https://www.l3cts.com/news/2017/l3-a...-upgrade-.html

BA To Pre-select CTC ATPL students.

A bit of a kick in the teeth for those that have committed an eye watering sum of money to start training at Oxford or FTE only for L3 to strike up an exclusive (for now) deal with BA. Maybe the deal will get expanded to include other schools.

After the update on here from February, this sort of arrangement was to be expected as a stop-gap until the review concerning future of the FPP is determined. I do wonder if this is an official announcement of the stop-gap in question or whether it is the actual outcome of the review going forward from 2018.

From the mention of 2018 in the press release, I hope it is the former but wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter.

Thought I'd add my two cents. This partnership has been in play since earlier this year. I believe the school is just re-highlighting it under the L3 brand given CTC Aviation was killed off earlier this year. You'll need decent A levels OR a 2:1 degree to supersede them, 85% ground school average, no deferrals of an exam to another module and not more than one subject fail to qualify for the initial interview process. If you succeed at that point you need first series CPL / IR passes. The start dates with the airline are 2018 onwards. I train alongside of a few successful candidates.

It might be a kick in the teeth to a few, but if you're basing which school to go off purely by the remote chance (considering the amount of whitetails through the doors) of getting into BA then you really haven't got all the marbles, people have their good reasons for going to the various schools.

This isn't even new news, it's simply re-iterating what was said at various careers days since the Spring, you only have to read up the forum to see that L3 is simply regurgitating.

Hopefully one day BA FPP will return for real, this new whitetail cadet recruitment has no bearing or relation to the former. It's a shame it goes against the old FPP principle of training pilots "irrespective of financial circumstances." :(

Does anyone know if type ratings will be paid by BA? I presume so...

You can see why they do it. BA get access to a known standard of cadet pilots as and when they feel like it without having to decide on and run a recruitment campaign 2+ years in advance. If you're being cynical then the L3 VP being the ex BA head of short haul probably didn't harm either....

The biggest shame is that once again this restricts access to a very select group of people who have all paid 100,000+ upfront. Most companies are willing to invest to ensure equal access, in aviation management are seemingly happy to turn a blind eye. Maybe decency and equality will be given another chance in the future if FPP returns but that seems unlikely atm.

As far as I have been told, successful cadets are to transition over to the BA FPP course structure. In terms of delivery this changes nothing as the FPP by nature was very much an ATPL to start with. There was talk cadets would need to top-up their bond with L3 to match that of the FPP. But I say this loosely as the contractual particulars are still yet to be worked out given the first tagged pilots wouldn't start on the line until late Summer 2018 at the earliest.

Not at all cynical but obvious.

BA gets pilots on tap at a fraction of the rate of a DEP from a known source and cadets walk into a decent job. Win win. I'm certain everyone at CTC will be falling over themselves to get onto the pseudo BA-FPP scheme.

Even during the FPP recruitment years BA stated that any extra " top up " of cadets would come from CTC white tails. If you were aiming for BA to be your first flying job then all other things being equal,CTC was the way to go. It's just business efficiency on BAs part,fairness doesn't come into it.
Some pilot recruitment advisers/ coaches were advocating CTC for this v reason.

Probably because CTC always managed the BAFPP cadets. Regardless of whether you trained at FTE, CTC or CAE, along with a BA contract, every cadet signed a contract with Airline Placements Limited (APL) which is/was a CTC (now L3) company.

Guessing that is the end of the FPP?

Who knows, but it certainly isn't coming back for the near future and unlikely in the same form again. There's a different ethos and management at BA now since when FPP began.

Has anyone attended the BA talk at L3 today? Was there anything announced about the FPP?

Nothing different to what has already been mentioned above. FPP is dormant, a small handful of exceptional whitetail cadets may get the opportunity to be tagged after GS to fly with BA if and when they need pilots, but it is not 'FPP'.

BA have just reopened their cadet scheme with L3 offering both MPL and ATPL routes depending on ducation background. Sadly however, this one is NOT financially sponsored by BA and is completely self funded :(

Given that BBVA and APL no longer offer the loan service, anyone have any other thoughts on how to come up with the 115k needed?

Rather sad really. I see why they do this from a financial point of view but it highlights so much that is wrong with this profession.