let me explain the problem to you guys in very simple terms.
I have no problem with Lufthansa, BA, KLM employing 200 hour pilots. I think it's absolutely great. They are chosen from a stupendously harsh preselection process, as being the highest quality 10 or so people out of probably 10,000 candidates, they are put through the finest training money can buy, they are mentored and supervised by their airline throughout, and in their first several months on the line they are exclusively flying with some of the finest training captains on earth, in perfectly maintained jets in a fantastically wonderful SOP and ATC environment. Safe as houses right? Of course it is, that is the dream that we all had when we first decided we wanted to be airline pilots, and that is the scenario that I think most of you are defending when you talk about 250 hour cadets.
But.
It's the dream.
It's NOT THE REALITY, not for 99.99% of us anyway.
The reality is, that the schools use the images of said dream, to market their product to every person that walks in the door who has money to spend. They make their PPL students wear epaulettes and hang pictures of A380s on every wall. They go through the motions of having a "selection process" which nobody fails
and they go to extraordinary lengths to talk about their "relationships with airlines" and every other kind of bulls
t under the sun. This is all done with one objective in mind, to draw the customer in the door, and keep them happy until they have spent their money. And they are very good at it.
Which leads to the problem we have now. Massive massive oversupply of pilots who hold commercial qualifications but have no experience.
At some stage in the middle or later parts of your training, most of you probably realized or came to grips with the fact that you are NOT actually a special snowflake despite what the school marketing guy told you, and you have a potential problem on your hands upon completing your training.
Now what are you going to do about it?
No problem says the integrated school, we can sort you out with a "job" once you've completed your IR. It will cost you another 50,000 for the type rating and, ummm, you'll get paid 1000 euros a month, and, ummm, it's a zero hours contract so you might not get paid at all in the winter, and, ummm, once you've completed 500 hours there's a chance you might not get to keep your "job". But hey, you'll be a "cadet pilot" and you'll get to fly a jet!
This is the best that most of you can hope for nowadays. The 25% or so who fall into this category, are the lucky ones in some ways because they are probably in a European lo-co and still under that safety umbrella of European legislation. Not exactly living the dream and not exactly getting rich but they are learning their trade. They're still living at home because they can't afford their own place, and they are very tired all the time because of the long commute to work for those 14 hour 4 sector duty days with the low cost airline. And wow it was hard to understand those instructions from that controller in that crazy east european provincial airport we were at last night. But hey, we're safe enough right, we're "cadets"!
So. Now we have accounted for the 0.01% who got into BA/LH/KLM and we've accounted for the 25% who got into Ryan / Easy etc.
Where does that leave the other 3/4 of you?
Oh dear says the school marketing agent. Hmmm let me think. I can't do anything for you "officially" but I know a guy who knows a guy out in Indonesia and they sell type ratings and 500 hours on type. Can definitely get you in there. It will cost you 100,000 and you won't get paid at all. The operating standards aren't that flash, the captains are a bit "third world" in their CRM and the weather gets pretty interesting in the rainy season, and the FO's aren't actually allowed to do any landings because the company has had 3 B737s go off the end of the runway in the last 12 months but hey, what are the chances of that happening to you, you're the best of the best, you're a "cadet" and you're flying a Real Live Jet!
And once you've done your time and you head back to Europe, you'll be a Highly Experienced Pilot and the real airlines will snap you up for sure! I hear BA/LH/KLM will be hiring next year
You can see where I'm going with this.
This all leads to the kind of
obscene and ridiculous situation we have
HERE. I work for a major airline in South East Asia and I can tell you that this part of the world is absolutely awash with sub standard pilots, and fake logbooks, and people who've been kicked off P2F schemes, and fools with 300 hours and type ratings on every kind of jet.
I'm sure those guys didn't mean to start down that path and I'm sure when they walked into that flashy flying school to start their training, they got told they were special, just like everyone else. But the end result is what matters. They are responsible for the lives of 180 other people, just like everyone else. It never used to be possible for those kinds of people to get into a large passenger jet straight out of school, it is now.
Can you guys see the problem yet? All this talk about cadets just goes around in circles because the term "cadet" is used these days to cover everything from the BA/Lufthansa astronauts, to the P2F accidents waiting to happen.
As you move further away from the elite legacy airline schemes though, and into the other circles, I feel it's absolutely true to say that money plays more and more of a part, and ability plays less and less of a part. That's why I have such a problem with it.