BirdmanBerry,
The WA APC is the only part of the route run by WA themselves, the sim is provided by Cardiff Aviation, but with WA staff and some of the classroom work is done in partnership with some of the folks from AirlinePrep in the Bristol Groundschool premises in Clevedon. From looking at the Aeros website it looks like the main difference between the two routes is right at the end for the MCC/JOC. If you look at Aeros MCC page, they send you to Simtech so my comments above will apply. Like the others said, it's up to you where to spend the cash as the products are different, one is a good quality bare bones course and the other features a great deal more.
The WA course is £7,500 and the Simtech course (when bought separately) is €5,500, so that's approx £2,500 more for the WA course at the moment. Having done both courses, in my view it's a no brainer to go to WA as you get twice as much stick time in a full motion B747-400 sim (rather than a fixed 'B737-style' sim with a chintzy LCD monitor as an overhead panel). My instructors at WA were all current airline pilots, whereas as some at Simtech retired a number of years ago, which made a big difference in the way they taught things. Perhaps just as important are the 2 days worth of pilot core competencies course (run in conjunction with Airlineprep), which was absolutely key for me in understanding what interviewers were actually asking. After the courses, Simtech said thanks and to drop them a line when I had a job, whereas WA staff were in contact regularly, helping find vacancies and offering to check CVs, cover letters etc. and offering advice when needed - it feels like the course isn't over until you have that interview and secure that job.
My advice (which anyone is free to disagree with) is to not cheap out on this last stage of your training. The price difference between the two courses mentioned here is relatively small in the whole scheme of things. I've noted that some posters on Pprune see the MCC/JOC as a tick in a box and to get it done as cheaply and quickly as possible, but I say if you are a freshly minted 200-hr CPL to take this opportunity to do the enhanced WA course and take full advantage of the extra training that was probably not a part of your flying courses thus far. In my own case these are the things that got me an airline offer; I can tell you that on my airline selection day there were eleven people to start the day (included quite experienced people), all but three got sent home before morning tea and only two got through to the sim stage - both had done the WA APC and we both had an offer at the end of selection. Remember, you could be unlucky and only ever get one shot at an airline interview and you want to go in as prepared as you possibly can, as competition is fierce!
All the best with your choices.
Last edited by gfunc; 13th Nov 2017 at 09:44.
Reason: More info