Every other guy in his position worked in the Co-Op, bars, fast food restaurants, Tescos etc and just hung in there
A very naive position I'm afraid.
To repay that level of debt and actually afford to rent a room, keep a car, buy food etc you would need at least a £30k - £35k job. Very very difficult if it's clear on your CV that you would be out the door at the first sniff of a flying job. Have you seen the state of the economy these days? It's actually difficult to get a job *anywhere*:
Graduate salaries down on previous year
None of these guys were particularly excited about going bankrupt - you can pay as much as you like per month into the HSBC unsecured loan but at 6 months arrears (so about £6,000) they sold your debt to a collection agency. This would eventually lead to bankruptcy.
Note that easyJet choosing to stop their traditional route (6 months on £1,000pm and then onto a cadet scale but then £1,000pm tax free) was the death of the unsecured loan - and of any decent route into easyJet.
If anybody asked me how to become an airline pilot these days I would say either:
1) Do the BA FPP scheme and go to Jerez because it's significantly sunnier than The Tron!
2) Don't do it. It's a futile exercise pandering to a company's whim with no respect whatsoever in the opposite direction. You're plain and simply an unfortunate cost to be managed.