Loan for full amount of integrated ATPL training with BBVA

[ZML22]

Hi everybody, I'm new to this forum and am currently preparing for an application to CTC Wings to embark on my career as an airline pilot.

This thread is concerning experiences related to taking a huge loan in order to pay for training. Without going into detail on my own monetary situation, it may be the case that I end up having to take a loan for almost the full amount of my training (£93,000 + line training). I've been crunching some numbers, and with the repayments it looks as though it could be difficult to get by once I do eventually land a job with an airline. (I figure I would need a starting salary of around £30,000 for repayments and living costs).

If anyone reading has had any relatable experience, I would love to know how you dealt with it and how you got by in your first few years on the job. Furthermore, if anyone has previously dealt with BBVA, please feel free to express your opinions on them here.

Any information at all is appreciated.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to your replies.

[ford cortina]

yep £93,000.00 is a LOT of money, would think long and hard about this. What IF you dont get a job flying shinny jets with Ryanair, Jet2 etc....how will you make replayments

[SeventhHeaven]

Don't take a loan out for the full amount .. it's just silly, especially when you're going integrated.

I know people that had 150 000€ debts after training, and 4 years later are still not flying. They pretty much ruined 10 years of their lives.

Other did get a job eventually, and live on less than 1000€. Sure, they'll be alright ones they get everything paid off, and get their command. But nothing takes the charm out of flying when you're stuck on an early standby, for less money than a burger flipper.

Note that it takes most people 18 months to get their first flying job. That includes all the people that walk straight into an FI job, or get cadetships. So it's not that uncommon at all to see people, 2 years out of training, still looking for their chance.

In my opinion, as someone who financed his own training without a loan, you'd be daft to do so without a job offer up front. Whenever people ask for my opinion, I always advise them to wait a year or so, work and save up some money. It puts the training cost in perspective; It takes WAY longer to earn the money than it is the spend.

If you know a little bit about loans and interest rates, you'll quickly appreciate that it is a LOT easier to pay off a 70 000€ loan than a 95 000€ loan. It all adds up quickly.

Best of luck fella

[SeventhHeaven]

I applaud your motivation and enthusiasm - I wish more wannabes thought like you and actually saved up instead of relying on a bank!

BUT.... Don't say you made it before you even started/completed training. You're only just beginning. Everyone can get his license. However, getting a job afterwards is not a given, and a lot of jobs don't pay anywhere near enough to be worth the hardship.

Good luck fella

[Rottweiler22]

Finance is always a touchy subject, but sadly it completely depends on your own individual situation. I'm another one at the start of my journey, but I've had some dealings with the BBVA and spoken to a few people about approaching funding. I'm in no way qualified to tell you what it's like after your training, although some lads here are, but seeing £1300 depart my bank account every month would leave a nasty taste in my mouth, especially when you've got accommodation and living costs after that. :ugh:

I started-off pursuing the BBVA loan for the full amount, as it seemed a good idea at the time. At some point I decided to review my financial situation, and I realised that I would much better off exploring another option, and fully self-funding. I appreciate that I am very lucky in this instance, but, I've never been out of work since I was 16, being a painter, groundwork, accounts clerk and long-distance lorry driver, and I've always been very tight-fisted, giving me a financial advantage. Like said, everybody's situation is different. I hate to say it, but it's just the way it is. :(

A few people I've spoken to on integrated courses seem to favour the 50/50 method, i.e £45k loan and £45k from family, working, remortgaging, etc, as it pushes repayments down to a reasonable amount. Rather than paying-back £1250 per month during the full-repayment period, you're only paying £620 per month. Sadly, this will most-likely require help from your family, unless you're willing to graft for a few years to save £45k. A lad I know went halves on the £45k with his parents, working for two years in a restaurant to save £22.5k, and his parents lending him the other £22.5k. Not ideal, but he pays-back around half of what he would have done if he'd got the loan for £90k, which is another way around it.

On thing the BBVA doesn't tell you is that the full-repayment amount per month of your loan must be less than 40% of your guarantors' net income (deductions from mortgage payments, cost of living, loan repayments, etc). So if you borrow £90k, you'd pay back £1250 per month in the full-stage. This is 40% of £3125, so your guarantors pretty much need to have a disposable income of at least £3125 per month, presumably because if you had some financial trouble, they could help you out. If not, the BBVA refuse your application, deem your loan to be "unaffordable", and ask that you apply for a smaller amount, or get another guarantor. That, and your guarantors' property must meet similar requirements.

Good luck with everything, but what you do is what you do, not anyone else. If the loan for the full amount is the only option, go for it, but anyone with intelligence would be weary of what lies ahead. :ok:

[Jaair]

Taking out some a huge loan is not a smart move, especially if you're young AND not guaranteed a job in the end.

I am currently in University full time while working a full time job as well in order to give me a head start for saving up for my flight training. It's not easy but doable. I am in my early 20s and not in any rush to get into the RHS as well.

[Rottweiler22]

Unfortunately, Button Push Ignored is right, it's a BIG commitment from your parent or guardian, especially if there are trust issues. I know many parents who would not dare lend their irresponsible 20-year-old the money for a new phone, never mind put themselves responsible for £90k.

The only way to get around it would to sit down with your parents, and effectively give them a sales pitch or business plan, along with a contingency plan if anything goes wrong. I.e to explain to them that you will finish your training after 18 months, and you will then have 18 months to find a job, after which the payments of £850 per month will be going out, whether you have a flying job or not. You'd have to convince them that even if you don't have a flying job within 18 months, you WILL go out and work, doing whatever it takes to make your repayments. They need to genuinely trust you with their lives and their livelihoods, it's not like you're babysitting the dog. :}

[pug]

Rottweiler 22, I was always under the impression that the payment holiday of 18 months was effective from the date of taking out the loan. So in fact you'd need to be pretty much going straight from training into a highly paid job.

Could be wrong (it's been a few years since I was researching that side of things) but that's the impression I got.

[Rottweiler22]

Rottweiler 22, I was always under the impression that the payment holiday of 18 months was effective from the date of taking out the loan. So in fact you'd need to be pretty much going straight from training into a highly paid job.

Could be wrong (it's been a few years since I was researching that side of things) but that's the impression I got.

I was always under the impression that the 18 months start when you finish your training, but I could certainly be wrong. Then again, it makes complete sense that the 18 months starts when you take the loan, which would certainly be a game changer for some, like you said, having to go straight from training into a job. I can't find any info on it from the BBVA, it just says that years 1-2 are a "repayment holiday", no mention when this holiday starts immediately or after training.

[Rottweiler22]

I imagine those figures to be correct, I'm sure I read somewhere that for an integrated course CAE reccommend £5,000 for living expenses, and accommodation will be about £8,000 for the duration, so that plus what you'd need for your type rating would end-up about £45k extra, which you'd need to have lying around to do the job properly.

For my last job (non-flying) it took me nearly four months from application to my first day, and I really didn't expect such a job to take that long, so I suppose given the nature of flying, 7-8 months isn't that bad. I think from application to start date, it's probably about the same timescale for the armed forces. In my experience, jobs always take longer than you think to materialise.

[Qtr Life Crisis]

I think there could be the mythical "pilot shortage" and it would still take you easily up to a year to get paid. There are jobs appearing everywhere at the moment one only has to look at all the Ad's in public spaces as well as avgeek forums to know that stuff is changing even for rookies, but in the end when you really think about it going from an integrated graduate to flying a hundred million dollar aircraft in 3 months seems crazy fast regardless of how many pilots that company may need. I think when it comes to it (eventually haha) 7-8-9-10-11 months won't actually seem that long at all!

[Rottweiler22]

If you speak to the right (or wrong) people, that's why they say the likes of CAE and CTC have shorter times to get jobs. A few people have said that the airlines can vouch that the training at these institutions is second-to-none, and graduates are trained-up to the high standard that the airlines want. This was probably pro-integrated propaganda, but it seems a general consensus that premium school graduates TEND to get a job quicker than other training schools and modulars. I know this is delving into the realms of integrated versus modular, but I suppose it's relevant in some way.

These "shortages" could all be myths, a big one in the U.K at the moment is the lorry driver shortage, where the authorities claim that there is a shortage of 60,000 lorry drivers. Yet, working conditions are still poor, hours are still ridiculously long, and pay is still low. Firms admit they get around it by employing cheap Eastern European drivers, so there effectively is no shortage. At the end of the day, if there were a genuine shortage, employers would be waiting at the gates of flight schools and airfields, trying to get who they can. From what I see on websites, there is a shortage of captains, but that's another story.