For me the new MPL is waste of money for two reasons. One most MPL programs require that you pay the full amount for the training which comes up to 115K GBP, and two, your license will not be released until you have 1200 hours. (Speaking for Qatar Cadet, Monarch, and other who will follow) What happens if you are kicked out from the airline at 1199 hours? or if the airline bankrupts? You don't have a license! Good point, you get a job right away, bad points, you are at risk of loosing everything, it costs so much money that in then end you need to think twice even if you make it through the selection. I know many guys who actually made it through the selection and did not accept the airline's contract because it was ******.
Most courses require that you pay the full amount for training. As for your comment that "your licence will not be released until you have 1200 hours", that is abject nonsense! The Multi Crew Pilots Licence (MPL) is a licence. It is issued upon completion of the course requirements just as with any other licence. It is transferable to any airline operating an approved MPL programme. At 1500 hours the licence may be converted (subject to the same criteria as a CPL/IR) to an ATPL.
Although it isn't new, the MPL is likely to see a resurgent growth as the weak economy recedes. We have just taken on our first course of MPL cadets and other courses are now in training. Other airlines already have, or are increasingly likely to switch over to this method of competency based
ab-initio training in the near and medium term future. It is very likely that it will become the mainstream route for
ab-initio cadets into airline cadet programmes. Principally this is because those same airlines have already, or are in the process of, switching over to competency based training throughout their internal induction and recurrent methodologies.
Our MPL cadets are on the same terms and conditions of placement and subsequent employment as our current non-MPL cadets. Within 15 months to 24 months (depending on fleet) they are on exactly the same conditions as the rest of our pilot contingent. Is there a risk? Well yes, there is always a risk, I am not sure I can tell you where there isn't one, but on the basis of a sensible assumption of "risk" I cannot see why you would be at any greater or lesser exposure.
If you don't like it fine. If you don't like the perception of "risk," fine. Likewise if the sponsoring airlines T&C's don't fit in with your idea of the realities of the marketplace, fine. But this is likely to be the growth medium for
ab-initio in the very near future and beyond.
I am surprised that certain people still believe that being an untagged integrated will get you anywhere better than being a modular student, especially when I know and everyone knows, that there are people who are in the holding pool of the big 3 for more than 2 years( after all, being in the pool for 2 years is considered normal, that's what the big 3 say once you decide to do your training there), and most of them end up doing the instructors in modular schools.
Most of our cadets and those of many other airlines cadet programmes come from these major FTO's. Their "holding pools" are tidal. By that I mean that airline recruitment is both variable and highly seasonal. Most recruitment occurs in the Winter and Spring when the greatest number of training tracks are available. When you couple this with the fact airlines plans are often influenced by rapidly changing global events and in turn market conditions, it can be very difficult (if not impossible) to guarantee, or even forecast with any degree of certainty, what will happen two years hence. Nevertheless, that is broadly speaking, how long the
ab-initio process takes for an integrated full time course of training with the major FTO's. It is therefore not surprising that so called "Hold pools" comprise candidates for varying lengths of time. I know that we took cadets last year who didn't spend one single day in a holding pool. This year we have taken on cadets who have spent anything up to 12 months waiting for a placement.
That is simply the nature of the beast.
Last point if I make, BA and Easyjet so far are the only airlines that expressed their preference to Integrated over modular, which one of the two is hiring now??(Both are actually firing pilots) You can get in any airline you want if you got hours anyway, regardless if you are integrated or modular.
No they aren't, and no they aren't. Many airlines with cadet schemes want people who are likely to be successful on the very steep learning curve that is the reality between
ab-initio training and airline flying. Cadet schemes are hungry consumers of available training resources, and few airlines can afford the extra resources of remedial training and failure as a result of the steep transition in candidates who haven't been trained towards an early airline environment. That is why these schools are partners. Their syllabi and methodologies dovetail well into airline operations, and this makes the difficult transition easier for the potential cadets. It also deals with the early selection criteria, the monitored and verifiable training regime, as well as the continuation and consistency of training.
If you really believe that "you can get in any airline you want if you got hours regardless of if you are integrated or modular," then I am afraid you are deluding yourself. Take a wander over to
Terms & Endearment. Here you will find many, many well experienced pilots being squeezed out of the market by the expansion of cadet schemes at one end of the scale, and the lack of movement at the upper end of the market in part caused by the 10 year extension to most senior pilots working lives.
I think you need to do a little bit more research...
Honestly now!