Should I join ST Aerospace Qatar Airways MPL Cadet Pilot Program?

[SuperJet]

QR MPL

Dear All,

Here is what I know, which will hopefully help out those making this kind of decision about an MPL with QR. I have been involved with this quite heavily.

There are some disadvantages which should be taken into consideration. It is my very firm understanding that doing an MPL with QR will result in the issuance of a GCC Qatar Licence, not EASA or FAA. The QCAA have touted their training and syllabi as being "EASA compliant" which means essentially nothing. It means that they copy-pasted the majority of the regulations for training over from EASA, but it certainly does not mean they maintain that standard. EASA representatives, to whom i have had dealings with, and have spoken personally to on this subject, emphasise the QR and the QCAA do NOT comply or match EASA requirements, but, due to the "copy paste" they did with the training regulations, it gets into a grey area whether the authorities in the EU can request the QCAA to stop claiming "compliance"... That is purely a legality and political concern. As far as a training pilot, read it as QCAA/QR training is GCC, it is certainly NOT FAA/EASA, and at best, you could consider it an ICAO licence only, but from experience, licences issued under a GCC state are not well received or respected outside the GCC. So in my book, very very risky.

Secondly, on an MPL course, significant portions of the course are tailored to the SOPs of the carrier sponsoring. Thus, the transferability is somewhat limited should you wish to move elsewhere before your 1500 hours are up. I have been working closely with CTC in the past and again recently. The MPL, should you not complete the course, or, worse, have your sponsoring airline delay you severely on completion, you are highly unlikely to be able to switch to another carrier (for one, there is the SOP issue above), and in the best scenario (this from CTC directly), another MPL-accepting carrier would have to want you so badly, that they would conduct a full audit on the MPL training you had done, review the SOPs you had been following, and approve you to transition over to them. Extremely unlikely.

Furthermore, you, in my own opinion, are on very thin ice even once you have your MPL, your line training and type rating, and are in the right hand seat of a QR A320, because, if any any time you get laid off, or heaven forbid, fired, (not so much an unusual occurrence in QR, trust me), before your 1500th hour, you leave QR with a licence which costs you ~$155,000, cannot be transferred to another carrier, and which has little standing in terms of 'modular / intergrated' courses to allow you to jump into the advanced stages of the standard training route, and certainly not into another flying job.

The best description I can give of the QR MPL is that it represents a great idea, not fully stable yet, and it is, in my opinion, a bit of a "Hail Mary Pass". Personally, I would not commit to it, as it has too many gaping black holes in it to fall down, each of which potentially leaves you in serious debt, jobless, and with a licence (or part of one) which is extremely difficult to transfer or build on.

As I have mentioned throughout, this post is based on MY experience and MY views, based on the many professionals I have been dealing with over the years, their commentary and insights, as well as my own. If I am incorrect or misinformed on any point, I truly welcome being corrected, as, accurate and better information can never be a bad thing for any of us...