New Flybe Mpl Sponsorship Course

[Superpilot]

Yawn,

Oddly enough it is only the SSP cadets who have to have been to 'integrated' to join BA. There are many who joined from a integrated (HR wished it to be so) whilst their mates from various other sources (modular, self improvers, military etc.) went to other outfits. Then their mates joined BA as DEP's from those outfits when the minimum critera were met and leap frogged the SSP guys on the payscales. There are many, many FO's in BA from a whole variety of backgrounds recruited over the past 5 years or so.

Careful what you preach as its mostly twaddle.

Uhhm, I think we all know that. Read properly and you shall see this is all in context of low hours (i.e. fresh grad) recruitment.

[Wirbelsturm]

this is all in context of low hours (i.e. fresh grad) recruitment.

The thread might well be but your post wasn't.

Anyway, enough thread creep, I'll leave you all to your musings.

[wayupthere]

For anyone considering MPL, just remember most airlines won't accept the licence and if you ever wish to move on to other airliners most won't even look at you

[rogerg]

As discussed on the Easy mpl thead you can end up with a normal ALTP once you have reached 1500 hrs.

[jersey145]

For anyone considering MPL, just remember most airlines won't accept the licence and if you ever wish to move on to other airliners most won't even look at you

Absolute tosh! where is there any shred of evidence for this? Sterling? No one even knew what the licence entailed back then so no wonder, regardless Sterling funded the conversion back to CPl/IR. But still not a great start, agreed. Then again getting involved with such a dodgy operator that had the contuinual threat of impounding by a certain UK airport for non-payment of fees may indicate a certain lack of research on the part of those unfortuanate cadets.

Given the amount of interest generated by the first licences being issued by other airlines, at a certain recruitment fair and expos that happen around europe every year, most airlines have a good idea of exactly what the MPL entails. If the big-boys like Easy are starting a MPL scheme any MPL cadet that unfreezes has a shot at moving on. Of course if you came across as a CRM or HR disaster during interview/assesment you have no shot of a move up, regardless of holding an ATPL of CPL/IR or MPL.

Wanna get a job? make sure you are the shiniest product on the shelf for the times the airlines go 'shopping'. Oh and any route into professional flying entails a certain amount of risk and a gamble. Timing counts for a lot, make sure your crystal ball has good signal!

[PilotUnknown]

Jersey,

It's good to have a few people who have a positive reply on this forum! It's a hard choice for any budding pilot on his way to ATPL.

I'm looking into this scheme myself and will make sure I do my own research if I get any further in the proceedings. £80,000 is a lot for anyone to invest, the only restriction after you get your ATPL is being required to fly multi-pilot. Yes it's a shame there is this limit in place but for 99% of people this won't cause a problem (from reading these forums).

My advice from an outside point of view would be to apply for this scheme, it can't hurt and you may even get some experience in the following stages if you are lucky enough to get through the various stages.

From my current point of view if I had two 'tagged' or 'part sponsored' offers one MPL and the other ATPL I'd take the ATPL route. This is mostly I'd be keen to do some bush flying, and other single pilot operations at some point. Maybe If I wanted to travel and work a bit for a year or two (after I un-froze my ATPL).

[irishpilot1990]

jersey145 if it was only as simple as that!! very few airlines go down MPL route and there must be a reason for it? hence why when you change the MPL to an ATPL other airlines will still raise eyebrows!

[rogerg]

very few airlines go down MPL route and there must be a reason for it?

The reason is that the concept is very new. The first UK graduates have only just joined flybe, give it a few years and who knows?

[jez d]

very few airlines go down MPL route and there must be a reason for it?

There are two key reasons why airlines have been slow to get involved in the MPL, neither of which have anything to do with the end product.

The first reason is that forecasting pilot demand 18 months into the future is 17 months and two weeks too far ahead for most airlines' HR departments.

The second reason is down to the number of takeoffs and landings required in the aircraft before a pilot gets his licence - OK in a relatively cheap to operate Dash 8 - not so OK in a more expensive Boeing or Airbus.

[Adios]

Jez D,

Are you serious? Do you really think airlines aren't rushing to MPL schemes because MPL base training requires 12 T&Gs instead of six and this is too expensive? What do you want to bet this requirement reduces to six T&Gs in a few years once MPL is tried and tested. LASORS makes it clear that the syllabus will evolve as the industry gains experience with MPL.

I'd say the reason airlines haven't been rushing to setup MPL cadet schemes is because they haven't been rushing to setup any cadet schemes at all. The UK airline that has had a sizeable cadet scheme of any type the past 2-3 years is Flybe. They still run CPL/IR schems as well as MPL since they like to use 3-4 FTOs, not all of which offer MPL training.

You are correct that very few airlines seem to look far enough ahead to realize that locking in a source of pilots in advance might be a good idea, but this doesn't explain why they opt for MPL cadets over the thousands of unemployed licence holders already out there.

[jez d]

Are you serious?

Absolutely. Virgin, for one, have said exactly that.

[Otto Throttle]

Virgin? Wow, really?

How many ab-initio pilots do Virgin recruit? Not exactly the most credible 'experts' on training brand new airline cadets are they.

[BUGS/BEARINGS/BOXES]

Otto,

You beat me to it!

[CharlieFly]

Where, when and Why did Virgin say this?

[chromeo]

MPL students and ATPL students are in the exact same classrooms, sit the same written exams and do pretty much the same training right up until the end. At a flying school, you will have no idea who is doing MP and who is doing ATPL.

As for the question on picking a single training school, it is good business practice to have more than one supplier - it keeps them competitive.

With the Flybe scheme, I hope this is of some help:

1. Reply in any time frame that is mentioned, you will get booted out of the selection process if you are late with anything
2. Take time over answering the competence-based questions. Try and think of more than "my football team" or the like, the school/airline will have seen these responses 1000s of times (literally) and can pick out an average response in seconds and place it in the "bin" pile. They really do read all replies, no matter what nonsense you have been told about "random selection".
3. Make sure you can do all the example questions FTE send you with one hand tied behind your back and one eye shut, dont assume anything on the examples wont be in the test
4. Don't plan on the sponsorship from Flybe forming part of your funding for the school, it doesn't pay you before you are there, in fact its closer to the end than the start
5. Hitting less than 90% in any JAR exam doesn't bode well for your future in Flybe
6. As always, with the FTE "special rate" scheme you need a property to secure any loan against and the property must have more than 60% equity including any loan taken, eg a £200k property cannot have more than a £40,000 mortgage. You cannot secure a flying school loan on a property valued at less than £134,000 with zero mortgage, or on a commercial property.

[chromeo]

yes probably was! by the very end, i meant when it comes to the simulator. I think you are referring to the time in type-rating comparing sim with real-life?

[jez d]

Apologies, have been in IT blackout for the last few days. Rather nice for a change.

My mistake. When I said Virgin I of course meant Cathay ! It was at an RAeC flight training conference in 2008, if I remember correctly, that a Cathay representative publicly stated that they were interested in adopting the MPL, but wouldn't on grounds of cost of 12 T&Gs.

And, yes, I'm well aware that Cathay are hardly the world's largest employers of ab-initio pilots, but the murmurs of agreement from many other airline representatives present at the conference clearly indicated that this is an issue.

The more relevant issue, however, remains - namely that HR departments are, on the whole, unwilling to forecast pilot requirement eighteen months into the future.

The fact that easyJet have now decided to go down the MPL route is a most interesting development. I await the usual "they're only doing this so they can further erode T&Cs" observations. But I, for one, can only see this as a good sign.

[Denti]

MPL is fairly new, however there are some major airlines that go down this route for the last couple years. For example Lufthansa, Air Berlin, and partways Swiss. No clue about Air France/KLM though.

[PilotUnknown]

Has anyone heard back from Flybe / FTE or does anyone know when to expect to hear back from them? It's getting close to the stage 3 now.

I guess if i've not heard back from them yet, it could be bad news.

[Albanian Seahorse]

Don't Panic!

I received a reply today... literally 4 minutes after the time of your post!