I disagree that it's "far superior" financially. That depends on how you look at it. If it were financially "far superior", then how come I can't afford the AL programme yet I can afford the BA FPP?
AL: The approximate cost of the initial training programme is €100,000. If you are successful in your application you will be required to fund approximately 25% of this training cost during the course. Upon successful completion of the course, a further 25% approximately will be recovered by Aer Lingus by means of reduced salary over a number of years. The full details of this will be outlined at a later stage in the recruitment process.
[my emphasis]
What this means is that you'll be required to find 25000 Euros yourself. To the best of my knowledge this won't be guaranteed by AL, and it's virtually impossible to otherwise acquire it without securing it against a property. Few people who might be young enough to get the most out of this career own such a property. So immediately family would be required to help. Furthermore, it would be difficult to get any kind of two-year payment holiday before having to start repaying such a loan, so (again) family would be required to start servicing such a debt almost immediately. And don't forget, a debt of 25000 is still a lot of money to repay. Moreover, a further 25000 Euros would be paid up by a reduced salary for the first few years of employment. So while I accept that this still represents a good opportunity given the alternatives if one were to go it alone, it's not as inclusive as the BA FPP.
With BA they guarantee your loan, so no need to secure it against a house. On top of that, there's a payment break for the duration of training, so no need to start paying it back while you're training. And then when you get a job with them, they'll pay you £1000 tax free per month on top of your salary for the first seven years of employment to service the vast majority of the debt (effectively paying for the entire cost of the training). Obviously there is interest in both cases, but that's not going to be vastly different in either case.
The cost of the initial screening process that
hatchet refers to is pretty inconsequential, given the vast numbers we're talking about. And quite frankly Aer Lingus could probably do with outsourcing their selection process because they have made a complete nonsense of it themselves, where nobody has a clue where they stand even weeks or months after AL said they would.