Your still skirting round the fact that all the jet jobs apart from Ryanair which takes modular as well are sown up by cadetships or the wings program.
Really? I didn't think I could have been much clearer. The cadetships are generally tied to integrated training courses from the three principle training providers with perhaps a greater leaning towards to one of them at the present time. The wings programme is designed to supply a range of partner airlines. It is not tagged to any particular one. Graduates of this programme have been supplemented by other integrated cadets as and when there has been a need over the last 15 years. I know that we have taken a few as part of a much larger intake.
And if the self financed untagged weren't paying there wouldn't be enough job to keep the current situation. They need the fodder to keep the system going so that the cadetships can continue.
They are all self financed. By that, I mean
all of them. The placement market for them is a function of the customer airlines requirement at the time of their graduation. A small number are on pre-selection or tied (MPL) courses, but the majority continue to be sourced from the holding pools or graduating courses.
These training schools supply courses geared to their partner airlines requirements. They also offer modular courses at significantly reduced cost. These schools are not solely reliant on the domestic UK market nor is their organisation (in each and every case) UK dependent.
Given your oft repeated statement of "go modular" and the reality of the "stepping stone" jobs that exist in the marketplace, I am not particularly surprised that:
I have even had parents beg to pay TR's and induction training and the kid work for free for 500 hours just so they can get some multi crew time.
Yes you guys get to work with the lucky ones. The rest of us get to see what falls out the bottom that supports the cadet schemes.
Unfortunately what "falls out of the bottom" isn't really what these cadet schemes are looking for. They are geared to what climbs to the top!
I would agree that we do get to fly with the "lucky ones." I have always said that luck plays an integral part in this career, but not in isolation.
I have stated many, many times, the history of the evolution to the current marketplace. The "lucky ones" selected the routes that gave them the advantage. From pinnacles with excellent views and vantage points, it isn't difficult to point out where those routes are. Whether anyone can or wishes to follow those routes is a matter for themselves and their own particular circumstances. These fast track routes are a bridge over a raging river. The toll is expensive and is not necessarily suitable or available for other than the minority. The
stepping stone jobs are out there and of course I hardly need to tell you that. However those
stepping stones are slippery, few and far between and very crowded. They may well prove to be a route to the other side for some of the hoards of hopefuls waiting to cross, but it is also a frustrating route, a crowded route, and potentially just as expensive and fraught with an even greater proportional attrition rate.
A university degree may well prove more beneficial as a general insurance policy. I find it difficult to ever suggest that educational betterment is anything other than a positive attribute. If that is possible with the advantages of also getting on a cadet based training programme then it is certainly worth considering. If it means sacrificing that type of programme for the benefit of a degree, then again it is certainly worth considering. It all depends on your appetite for risk, and that is going to vary from person to person. I suspect that the combined degree/integrated course cadet market is not likely to prove a large one, unless the partner airlines themselves drive it that way.