well done sicky! Anyone know if the questions come from thomson fly or from FTE? Just wondering how best to pitch the answers..

also, anyone know what the starting salary is if they offer you a job? does it start on the SO scale (seems to be about £27k??) or FO scale (£40k?)... keen to find out a rough figure to see if I could afford the loan :}

After doing some research it would appear that you would start on the SO scale, and as on ppjn.com, basic seems to be £27,283. Add to that:

Flight (Duty) Pay: £2.71 per hour
Sector Pay: £9.70 per hour
Flexible Working Scheme Day: £330.74 per day

Let's assume, week is made up of 35 duty hours, therefore flight pay totals to: 2.71 x 35 = £94.85 per week or £410 per month

Let's assume, average of 10 sectors flown per week, therefore sector pay totals to: 9.70 x 10 = £97 or £420 per month.

Let's assume in the average month you do 1 Flexible Working Day at 1 x 330.74.

Monthly pay before tax therefore is (27,283 / 12) + 410 + 420 + 330 = £3,433 per month. After tax that would probably be around £2,500 take home.

Your loan repayments would be between £1,000 and £1,400 I'd guess.

Thanks superpilot, that's helped me understand how it all works! I've never quite understood all the duty pay and sector pay stuff.

Are the loan repayments really that high?? :uhoh::ooh:

The price of the course is £63,000 (UK POUNDS), most of these loans are set to be repayed over 7 years. The OATs / HSBC arrangement for example.

Current combined interested rate (base + whatever the bank charges) is around 5%. Therefore your loan will become 63,000 x 1.05^7 = £88,647 by the time you finish paying it off. That's roughly £1,000 per month, every month for 7 years. With 25k of interest paid on the loan in that time. You didn't think this was a "sponsorship" did you? :p

Didn't someone say pilots need to be wise, and not risk takers! :E

Good luck to all
 

Hi all

Filled in the initial application and got the bad news just yesterday, apparently not eligible for this scheme! I at least hoped I would make it through the initial stage; Equivalent of 2 and a bit A-levels in Aeronautical Engineering (BTEC higher National Diploma), a high 2:1 degree pass also in Aeronautical Engineering, valid Class 1 medical, valid passport plus a couple of flying hours!!!! :mad: :eek:

Made it through to interview stage on all three schemes I applied for last/this year with the other schools CTC/OAT/Cabair. The standard must be set really high this year!!! Anyway congratulations and good luck to all that are through to the next stage!!:D

Martyfly:ok:

I have not applied to this scheme, but find the form a little restrictive.

First of all, you can stipulate your degree type, but not your grade. I find that very interesting.

Also, for further education, you can not list anything other than A-Levels I.e. no BTEC national diploma or GNVQ Advanced options. Both of which are recognised as equivalent to 2 A-Levels at A*-C.

For example, listing a BTEC ND on their form, you would have to say 2 A-Levels and then for subjects "other". They actually get no valid info on your academic qualification.

Not a rant, I just think they need to broaden the scope of the form.

Good luck to all who apply. Sorry to those who have already had the bad news.

Gosh in my days (2000) you would have to be the brightest of the bunch to be offerred 4 A' Levels, the vast majority of us were only allowed to do 3 A'Levels. Please someone tell me 1 Scottish Higher is NOT equavalent to 1 A' Level. :{

I have no idea if it is or not... it seems the norm is to do 3 A levels, yes? In scotland we usually do 4 or 5 highers... they tried for a while to compare the two using UCAS points, but it failed miserably! I think most uni courses will say you need 3 A levels or 4 highers... so i'm guessing that's as equivalent as you get.

standard grades as also apparently the same as gcses.... we do 7 standard grades... actually, i think its 8 now... the whole thing has changed in the last couple of years so who knows whats going on now.

From the UCAS Tariffs, 4/5 Scottish Highers equals 3 A Levels, 7/8 Irish Leaving Cert (HL) equals 5 A Levels. I agree with easyPilot, the form is fairly restrictive.

Ok to clarify a few points;

The loan that you can take is with BBVA (large Spanish bank) and is for the full amount (plus a bit extra if you can show it on your business plan) and that is spread over 10 years. The exchange rate is a bit favourable in that the base rate is not the UK base rate but that of Euribor which is about 3.5% at the moment. If you take an 18 month payment holiday, as most people do then it works out to about €1000 or £700/month. Also as you pay for the course during the year for calculation purposes you aren't being charged for the full amount of the loan from day one.

In terms of the flying schedule I'd suggest you look at Henry Bevan's website for that one, he is about 7-8 months in after joining Thomsonfly and you can see from his logbook how many sectors a month he is averaging at the moment.

If you are on the scheme you receive nothing from Thomsonfly in the way of job security, just a letter which states upon satisfactory completion of the course that if a position exists with the company then a place will be offered to you. Due to the always changing nature of the industry that is as good as you can guess. For instance the current good weather here in the UK means TFly aren't having the predicted boom they expected and so the number of new planes to be brought into service next year may or may not stay the same, it all depends as to how predictions go.

However those people on the schemes do tend to be offered places after completion. There is a mentor from TFly who visits regularly during the year and is available to contact via your own Thomsonfly e-mail address and weekly briefs, which means you can at least see how the industry is seen from a management perspective.

There are also moves afoot which may ultimately come to nothing but which if approved would result in TFly offering a similar deal to the Thomas Cook scheme in part, in that TFly would buy some of your debt and then take money out from your salary before tax to pay for it. But that is not in place at the moment nor does it seem likely just yet.

As for qualifications, I guess that's what TFly uses as a means of narrowing down the field of entrants to an initial managable level.

This is becoming just like the pay-for-type rating scenario.

Airlines charging over 60k for flight training when one could get the same sort of training for half the price !
Until there are people prepared to do this, the big integrated flying schools and the Airlines will take advantage of it.

People that would never consider an integrated course, do so because of the promise of a job at the end, and this helps the integrated schools to secure a good number of students.

There's nothing wrong with spending half the money to get the same kind of qualifications, but those so called sponsorships (which aren't sponsorships, since the applicants pay 100% of the costs, plus interest) seem to be aimed at discouraging the modular route, as there's no job offer at the end of it.

Having thought about this further, I'm not going to even bother responding to the questions. As Raviolis says, after interest it's between £80-90k + loss of earnings for one year - approx £100k in total (Admitedly, no different to any integrated course).

When we lay it down like this, even the prospect of a potential job offer (not even guarantee) is just not worth the sums involved. Everyone from FTE to TFly knows that at that sort of price the course just does not make any financial sense. How can it?

Picture the scene, you're at an interview and are asked to talk about a mistake you've made in the past. Imagine you said you "once threw £100,000 into a venture that was as likely to fail as it was to succeed, and it ended up failing".

"What did you learn from that?" they'd ask.

"Not to do it again!" :{

My reason of not applying, in part, is also the finance. Some will justify and even defend the amount for this scheme, and other schemes like it, hence the reason why TFly will not be short of applicants.

But if you compare the total cost of this scheme with some of the modular fATPL quotes I have personally received, this price seems ludicrous. As female wannabe pointed out, the interest on the loan would just about cover the modular fATPL!

But...each to his/her own. As I said before, good luck to all the applicants.

eP

It depends how you look at it, as to whether it's worth shelling out that amount of money for Integrated rather than Modular. As has been stated in the past, there are certain airlines that won't touch 'new' modular students. Take that as you like it. If you were going to go integrated anyway, why not come down with the backing of an airline?

Agreed, I guess it comes down in part to integrated vs modular - which this thread is not about.

Just emailed back my responses to the eight questions so fingers crossed. Personally speaking I wouldn't go with Oxford or Cabair but an integrated course that offers definite affiliation seems like a lot more secure way of entering the world of aviation. Even if Thomsonfly do back out of offering people jobs, those that have been accepted will know that they have the qualities an airline is looking for upon qualification. The fact that FTE factors in food and accommodation to their training is also a bonus. PLus living in Spain for a year has gotta be sweet!

good luck to everyone who's applying!

Just out of interest, for those who passed the initial screening and went onto complete the questions - was there any request from FTE or TFly for elaboration on education and employment history?

Cheers,
eP

Nope... hoping this happens sometime soon as it's all a bit vague just ticking boxes! Maybe before the next stage they will ask for some more info :confused:

Cheers FW - good luck with your application!