I was one of the luckier ones, I applied for the job without a license, and Bond/Bristow (I forget which) trained me up to CPL IR'
Stop spending your savings/debt on the IR, let
them pay for it once the self funded lot are drying up - surely bonding with the offer of a job is the sensible way forward...?