P T Flea
The Khalifa contract from Algeria has stopped and they just have existing students finishing off. I don't know what the state of play is with the Algerian Air Force contract. I heard that immigration were very cagey about issuing any new visas to Algerian students in the light of the number of terrorist arrests involving Algerian nationals. However a couple of interesting points about the Khalifa contract. The first is that Oxford actually lost money which may sound hard to believe but that is what I was told and secondly if it was not for the Khalifa contract then Oxford would of folded in the post 9/11 period. The second comment was one that was mentioned by management! With BA and bmi not running any new courses then Oxford are bound to be creating new ideas to get business. At the end of the day you can't blame them because it is what any company would do.
£20K is a heck of a lot of extra money and if I were you I would make sure that the course extras merit the £20K extra. You would be very foolish to assume that Oxford will find you a job since there are far too many variables. Sadly such a crystal ball does not exist but it would be good if it did! The current political instability in Iraq could tip the balance over to the other side and APP scheme or no APP scheme, you will find that airlines will simply not recruit in the wake of any war. With that money you could buy a jet type rating if you really wanted or you could buy an instructors rating and roughly 50 hours twin time at an FTO that will charge a reasonable price!
Don't be lulled into a false sense of security of flashy new sims and new selection procedure. Also the extra jet handling time would be nice but I recall one chief pilot stating that doing a JOC is pointless since you will be doing the same exercise when you join a company anyway!