Of course many civilian pilots pay for training - that's the same for every industry but by P2F we mean paying to do someone else's job - and paying to sit in the RHS (and even LHS "upgrades") - paying to fly passengers so the airline doesn't have to pay professionals.
Standards vary hugely amongst P2F and if you are a customer then standards are certainly lower mainly through the entitlement culture and idiom of "the customer is always right".
P2F has already killed passengers :
The Colgan 3407 Captain who pitched the Q400 TP airliner beyond the stall into an incipient spin was P2F with Gulfstream in the US flying passengers in a B1900 before joining Colgan - he failed IR and SIM rides but was passed through the system:
www.operationorange.org/colganQ&A.pdf
The victims families reacted by forcing Congress down the 1500h minimum flying experience route before flying airliners.
This is already the case in Australia for B737/A320 sized aircraft but in the EU we have lower and lower experience and so lower and lower Ts&Cs for pilots.
When a doctor qualifies do they have to pay for training on the surgical instruments they use in operating theatres. Do they rent those theatres (without financial gain) to practice on the public? Does a Tube driver pay for the specific type of Tube he drives? Does he pay to drive those carriages for the first 6 months and then get told to move on into unemployment so another driver who wants to pay for 6 months can take over?
When a punter pays a just a few £GBP (pre tax) for a LoCo flight do they realize the Pilot occupying the front RH seat may be subsidising the flight by paying to work?
P2F is not an apprenticeship scheme, these are fully CAA qualified Commercial Pilots who have passed the Authority approved flight tests and ground exams which has already cost them between £75000 and £120,000.
How has this come about?
Because the system changed from UK National to JAR (European now EASA) rules, these new commercial pilots have around 250 flying hours on relatively light aircraft. Under the National system in the 1990s, they would have required at least 700h.
If you weren't ex Military or a fully sponsored British Airways cadet, in the past the route was to become a flying instructor. "Those that teach can" but the pay has not risen much since the 1980s (a weather dependant £10 a flying hour) unless you are highly experienced and work under contract for the military or large commercial flight school. Alternatively, you could work in General Aviation (Medivac, Banner towing, glider or parachute schools, Business aviation flying turbo props/jets, Freight, aerial photography etc, etc). This apprenticeship scheme gave commercial pilots well developed flight skills and huge experience of poor weather operations, logistics, and airmanship. The pay was not always good and some work was part time but the flying was fun and the pilots learnt a lot.
When the CAA rules changed to allow much lower flying hours to gain a commercial licence, the LoCo airlines in unison with less than scrupulous schools (in the USA the slang is "Pilot Mills") took advantage of a new market. This deteriorated into the money making racket we have seen over the past 5 or so years. They know these new pilots without much experience find it hard to find jobs or simply want to get the best paid employment asap to start paying back huge loans. So they sell the "shiny jet syndrome". This involves selling not just the "approved" commercial pilot course but they tell the new pilot he/she needs a Jet Type Rating ( previously a business expense of an airline that the employer bonded the pilot to 1 to 3 years service with no repayment if they stay working that long).
A Type Rating costs around £18,000 to 25,000 for a B737 or small Airbus. It is mostly Simulator time and lots of ground school. The tests are multiple choice except the "flight test" which is conducted by a CAA approved examiner (TRE). To have it issued on the pilot's licence also requires 6 landings in the real aeroplane which can add a further £5 to 8k. Some schemes led to a genuine job with the likes of easyJet - until 2008.
The Ryanair scheme never guaranteed employment. They even charge for interview! It runs to this day and those that pay ( see:
https://pilot.cae.com/Programs/Ryanair.aspx - around 30,000 Euros) are placed in a holding pool on contractor pilots who often have to set up their own businesses to become self employed (except the Inland Revenue says to be self employed you need more than one client - not just Ryanair!).
However, the Pilot Mills now tell airline pilot wanabes that Type Rating on own is no longer enough to get a job in the post 2008 market. They may have as little as 200 hours total flying experience but are already in £120,000 debt.
The Pilot Mills and some airlines now say these pilots need time on type in real operations. This is called Line Training and should take about 40 sectors ( a sector is one trip eg: Luton to Amsterdam). However, the LoCos/schools sell 100h to 500h blocks of time on type for up to another £30,000. So the pilot on your next holiday flight may only have 300 hours with just a few on the Airbus when the Captain collapses from a heart attack mid flight (eg:
Qatar: Pilot dies mid-air of heart attack - Oneindia News )
The worst examples are the schools that send P2F cadets to FAA and EU blacklisted airlines such as Lion Air:
Eagle Jet - Airline Pilot Central Forums
Eagle Jet International, Inc.
http://www.pprune.org/terms-endearme...petitions.html
A whilse ago I met with 5 unemployed A320 Type Rated pilots. One young chap had been promised easyjet employment - he had been through the approved pilot mill and come near top of his class. After Type Rating he did Line Training and was failed by the company for a lack of confidence (he had around 100 hours on type and under 400h total flying). he is now unemployed with huge debts to repay and insufficient experience to get a real airline job (need min of 500h on type these days even abroad). Another slightly older pilot had flown 100h with easyjet and wanted to do some more but they refused after that last flight. he remains unemployed looking for a flying position.
Often a P2F airline will eject the P2F cadet after the term and get another one. This process means they never have to hire another First Officer (FO) again. In the meantime, the employed FOs are on the ground on standby, unable to gain flying experience needed towards a command/captaincy.
How do these Pilot mills operate? They use LoCo airline Captains who wish to top up pensions or just gain Instructor ratings. Apparently, Stellios approached one such school at airline startup and was quoted a huge figure to pay for training new pilots. He was told it was less than an accident!
Thankfully we have not seen any major accidents in the UK as yet but there have been many incidents, including tail scraped landings and very high cockpit workloads for the Captains who have to fly with low houred cadets or P2F pilots. See:
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...JZ%2012-08.pdf