A source I was talking to at a big school said that this is certainly a possibility. They said that a few months ago, a couple of people on an MPL course for a well-known airline failed their final assessment and interview, before they go onto line-training and type-rating. The airline dismissed them. Supposedly they applied to every other airline possible, so see if they could transfer their MPL, to no avail. After all, what makes them different to any other applicant for a job. If this is true, then it's quite literally £100k down the swanny, with absolutely nothing to show for it. If anything, these MPL schemes are "guaranteed interviews", not "guaranteed jobs".
I think everything about flight training is a risk, but so is getting out of bed every day. If you keep your nose clean, don't fail anything, and do as your told, you will probably end-up in the right hand seat for EasyJet, and probably end-up with an ATPL in a few years.
Speaking hypothetically, if there were to be a massive downturn in air travel, I imagine the MPLs would be the first flight crew to go. Companies I used to work for always used to lay-off the apprentices and newest employees when the going got tough, so I imagine airlines will be no different.
I remember an argument between an MPL student and a self-sponsored integrated student. The MPL student claimed that if there were a financial crash, he would be safe as he has a "guaranteed job", whereas the self-sponsored would be screwed. I couldn't help but think that if there were a financial crash, both would equally be screwed!
