Current UK and EU An Initio Flight training...A Ponzi Scheme

[kungfu panda]

Flight schools combined with low cost Airlines have become very persuasive in sucking young people into long term debt on a promise of a well paid job.

The problem is that the information regarding a permanent Pilot shortage is fundamentally flawed and always has been. They take an extremely good year of aircraft production and figures produced by the manufacturer's and project it (exponentially) forward. These figures are entirely misleading.

Every ten years there is an Aviation Industry collapse which takes years then to recover from. The Ponzi's in the flight training scheme are those holding the brand new licence or those in the middle of flight training at the time of the collapse.

In addition, we're looking clearly at semi-autonomous Aircraft being delivered in the relatively short term, especially if you consider a Pilot Career being up to 40 years. It will come in the same way as the Career failure of Flight Engineers occurred 20-30 years ago.

With global warming and other ethical issues surrounding the Airline industry, this is not the place to be.

[18greens]

What you say is true but it was also true in 1992 (ERM) 2003 (9/11) 2007 (greedy bankers) and yet the industry has been in the rudest health ever since. Global warming and reliance on hydrocarbons should logically have seen a gradual contraction over the last 30 years of flying in favour of staycations and ground based transport and yet the very opposite occurred.

I think the industry will stumble for a few years but the masses want their cheap flights and its hard to see it not getting bigger than 2019 again. It would be interesting to have a sweep on when airlines will start paying for type ratings again. 2022? Anyone?

[PilotLZ]

Depends on what the specific airline wants in the long-term run, I guess. Hiring qualified personnel makes things a lot cheaper and easier for the airline - and there probably won't be any shortage of rated pilots for at least two or three years from now. On the other hand, paying for one's type rating means making them sign a training bond for anywhere between 3 and 5 years. And the bond amount is often a lot higher than the real cost of the type rating course and doesn't necessarily decrease with time served before the end of the contract. At the same time, this doesn't preclude the airline from recovering the training costs from the individual's salary. So, funding a candidate's type rating can be a way to make sure that they will stay for some time and won't jump ships as soon as they get their 500/1000/1500 hours on type. But hey, if there are hardly any jobs around, they're not going anywhere even without being bonded.