I've often had difficulty believing thosa CAA stats.
As had been pointed out - somewhere like BFC are pumping out 100 IRs a year. Jerez is running at slightly more than that, Kiddlington must be churning out well over 100 and Cranfield must surely add another 80. Now add in some very busy smaller schools who have 2 or 3 aircraft working full time on IR work and I just don't get it.
Either a lot of people are failing a lot and needed years of renewals or there is something askew with those CAA stats.
Similarly - look at the number of people in ATPL groundschool. Right NOW there has got to be 500 people studying pretty much fulltime for the ATPL exams. If the CAA figures are legite then there must be a heck of drop out rate somewhere.
One can be certain only that competition for jobs remains stiff.
There *is* movement though. I know of at least 5 people who got the magic phone call in the last couple of months. The traditional Autumn recruiting market *is* going to be hot this year. There is barely a single UK airline that is not stretched tight as a drum on flightcrew.
With new aircraft arriving for both Ryanair and easyJet plus the distinct possiblity of BA recruiting direct entry pilots over the winter there could be a lot of people changing seats. Unless there is another Sept 11th the aviation sector should have the worst behind it. Economies are set to grow, fuel is cheap and travel has never been so easy or so fashionable.
For the first time since 12th Sept 2001 I could advocate starting training.
Good luck,
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