Forget the traditional route

[FANS]

Guys

Heard lots of talk about building hours then moving up the chain = FI/Twins/TurboP/Jets, but it's all nonsense now.

I really reckon we're at the stage whereby you're first job is either on a 737/A320 or you're never going to fly one.

The change in the last 5 years has been unbelievable.

Training schools are chucking out grads still, and the airlines are only too happy to take them as it makes ££sense££. In summary, it's never been easier to get straight onto a jet (provided you've got the cash).

Personal view is you've got the following options:

1) Modular/Integrated and try like hell to get into RYR.
2) Modular/Integrated and Eagle Jet/P2F . You might then get a Far Eastern gig.
3) CTC Wings and EZY.
4) tagged scheme

Talk of qualifying and then doing the FI route is just naive now, unless FI is what you want to do. You're better off saving the FIR money and buying some form of TR - it really is that bad.

Regardless of what EZY pay you with CTC, you're getting hours on A320 and jumping the queue of the 1000s sitting around in SEP time. I reckon it could save you a decade, and after a few years with EZY you'll be on decent money and have some other options.

I really think we need to think how the landscape has massively shifted and that you need to now have the money for:
1) FATPL
2) TR
3) living costs for 2 years

i.e. a massive amount of cash, but there's plenty out there who do. We're honestly at the stage whereby if you don't have enough for those 3, you shouldn't even start, unless GA is your passion.

[ElitePilot]

A real shame but true at the moment however with the FAA changing its rule on 1500 hours to fly shiny jets who knows if JAA/EASA will follow suit in the near future?

[Sciolistes]

They won't follow, the whole point of the JAA transtion at the turn of the centruty was to provide enough pilots for the airline industry without having to build hours through the old labourious self improver route. If they mandated 1500 hours, the industry would not be able to grow. It is a different story in the vastness of the US where GA is a crucial service, and building hours is not such an issue.

[portsharbourflyer]

Elitepilot,

Under the FAA system you can obtain a full ATP without any multi crew time, so you can obtain a full FAA ATP without flying anything bigger than a seminole.

Where another thing that has further contributed to the pay to fly culture is the fact a JAA ATPL can only be "unfrozen" with a minimum of 500 multi crew hours, so no amount of single pilot air taxi will give you a full JAA ATPL.

As turboprop companies realised they were just been used as a stepping stone to the jet jobs, training bonds were increased, salaries lowered in an attempt to trap employees into 3 to 4 years of employment; this in turn has also contributed to the pay to fly culture. So I think a 1500 hour rule in JAA land would only see GA and regional operators lower terms and conditions further.

FANs,

Totally agree with you, when I look at all my Friends that paid for ratings when I became an FI, they are now all happily employed on decent money. I am now back in my old job with very happy memories of working as a FI and flying on old generation turboprop. But as great as those memories are my flying career has been at a stand still for the last two years.

Any one with a previous career that pays upward of 40K plus a year, will realise that the pay cut to go full time instructing for twelve months plus the price of a FI rating is as much as the average tr+line hours scheme.

[timzsta]

For those of us who started some time ago and went down the FI route to build hours we are now stuck there with no chance of getting into an airline. Those ahead of us who fly turboprops are stop there because the whole system is bypassed by 200hour people going straight onto jets.

The selection process now is purely about being able to afford a type rating and work for nothing to start with.

But change maybe afoot.........

[FougaMagister]

FANS - you assume too much. Not everyone wants to fly an A320 or 737 at all costs. Some of us have been happily flying turboprops for years, and it can be a lot of fun! And some have no intention of accepting degraded T&Cs, just for the sake of getting their hands on a medium/heavy jet.

Cheers :cool:

[ElitePilot]

Fouga, I do agree however despite degrading t's +c's ruining the industry you cant deny the attraction that generally speaking an a320/73 will pay far better than a tp and plus if you have these ratings its an easy transition to for example 330/340 (from 320).
Dont get me wrong i fully back the improver route but cant see how europe can/will revert.

[FougaMagister]

ElitePilot - I deny it. As things stand, I'm paid way more than what some European 737 or A320 guys get. Also, don't forget there's more to decent T&Cs than just money - or a bigger aircraft... Moving on to A330s/340s in time? Fair enough, but while heavy jets might look nice and flatter one's ego, you'll get to do much less hand-flying, even if the SOPs allow you to (which is unlikely). Plus flying back and forth through multiple time zones plays havoc with your health in the long run.

However - I fully agree with the OP, and your analysis, that the pilot job market has changed considerably (and not for the better) over the last few years. Even for experienced crew, there are now some subtle barriers within the industry. Some airlines will now rather hire a someone with 300hrs on their a/c type than an experienced pilot with 3000hrs on TPs. Again, I'm not interested, but I find it unacceptable on principle - and quite worrying. It's a sign of an industry where the bean-counters are at the controls.

A number of my friends are currently finishing their training, or have just done so, and there are much fewer avenues open to them than when I was in their position a few years back. I followed a different kind of "self-improver" route, working both in the air and on the ground for some years; even that does not bring as many benefits today as it did then.

Cheers :cool:

[DB6]

Nah, bollocks. My airline is in the process of recruiting just now and the majority of the new entries are FIs, since they can actually fly. Neither have any of them had to bend over and have their tea-towel holders reamed out by some pikey tosser for the honour of flying one of his airborne cattle transporters. If you value your ring it can still be done - or you can follow the flock to Pucker-piercer City :}.

[ElitePilot]

Fouga: Are you saying you're TP airline would pay more than a 320 operator in the same country as you? I said generally speaking obviously it may be different comparing say a UK operator to an Eastern European?
Sure long haul doesnt appear to all me included but i'd be interested to know which TP pays more than a jet job.

[Luke SkyToddler]

Ahhhhh DB6 me old mucker good to see you haven't lost your way with words :D:D:D

He's totally right as always, the self improver way is still very much viable. There is still plenty of Saabs, ATR's, Bombardiers, Embraers etc etc stooging round the European skies and most of them just quietly get on with the business of hiring the most experienced and well presented traditional-route guys and girls they can find. No hype or work-for-free or buy-a-type-rating or cutting deals with schools for cadets or whatever, they're just doing what they have always done. Yes it takes longer to get the old-skool hours. Yes it makes you a better pilot. Yes you'll see some other guys with 200 hours flying bigger shinier gear than you. Yes, you'll also see a great number of integrated graduates flipping burgers because they spent their money at a big sausage factory school and their number didn't come up in the post-graduation lottery.

It's not the only game in town ... but you guys would do well to remember that a dead-certain way to guarantee you WON'T get a call up for a job with a regional or a bizjet or whatever, is to be a 200 hour 737 or A320 type rated hotshot.

[FougaMagister]

ElitePilot - I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you! :E My outfit is the best-kept secret in the industry... So you'll have to do your own research. Guess why I don't want to move... Most local jet FO jobs ("legacy" airline excepted) would mean a pay cut, to say nothing of the "lifestyle", and usually having to pay for a new rating up front - which I won't do...

As Luke says, there are still some decent jobs out there. My point is that they're becoming rarer...

Cheers :cool:

[mikehammer]

Fougamagister

I would qualify that with the opinion that the jobs of which you speak are not only rare, they are unattainable to most. As a turboprop pilot myself, I agree that there is a whole lot more to terms and conditions than money (in simple monetary terms I am badly paid in comparison to most jet pilots). However I get an excellent pension contribution, good holidays which are easy to bid for and win, a stable roster, decent expenses when away from base, and I live in an area where the air is clean and road traffic low. Most importantly I work with some excellent calibre individuals who are all extremely friendly with no airs and graces.

No company is perfect but it seems to me (not been here that long) than we are a good team and have a common goal. Most of the people I speak to respect their employers and their immediate bosses. Our flight crew manager and training manager are probably the best in the business and are also highly approachable people. Safety is not thwarted at any avenue and the law is adhered to rigidly, unlike at my previous other European state operator. I'll take a big pay cut any day for that lot of factors mixed up in a job.

[Fair_Weather_Flyer]

I think FANS is probably right, maybe the only way to go is the pay for everything route. Problem is that the financial returns will never justify the expenditure. Ryanair, Jet2, EasyJet/CTC and the rest will make sure that is the case. Having more money than sense is vital.

As for the self improver route, I am one and it is a bad route to go right now. Any notion that turbroprop/RJ jobs are attainable right now is not realistic, at least in the UK. There are certainly not "plenty" of SAAB's, ATR's, Bomardiers and Embraers out there. In fact FI and air charter jobs are not realistic either. I work for a fairly large company operating TP's and it's pushing three years since anyone left for a good job. This has meant a very stagnant situation, with very few new commands and very few new FO joiners; some of those have quit after a short period of time. Airlines come and go and if I lost my current job, as it stands I would most likely not find another job. Yes, Loganair have recruited a few but others are crap deals; pay 12-20k for the rating and then get a not very well paid dead job (Eastern, Air Contactors).

My alternative suggestion is to wait it out. The airline industry is in a race to the bottom right now and airlines are getting complacent about safety. Sooner or later someone is going to have a crash and no matter what the cause it will be a big scandal. Maybe then these vile P2F schemes will be legislated against.

[Guttn]

This is quite a dilemma. And it doesn`t matter if you are an experienced pilot or straight out of flight training. The experienced pilot gets shafted because of his/her experience (not only hands on A/C, but in the industry) in any other business would immediately equate into a higher salary than an F/O without any experience at all. The pilot with the wet ink on his/her license, however, gets shafted by TRTOs (in bed with flightschools and LoCos) and beancounters calling upon them to fork up some dough for a SSTR or a P2F scam, arguing that this will certainly gve them the experience required.... And suddenly you are an experienced F/O fighting the same uphill battle again.

The main problem is that European airlines`beancounters have more or less collectively agreed that being able to pay for your own training (and/or hours on type) is more of an asset to a company which is hiring (typical LoCos, but not exhausted...) than flight and aviation industry experience. :ugh::{:yuk:

As it seems, the problem isn`t going away quite yet. I think most of us know what it takes for a major change of legislation to take place, but we hope it doesn`t have to come to that. The main problem for new pilots is that they have been taught by their flightschools and TRTO folks visiting the flightschools, that buy a typerating is the way to go to succeed. If this is the only input they are exposed to regarding employment, well, that`s what they are going to do. := I would personally like to see union representatives go n road trips to flightschools to give them another view - just to try and balance things off a tad. :ok:

[portsharbourflyer]

Fair Weather Flyer,

One small correction to your post, Air Contractors (I do not work for by the way), I would probably say have quite good terms and conditions; and the people I have met from ACL seem to be quite a content bunch. That said you are correct it is a company where you are required to already hold an ATR rating to gain employment (either via SSTR or another ATR operator). I suspect this is infact who a certain poster on this thread works for.

All systems create equilibrium and sooner or later if the myth that all pay to fly candidates are binned after a single season or not rehired in the following season then eventually all companies will run out of senior FOs for command upgrade, further more the authorities also require an experience spread within an operator, so there are limits to the number of low houred pilots that can be employed. I'll accept Ryanair do seem to only take low houred cadets with no provision for mid experience FOs; but on the other hand as much as I detest MOL, it has created alot of flying jobs that didn't exist previously.

[1Wingnut]

I can confirm that what FougaMagister says is plausible because I am in the same situation. I fly a TP in the Middle East. I would welcome a chance to work in a more enjoyable location, but I am faced with a huge pay cut if I should go to any airline as an FO. Tax-free salary, free housing, and a company car make me put up with living in a difficult location. I feel lucky to be logging turbine PIC hours in a typed aircraft, while a lot of my pilot friends back in the USA would be happy to just be flying anything.

[Coffin Corner]

I don't know why people keep saying cadets are being shafted by the training schools, they're not. They are shafting theirselves, attending a high end training school and SSTR scheme is totally optional. Being shafted is if I checked my account one day and someone had obtained my bank details by false means and wiped it out.

[B767PL]

Also keep in mind guys that since 2001, except for that one hiring boom where everyone was going, it has been a tough time. One of the toughest.

This past recession that Europe is still trying to get out of has tremendously affected the market, and all airlines in Europe and in bad way.

This last downturn is I believe the worst there has ever been as far as airline hiring. Plenty of people started training during the boom, because of all the positive news, and finished when it was too late, and hiring died. Only a few airlines were hiring, like RYR, EZY, Wizz. All low paying, SSTR places. In the mean time thousands of experiences , type rated guys on the street all getting in, or your SSTR rich man.

Once places pick up hiring, there will be movement, and requirements will go down again. History has shown this cyclic movement to be common for the industry. Once the big fish start taking people from the less desirable, lower paying places, there will be room there, and eventually they will need to take on nonTR guys. I (for now) won't believe that there will be enough newbies with the cash, and will to spend that much to make not that much. And those mentioned airlines will not have the supply they have had for the past years to choose from, which will open, at least some, options out there.

If only all the newbs could get over their Shiny Jet Syndrome, and not be so eager to throw up a picture of themselves next to an airbus on faceb@@k, we would all be better off.

[B767PL]

Although it is completely true that whoring or prostituting yourself to these companies who take advantage of you like the Easy scheme for example is what is ruining the industry, as well as our own futures in it.

Get over the shiny jet syndrome, and get a reality check to all the newbs out there contemplating selling their souls.

[Coffin Corner]

I have said before though, the one and only reason why these schemes exist in the first place is because people are willing to pay it. It really is as simple as that. They would disappear overnight (well, not literally) if people just stopped paying for it.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

The CTC EZY scheme sees you earning £1,200 a month tax free for 8 months and then getting paid at the rate of approx £43 per block hour which at, say, 800hrs works out at £36,800 gross.

When you compare that to working as a flying instructor, other air work or joining the lower end of the turboprop operator market then its a no brainer.

As soon as you have six months under your belt the BA/Emirates application form is all ready and waiting.


Sad to say but the traditional route is not looking good and unlikely to improve.

The world has changed and until people with >£100k to spend on training dry up it ain't going to change back.



WWW

[Felix Saddler]

So would it be fair to say that the Integrated route has eventually won out, and that tomorrow's airline pilots need look to it to break into this industry?

F

[Coffin Corner]

WWW are you saying Emirates will interview & employ pilots with only 400hrs TT? I doubt it opens up opportunities there somehow :)

[Ollie23]

So would it be fair to say that the Integrated route has eventually won out, and that tomorrow's airline pilots need look to it to break into this industry?

Those who have won out are those who can afford an Integrated course and a type rating.

I'm still absolutely astounded at the number of young people with access to this magnitude of funding, my friend attended the CTC assessment recently and apparently they are still queuing up to put the parents house on the line. I don't think they ever stopped, despite the economic climate, and I don't think they ever will.

[disco87]

Yea I should have gone Integrated when I had the chance.

[Coffin Corner]

Ollie23, you and me both mate, I am still perplexed as to where they are getting the money from in such a constant and non stop stream.

[Bealzebub]

The money is less available from the banks, which is probably no bad thing, since much of the lending and the borrowing proved to be irresponsible. However all the other traditional windfall resources continue to exist: Savings; Inheritance; Pension lump sums; Property downsizing; Equity guarantees and gifts. These continue to be the prime resources for this type of financing, and nobody should be perplexed by the significant sums that sufficient people can raise from these resources. Unfortunately that doesn't apply for many individual cases, and of course for the majority it won't.

I have said it before, but will say it again. Airlines have never employed anything other than a tiny percentage of low houred pilots. Almost all of that tiny recruitment came from approved (integrated courses) usually tied to that airlines own cadet programme. The changes that came about with the introduction of JAR, reduced the non-approved experience requirement for the issue of a CPL/IR from around 700 hours, to around a third of that level. This enabled the licence to operate as an "aerial work" type licence, in much the same way as it did in the USA and most other countries. At the same time as this change came about, so the requirement for a flying instructors rating, required the holder to have a CPL, rather than only a PPL as had been the case previously.

A lot of people thought that this massive reduction in the experience levels required for licence issue via the modular route, was some sort of bonus that meant airlines would snap them up with far less experience than they had in the past. This misconception was fuelled by one or two new entrant Lo-cost airlines who also exploited the situation in order to change the role of the First Officers seat. Some of their more flamboyant CEO's made absolutely no secret of their desire to eliminate this seat altogether. Fortunetaly, neither the regulators nor the manufacturers gave this idea any serious consideration. Instead those airlines turned the seat into a revenue opportunity, that satisfied both their shareholders and the regulators basic requirements.

Most companies have taken some advantage of the situation, but only in so much as they have expanded their own cadet schemes whilst still tying themselves to integrated full time training schools. This enables them to employ cadets whose continuous, integrated, training regime is something that they can understand, monitor and to some extent control. Not only that, but they can obtain the output at a very attractive price, often with built in bonds and often on a probationary (no risk) basis.

If I were 30 years younger and looking at the best prospect of a fast track airline career, there is no doubt that in the UK at least, I would be looking at 2 primary training providers, and one other long established provider.

The primary providers, would be those two who have direct seamless links with the end employers. The employers are those companies that have either contracted to take on a variably defined number of cadets, or those companies with formalized cadet programmes linked to the training school in question. In both cases you are likely to find yourself in New Zealand or Spain.

The secondary provider would be a well established school whose previous track record included provision of cadets to both UK and overseas airline companies. These days it seems to be running third to the competition, but nevertheless has a reasonable recent record of providing candidates to a large lo-cost airline.

For those whose finances, or whatever other reason, don't allow for these options, then things are more difficult. The chances of airline employment at the licence issue level are largely unrealistic, and likely to remain so until and if they can raise their experience levels elsewhere. Once they do, they are still likely to be in disadvantageous competition with ex-military pilots, career advancement experienced pilots, and unemployed experienced pilots. Indeed this has always been the case, but the expansion of the "integrated cadet" market, is likely to put significant additional pressure on this end of the job seeking market, even in an improving economy.

I appreciate this isn't necessarily what some people might want to hear, but it is what I have experienced and seen happening over the last 30 odd years, coupled with what I see happening now.

[M1ghtyDuck]

Would the right to live and work in the USA change the chances of someone progressing in a somewhat traditional route? I have a US passport through my mother, is that any advantage?

I'm at PPL with approx £30k saved up, and as briefly as I can my plan is to finish uni, and have my CPL/IR done by 2 years from now with no debt. At the start of 2013 I plan to head to Southern Africa and get a job there, working for a year or two to get my experience to the 700+ hour level that hopefully opens the GA world in USA up to me.

I'll convert my licence to FAA and apply for skydive jobs/float companies etc, hopefully finding one with a varied fleet that allows internal progression on to larger and multi engine aeroplanes, and perhaps even turboprop skydive droppers or a regional airline to get turbo time.

I have no desire to go straight into an airline - I'm sure I would find that type of flying boring at the moment. However, I would like to end up there as I get older (say 15-20 years from now). Are people saying there's little chance even then of getting an airline job, with say 7000 hours TT, two or three thousand of which is hopefully on multi crew turboprop?



If still no chance compared to CTC graduates, what's to stop someone doing the traditional route from *gasp* paying for a type rating/line training themselves once they finally want an airline job? Leaving aside the morals and degrading effect on T&Cs this has, surely an airline would consider someone with the above time, plus 500 hours on an A320, very well?

I just get the impression that it can actually be a disadvantage to have a whole bunch of hours on SEP/MEP/TP and be 30-35, compared to being a 200 hour 20 year old, when surely at the very worst it's a level playing field once you both pay for type rating/line training (which you could do with a career of saving).

Does my plan seem viable? Or is the only way I could get ever get into an airline jet job just by giving up on the idea of having 10-15 years fun while I'm flying, getting a graduate scheme job to save another 40k in those two years, and doing CTC or similar. (I wouldn't do this even if it was - I want to enjoy flying)

Thanks

[captainsuperstorm]

I just get the impression that it can actually be a disadvantage to have a whole bunch of hours on SEP/MEP/TP and be 30-35, compared to being a 200 hour 20 year old, when surely at the very worst it's a level playing field once you both pay for type rating/line training (which you could do with a career of saving). yes, nobody care anymore as long you have the 50000$ to buy 500hours, then get out. move one for the next guy!!! thats the reality .

in fact, the guys with 3000h on light twin can find jobs due to their 3000h flying skills, while the guys of 25 years, with 500h, will be stuck with his FMGC skill.

really, who care of a 500h A320 pilot who can not even land a plane in a X wind or calculate a descent rate without his FCU.

if i was hiring a pilot on my personal Pc12 or king air 200? do you think I will hire a 320 pilot with 500hours of Autoflight?? noway!!.

get real, planes asked for real pilots with real flying skill who know how to fly a real plane, not a bunch of monkeys with momy and daddy money playing the 320 copilot.

for me, a 320 pilot is not a pilot.we are just a bunch of operators with some MCC skill developed by Airbus technocrats . Our license should be "320 commercial operator", not commercial or airline pilot license.

of course the teenagers who pay the 500h on efis plane , don't agree with me, they think they are God!!!.

[Luke SkyToddler]

You do talk some extraordinarily ignorant crap sometimes ...

Try and fly an A330 into Kathmandu, or do some night circling approaches to Peshawar or Sana'a in monsoon season, and you'll soon stop talking crap about whether airbus pilots are "real" pilots or not :)

[excrab]

Luke,

I wonder how many 500 hour pilots are flying A330s into Kathmandu?

Captain superstorm is probably quite right if he is talking about UK/Northern Europe on A320 and indeed 737.

Most of the flying is in a radar environment, mainly vectors to an ILS, and certainly in the UK it is unusual to do a non-precision approach on a lot of routes and NDB almost never, and most would probably fly it on the FMC anyway.

A pilot who just does a 200 hr CPL then 500 hrs of flying in an Airbus or a Boeing is not very well fitted to do any other sort of flying in any other sort of aircraft. I don't think he was having a go at anyone flying for Emirates or Etihad or whatever it is that you do.