Its the selling of the product to self financed students which is at issue. There is very little openings for them because as you have pointed out the big boys are doing cadetships now.
As I have said before, they are
all self financed. Some of those that are not selected for the airline programme courses are offered the opportunity to undertake the same courses, whereby if they achieve the same results (despite their initial non-selection,) are offered the same placement opportunities upon conclusion. They take on an element of added risk, and the overall course costs may be higher because advanced training elements (such as an enhanced MCC course) may be an extra cost rather than an inclusive one. Nevertheless, these cadets are offered the same placement opportunities subject to the caveats I have already mentioned. The "
big boys doing (the) cadetships now" are taking them into those programmes. We certainly are.
Unfortauntely there just isn't enough cadets to keep the current system economic its relies on a huge raft of people to fall by the wayside with destroyed dreams.
The FTO that our cadet programme utilizes would appear to find airline placements for almost all of their succesful graduate cadet pilots. A few are undoubtably unsuccessful along the way, and a very small element may find their own opportunities, having obtained their licences and ratings. I doubt the majority have "destroyed dreams" and it most certainly isn't in the FTO's interest to allow that to be the case. As a destination for some of these cadets, we would hope to give those "dreams" a boost by providing a combination of excellent advanced training, and excellent career opportunities, for those who work hard and maintain a steep learning curve. In my experience all of them do.
What other airlines do or don't do. What other FTO's do or don't do, is for others with their own experience to comment on. There is no shortage of such comment on these issues. In the case of the FTO we utilize I don't see a field of littered corpses, in fact I see quite the opposite. However, in the wider world such carnage is very often the case.