Why are sponsorships appearing???

[Bob Fleming]

Could someone please explain why sponsorships are popping up (britania, malgus, BA possibly BM) when there are obviously so many people out there looking for jobs who have got their commercial licence with varying amounts of experience to add to that.

most of the self sponsored people have surely saved the airlines this investment and all they would have to do is simply hold some sort of selection process (rather than cough up the £30,000 and expenses that some of the schemes provide)

just curious:confused:

[Elvis21]

Many of the airlines like to have "their" pilots trained in a certain way. And as the money they spend on training is tax deductable, on the grander scale of things it does not really cost them that much money anyway.:p

[Low-Pass]

Often asked this one myself Bob. There are two basic reasons that I keep coming up with and they contradict each other.

1. Elitism - Because sponsorships have been going for some time, there is the feeling that people who (are silly enough to) put themselves through in a modular method are not as good as the the chosen few who have been selected as ideal candidates. This may well have been a spin-off from the RAF where a lot of flying attitudes - good and bad - seem to have originated. Additionally, once sponsorship cadets become senior in the company, they naturally tend to feel that this is the best way to take on pilots. If senior pilots/management have not had sponsorship, ie paid for it themselves, then non-sponsored pilots would be perceived as the best group to select the intake from.

2. Egalitarianism - Yes this is the flip side. By providing sponsorships, airlines provide the chance for individuals who may have the talent but not the resources (money) to put themselves through training.

So I'm happy to hear any other opinions. I personally believe that case one holds true. I don't believe that airlines are out there to help pilots, they are there to make money. This contradicts the point you make about spending extra money but then aviation/business/life is full of such contradictions. Maybe airlines can get away with paying less to sponsored pilots in the long run.

But if there's anyone else out there with good reasons why airlines still sponsor, please enlighten us :confused:

[Mister Geezer]

I very much doubt that bmi will be sponsoring any one for some time. The word on the street is that they are finding life tough and quite a few of their 737 guys are going or at least considering a move to easyJet.

Britannia is no surprise really since they seem to be looking for a steady trickle of drivers. A few guys were recently selected from the CTC scheme on 6 month (don't quote me on the time scale) contracts on the 757/767.

MG

[moggie]

Look at the lead time -
2 months or more to select
12-15 for ab-initio and MCC/JOC
3-6 months for type training and some more on top of that for line training.

That gives you a realistic minimum of 18-24 months from processing applications to the pilot earning revenue for you.

Now, if BA lose 200 pilots per year to retirement and the other airlines lose theirs at an equivalent pro-rata rate then it does not take long to absorbe the pool of eligible pilots. Not forgetting that other airlines are expanding.

It is also fair to say that some of those pilots out there who have a licence that satisfies the authorities will not be aceptable to the airlines (many will demand a higher standard than JAA(CAA do).

The "training them our way" point is valid - you have an opportunity to monitor every stage of progress and also mould the way that the training is conducted. You can brainwash your cadet to an extent and may well get better loyalty out of them, too.

[jasonjdr]

The only point I can recognise is that it is an opportunity for those who may not otherwise afford to cover the costs involved and are unltimatly desirable to the operator.

Otherwise there is currently a surplus of individuals who have done the same course, obtained the same grades, trained by the same instructers and had the same level of monitoring as their own trained cadets waiting to be plucked from the abyss. So why spend £xxxxx's (tax deduction is not a HUGE saving) on ATPL's?? Why not just select from what's available? Is that really a commercialy viable decision to offer sponsorship??

[Low-Pass]

OK, think about it this way.

Do Ryanair or easyJet sponsor? - No!

Do BA sponsor? - Yes!

Who's making more money at the moment? - Ryanair/easyJet.

Maybe sponsoring is an old system that doesn't produce the benifits that it used to but those companies that used to sponsor and are not good at adapting to change and continue to sponsor.

(By the way, I'm not advocating paying for your own type rating)

[tailscrape]

Mister Geezer,

The CTC guys at Britannia will only be allowed to fly the 757, not the 767. That is to the best of my knowledge.

TS

[patience]

Airlines need volumes of pilots -direct entrants (like 100's a year). The sponsorship system (ie 10 in a go) is old hat (part of a poor operating model- the 'loyalty' argument is paper thin, argued (as mentioned above) by the same turgid Fleet and Training captains that got in that way many moons ago.. hey we'd all do it..).. anyway, I digress..

I think the most rational reason for the periodic sanctioning of these programmes is 'social responsibility'.. big businesses do come under fire for not giving back.. whether it be to their designate charities, local environent or (closer to home) their own staff.. they have to be seen to 'give' when they're doing well (or not suffering too greatly).. its not obvious, but at the end of the day the management accountants will advise to an agenda..

Sponsoring pilots is the lower end of 'giving' as its tax friendly and serves in the airline's own (mild) interest, but it just passes as a 'charity effort'...(this isn't cynicism)

Patience

[Bucking Bronco]

Jasonjdr,

<currently a surplus of individuals who have done the same course, obtained the same grades, trained by the same instructers and had the same level of monitoring as their own trained cadets>

I was on a course of 15 at CCAT. 5 BA sponsored, 10 self sponsored. Of the 10, 4 had to be back coursed. Over the 13 months who do you think came in the top 5 positions in the class?

If a student does well at an approved school, and is put forward by the instructors, BA run a part sponsorship scheme whereby they do a Jet orientation course with full time cadets. If they pass the course then they get a job offer. So if they have obtained the same grades it shouldn't be a problem should it?

Cheers

[Shutty]

Britannia's sponsorship states you must pay £15000 of the cost, and be a Britannia employee for 3 years afterwards, or pay back the rest of the training costs pro-rata. So they're simply giving £35000 (prob. less after tax dodges or bulk deals....) to Bae Jerez, and for that they get to hand pick a top-notch pilot to mould and use for the next 3 years. Suddenly doesn't look too bad an idea, as opposed to recruiting, say, a 1000 hours guy who they don't really know the training history of, and could leave at any point. That £35000 could easily be lost in the extra salary or type-ratings the experienced guy could rightly demand over the 3 years.
doesn't mean to say I'd do it myself, but its the best reasoning I can come up with!

[Crosswind Limits]

Bucking Bronco,

Some time back I was in a class of 8 cadets at CCAT, 4 being sponsored by EPST and the remaining being self-sponsored. Due to personal/domestic circumstances I had to withdraw from the course and go modular, but at least one of the remaining self-sponsored cadets performed on a par or better than the 4 EPST cadets. Now 18 months later, all the EPST cadets are being type rated on 73s, whilst the said self-sponsored cadet languishes.

Not all sponsored cadets are worth sponsoring - I could name a few!

[Canadiankid]

The return of sponsorship's is encouraging, even on such a small scale. Airlines in the last year world wide have gone through some major re-structuring. This was going to happen (on a smaller scale) regardless of the horrible events of 9/11. The big question now is what Bush Jr. is gonna do with Iraq. The fact of the matter is that the US has very little public support from many nations. This includes its 2 biggest long term political allies in the UK and Canada. Not one Arab nation has given public support to this point. Lets hope it can be resolved in a timely manner. Back to the topic...It seems that things are taking a turn for the better in aviation. This seems to be true in the UK as well. I am someone who hopes the market continues to improve as I will have the JAA conversion done next spring with a pile of time in the log book. `My advice to all you "low time" people is do whatever you can to put some hours in your book. When the airlines begin to recruit heavily again (this may take a while yet), the time in your log book is what is going to get you looked at faster.

Keep the greasy side down

[Bucking Bronco]

Crosswind limits,

I agree that not all cadets are worthy of sponsorship and that some duds slip through the nets (did someone say something about politically correct recruiting bias? not me!)

But on the whole they do perform better. Your mate who performed on a par/better than EPST (who?) chaps/chapesses should have been put forward by the CCAT instructors. Perhaps this scheme is no longer in operation at CCAT since BA doesn't use them anymore?

Cut and pasted from another post...

Some of the reasons why I think BA uses the Cadet scheme:

i) It allows them to select the best individuals and monitor their progress at all times during training. If you start failing your ground school or flying exams then you get chopped. With some pilots out there having struggled and scraped a licence then conversions may be failed and result in training/chopping cost - happened to a Capt from Brymon when I was doing my course.

ii) The cadets give them anything from 27 to 35 years service. Thus negating a short term fire fighting approach to recruitment.

iii) Cadets are on reduced salary for the first five years (CEP starting £22k DEP 32k?) and pay back £15k out of their pay packet aswell. The cost is therefore recovered.

iv) Diminishing pool of sutiable DEPs. For years they have tried to recruit from the DEP pool, when you've looked at people a couple of times and "thrown them back in" you run out of fish to catch and select. Now as for people who have been rejected I am sorry, as I personally know friends who I think would be great for BA with a B757/A320 rating who have been rejected. I don't know sometimes what basis they are evaluating on.

On a more positive note,
a) If you go through one of the flight schools BA uses/d and get good reports there is a semi sponsorship scheme whereby you will be lumped with other cadets at Jet Orientation Course. This is/was HS125-800 course, if you continue to glow you get a job offer.

b) The long term forecasts remain good for the industry and in the future should BA be very short of pilots we can see a repeat of the 1987/88 scenario when lots of DEPs with relatively low hours were hired to fill the vacancies.

In the meantime my personal recommendation is do something in the meantime to fall back on whether it be a Modern Apprenticeship (as WWW supports) or do a degree/work in the city (as I did post Gulf).

Good luck to all the Wannabes!

[Land ASAP]

I thought the answer is obvious, despite the few CPL holders out there, there STILL isn't enough to fill the gaps.

PILOT SHORTAGE. This is proof. Sorry to be so succinct.

[sally at pprune]

crosswind limits

EPST do not sponsor - they charge (quite a lot of money) and then contract-out the training to someone else.

[Crosswind Limits]

Yes quite right Sally! My point was that they are supposed to be "selected", hence in that respect they are on a par with traditional sponsored cadets. As far as I understand Cabair no longer have any EPST cadets going through to the CTC scheme.

[Bucking Bronco]

Crosswind,

any thoughts on my post?

By the way assuming that all sponsored cadets are of the same calibre as "selected" trainees is a large assumption. Methinks that the selection criteria and process may be different.

Put simply, if a schoolboy is selected to join (the mighty) Arsenal FC then is he on a par with the lad signed to (no hopers) Spurs?

Cheers

Bucking Bronco

ps "I suggest that everyone stands well back I think that this ones going to go off with a bang!"

[Crosswind Limits]

BB,

Yes I would agree that generally speaking sponsored cadets perform better than self-sponsored. The cadets I refer to from EPST were all white, male and Dutch so no political correctness there. They were all selected after undergoing aptitude tests and interviews. Other than basic aptitude, I think there is quite a divergence between the various sponsorship schemes. Perhaps they are looking for slightly different pilots.

Your points on the BA cadet scheme are valid.