In an attempt to unblinker you
I have for a long time been concerned by the amount of good data which people have on the industry and the terms. I have in fact had this conversation with senior BALPA guys and until recently they considered that cadets were not their problem, that is starting to change, please refer to their website and youtube videos.
My purpose here is to highlight the downsides, I certainly wont be drawn into long debates and negative responses to this.
To many I have been very lucky, sponsored through my training and moved on quickly to easyJet and now BA. I have always passed everything, been promoted and recruited much faster than is likely on average.
What you dont hear is this: 'A lot of pilots in BA are very unhappy and hate the job / airline / lifestyle'
I once spent the whole day dissuading a member of crew from applying to this or any other scheme and to not follow a career in aviatipon. He left by saying thanks for ruining my dream.
I have also spent the day with guys who hove spent over £100k mortgaged their parents home and have very little to show for it, who claim that nobody ever warned them, I ask them whether they feel that they should have done more homework and should they shoulder some of the responsibility, they usually feel that the school led them into it...
Firstly you must look at incentives:
The schools need your money or they will go bust quite quickly
The airlines need cheap first officers
The union needs subs and newbies to pay the old guys their salaries
Nobody buy nobody cares about you or your lifestyle, you only need to look at BA mixed fleet cabin crew to see that. I often spend time with these guys too, and they are often crying, catching a coach to glasgow to go home to save £15 on the cost of a stby.
Most people become pilots and crew because they 'know instinctively' that thats what they need to do. This is not the case, it will wear off very quickly.
I do not currently know a single person I trained with who doesnt want to get out of flying.
A great many people (myself included) are now considering joining Emirates, this is a last desperate attempt to earn enough monrey to have any kind of lifestyle and a big part of that is that there you may get command quite quickly and be able to move if you have to. As a first officer you are basically worthless in the industry, and only jet command time on something over 50T will really help.
The only time I recommend this path now is to those who are not particularly gifted academically and whose parents cant help them into a professional career, to these folks the £80 - £100k may be a wise investment in increasing future earnings above what was likely to have been achieved.
For those with any kind of ability whatsoever almost any other professional path would be better.
This path will lead to a poor lifestyle, low earnings and a very disrupted life in general. Please also consider that the older pilots in any airline will also want you to join as they recognise that you are needed to keep the show on the road to pay their salaries.
New entrant pilots into BA can expect that throughout their entire career (job is a better word) they will have low pay and very poor prospects for command.
The recent BALPA letter highlights how dire the promotional prospects are.
Make no mistake, you need to be a captain in todays aviation world and in that respect you are far far better off joining easyJet / Ryanair or a ME carrier. Though as I say the best bet is to stay flying as a PPL and forget becoming a commercial pilot.
Very few people will listen to this advice. And you will not hear it that much, it is actually very upsetting to write this as it crystallises your own worst fears.
It takes big balls indeed not to apply to this, not to join BA when you get the chance. But this is not the place to be and has not been for 15 years.
At least ive let you know and anybody who can become a solicitor / accountant / doctor / work anywhere in finance at all, surely should. Most of you will apply and most will not succeed, to those I would say that you are by far the better for not getting in, I wish I never had.
Best of luck