bigjarv

I think there is some merit in what cloud9dk says. It's impossible to accurately predict how long this economic downturn is going to last OR how long the industry will take to warm up again when it does finally pick up. Remember, even when the economy recovers, there are people in hold pools that have to be emptied and people in companies that will have the experience to move to other companies. All this movement will have to happen before the doors open to fresh faces. How long it will take for this to happen is a very hard question to answer. So cloud9dk has taken an educated guess that relies on the industry picking up in 2 years and him therefore being at the front of the Q with a beautiful new and current ATPL. Brave move but might pay off. What is for sure is that CTC is a very good place to be. Despite what anyone says, they do have an excellent placement record (possibly one of the best?) and a strong brand that the partner airlines seem to respect. If you had to train anywhere I think CTC is certainly one of the top three places to do it. Tried and tested. I speak as someone who completed the AQC course successfully and whilst waiting for placement got offered a job elsewhere which I took. So CTC didn't actually place me although they would have eventually. I had waited a long time and felt I should just get started and take the opportunity on the table! Ultimately, everyone else on my course has since been employed by good companies through CTC and are still in work and happy. Arguably, I should have placed more faith in CTC and waited as the job they would have eventually offered may have been a better career move than the one I took, but that that was my gamble. I am very happy thou. Employed, stable and with a good quality of life. Point is, it's always a gamble!

So if you are to take the gamble on your timing, which no one can judge you for with any real authority (they can only comment that it is a gamble, but it always will be), CTC is definitely a good place to be in my opinion. You go for it son!

bigjarv

PS. On the parent funding argument... Unfortunately in this industry, we now have to pay for our training these days. There are almost no sponsorships. So you HAVE to pay. There is no other way to learn to fly (aside from RAF obviously). If you are to spend this money (for your son's totally illogical but defiant need to fly for a living!) then you have to choose the school that will offer your son the best chance of gaining employment on completion. That really is what you are searching for in a school these days. Well CTC is probably one of the best at doing this. So while having to find such a huge amount of money for the happiness of your insane son will cause sleepless nights, you can take comfort in knowing that you have made a sane and level headed decision by investing in a reputable company that is very experienced in getting your son what he wants! Reading between the lines thou, I think what you are actually saying to wannabe pilots is... "be grateful if you your parents help with funding because they risk much more than you and also live your dream"!

Wing_Bound_Vortex

So what makes you think that after your 6 month "trial" period with the airline that they arn't going to just ship the next lot of new guys in to take your place? If you work hard in those 6 months?! Nope, this is the reality of the new Flexicrew arrangement. Please be under no illusions about the state of this business at the moment, there are no permanent jobs for the low houred guys and won't be for a few years.

On the finances side, so you get £1000 a month for the 6 months of your contract, then the loan repayments kick in after that. Except now you've just lost your job. So you can't make any loan repayments. Or they find you a job at another airline, great you think, except you're on a similar wage there and now have to make repayments from that wage. Repayments of over 1000 pounds a month. So now what do you live on?

WBV

The African Dude

Because the airline pays for the type rating. They pay for base training. They pay for a training captain to sit behind you for your first 'x' sectors. They're not going to want to do that every 6 months for a newbie if they can avoid it! It's a completely lost investment.

The lower salary cost of a cadet for the first 6 months nowhere near makes up the cost to the airline of the training that they put in.

That's what makes me think that after my 6 month TRAINING period they aren't going to want to ditch me, any other CTC cadet, or any self-sponsored employee, if they can avoid it.

Ollie23

The African Dude-I really wish you were right, somehow I think we are in for a much rougher ride than you suggest.

gyni

That sounds excellent African Dude! You seem to know a different easyJet than the one Wing Bound Vortex and I work for! Considering we were apparently already 'overcrewed' for next winter before the flexicrew guys started for the summer, do you really think that you'll be staying and not just coming back next year (for the summer)? Believe me, I don't agree with what's going on at the moment at all but that's the harsh reality everyone will have to get used to. When you consider the fools on the ATP scheme last summer paying to fly for 150 hours on line, does it really come as any surprise the way in which management now treats and regards new (temporary) FOs? Only a few days ago one of the cabin crew was laughing in disbelief at the fact that the new FOs take home less per month than them. Be under no illusion guys, airlines are making the most of these economic conditions to drive down our terms and conditions and if it's more cost effective to just employ new FOs for the summer, then that is exactly what they will do.

SMOOTHFLIER

You are all seriously deluded you will be dropped at the end of your 6 months.
This is not CTC's fault its easyjets. ctc merely provide what the airlines what they want and what easyjet want is ctc cadets for 6 months over their busy summer season

PBD01

Just curious, after speaking to one of the hosties on easyJet the other day, she gave me the impression that new cabin crew are also now given 6 month contracts. Is that correct? It would seem logical and give us a better idea of ej's business plan if they are running the entire company on a 6 month temp basis. Could be a good indicator as to the future (or lack thereof! ) for us new FO's.

EZYramper

Are we to expect to be dropped by easyJet at the end of the 6 months forever, or just until the next summer?!

Because by the next summer, another +100 CTC cadets will have graduated and be awaiting placement with easy' (unless any of the other partners perk up).

Would easy' rather take these fresh new guys, or last summer's rejects?

It seems logical that they would rather have the guys who have a type rating, time on type and knowledge of their routes/SOPS/way of life. Would this be outweighed by the cost of not paying a cadet for 6 months? (I'd guess yes)

Bambe

EZY already has more than enough crew (Cabin+flight crew) to operate its normal routes.
THe only thing EZY now needs is some extra crew for the summer time (from April till October). That's why they only offer temporary contract to the cabin crew and they are taking the CTC cadets.
As CTC cadets we don't cost them anything! Except the sector pay they add on the top of our 1000 a months graciously given by CTC, everything else is done by and in CTC facilities.

I don't see why EZY would refuse 100 (or more) new free cadets??? That's why the Flexi crew stuff has been launched. For those who already completed their line training and are lucky enough to be re-employed, it will be through the flexi-crew T&Cs.
Times are hard, but 2 seasons is about 1000 hours on type. We'll then be ready to apply for a more decent job when things will pick up.

Good luck for those just starting

BitMoreRightRudder

To those CTC guys joining ezy for the summer, make sure you are in balpa. And the way things are going make sure you bring a packed lunch and some teabags to work!

Gary Lager

The question you have to ask is: which is cheaper?

Remember who you are dealing with. They are not logical people, they are people whose bonuses are based on spending least money to run the airline, not having the most qualified people to do it.

Very likely correct, sadly.

one post only!

What I want to know is what happens at the end of the summer contract when 100 well trained guys are dumped onto the open market. Thats a lot of people suddenly all applying for the same (few) jobs at the same time!! Bun fight!

I guess EZY know this and will sit patiently waiting for most of them to come back again the following summer!

Follow BMRR's advice and join Balpa!

roboa

I have just noticed on the CTC website that there is a Downing Street petition to award British Trainee Pilots with official student status. If it were accepted would that mean that those looking for the finances for the course could apply for a student grant and if so how much of the total course fees would that cover?

cheers,
roboa

P.S I'm not all that knowledgable when it comes to stuff like this

EDIT: If anyone wants it the link is here

no sponsor

One Post Only

This is the unsustainable CTC business model. You cannot forever keep pumping out cadets. The 100 or so unemployed CTC cadets dumped at the end of Oct will be up for re-employment the following April. Except there is no longer 100, there are even more, since its been a full 12 months of cadet production at CTC. So maybe there are now 200 Cadets (i'm guessing at that figure, since I don't know their course numbers)? The new guys will be given preference, and so on. The following year, we have 300+ people. At some point the CAA will stop it, as there will be too many low houred people on the fleet.

In the meantime, I expect quite a few of those cadets will have loans whose weight will be too great to bear on such a work pattern.

Commodities are cheap, inexhaustible and replaceable.

TheBeak

Roboa you stand more chance of becoming the chief pilot of BA tomorrow than the government doing that anytime soon (as in, in the next 20 years). CTC have done it in the vague hope of more benefit to themselves so that there are more dreamers willing to part with money they will never be able to repay on a poxy 6 month contract earning peanuts. And of course to seem like great guys. I would recommend finding another way of funding your training or better still not bothering. I am astounded when I see people getting nervous about the CTC selection, can anyone post if they have actually failed it recently that has been to phase 3 or 4? There used to be people posting they had all the time back in the days but it never happens now. So has anyone?

And if you really think having 400 hours with Easyjet et al is going to make any differnece to anything take a look at the top of the Biz Jet Jet, Ag, GA section where guys and girls are posting there experiences and are looking for work.

Zippy Monster

Can I just second that... it won't make any difference whatsoever. I've been there. Nobody is interested in you with a minimum-hours fATPL and a bit of Airbus experience.

No Sponsor makes a good point. Many of this year's easyJet intake came out of their AQC in the early part of last year and have been waiting nearly a year to start their Airbus TR. These people will then be competing for the same jobs next year with the next bunch coming through the course between now and next year. That's a big increase in the number of low-hours pilots for not a great increase in the number of jobs. Meanwhile HSBC sit and happily count ever-mounting interest...

roboa

TheBeak, what makes you say that there is no chance? You also say that CTC are doing it for themselves (is the petition put up by them?) but surely it would help people unable to gain funding any other way...

TheBeak

Because the government has just spent trillions of our money on bugger all and need to get an income from somewhere. If there was a shortage of pilots, as CTC and OAA will have you believe, then sure maybe the government would look into VAT exemption or grants but there are probably 10 pilots to each job (that's a guess and possibly a hyperbole so no one start nit picking it) and more than enough desperate fools willing to secure integrated course fees against there parents homes or people willing to squander their hard earned saving on the modular route. There is no reason that the governement would do it at all, the standard has been accepted and 637 names in a country of 61,000,000 isn't going to change a thing. Take the difficulty in getting a loan to do pilot training as a sign. If it was worth it for everyone then it would be easier to get a loan and there would just be a grade requirement to get in to flying training as opposed to the pathetically low, token gesture of a pass mark 'required' by most flying schools. The only grade required, and now more than ever, is to have the access to the money, be it CTC, OAA, FTE or Cabair.

CTC are displaying it on their website to show they 'care'......They are also doing it because the more desperate wannabes out there who can get the money, the better for them. Surely that seems obvious. The major barrier is that not every parent is stupid enough to put their hard earned home up as security for the course fees. CTC may or may not have created the petition, it is pretty irrelevant.

roboa

Ok, cheers for your input mate!