Want to fly for us? That's $33,150, please

[AlternativeProcedure]

I spent in the region of £80k all in over 20 months to be a 737 first officer.

Damn, what is this profession coming to??? 80K just to be a first officer on a 737. Even with the current state of things, there are still different options out there. I'm not saying yours was a wrong way of doing it, its just seems extremely steep. I cant even start to imagine the loan repayements on that bad boy.

I went off to Africa, persevered, put up with all the b/s and managed to get a turbine job. With time, your hours slowly build and so does your confidence and the reality that this is a job(for which we all have a passion 4) that should bring happiness and not extreme desperation in the early stages. There are many options out there guys, no matter how small the aircraft, no matter how remote and isolated the country, flying is flying. And the experience is what matters. I hardly have luck chasing me, I try my best to make it happen.

[2close]

Don't mean to hijack the thread or go off on a tangent but just to highlight UK training prices generally, the Health & Safety Diploma cost me just under £ 10,000, when you add in accommodation, transport and nosh and that was for a whacking great FIVE whole weeks of tuition.

I was recently looking for some advanced German language refresher tuition as I had the chance of a job out there and all of the UK companies were asking between £ 300 - 400 per DAY plus their accommodation charges if they came to me! For the six weeks I felt I would need for the job that would have cost me roughly £ 12,000 +. I looked up schools in Germany and a full time residential course at Heidelberg University, accommodated B&B with a German family (eat, sleep, breath the language) would have cost me £2,500 for seven weeks!!!

So, it's not just aviation that we get ripped off for in the UK.

If you want to make a fortune, get into training.

2close

[WexCan]

Originally Posted by theschultx

Your all mad...Why pay for a degree? In finland all higher eduction is FREE

Same in Ireland, apart from about €1k per year for student union fees and admin things.

For a single person, tax usually works out as follows:

Standard rate cutoff point: €32k

Tax at 20% up to SRCOP.
Tax at 42% above SRCOP.

Then PAYE workers get a tax credit of €1,490 and single person gets another tax credit of €1,630.

So, there's no tax free allowance, but you get deductions with the tax credits.

Works out well enough.

[Woof etc]

Originally Posted by AlternativeProcedure

With time, your hours slowly build and so does your confidence and the reality that this is a job(for which we all have a passion 4) that should bring happiness and not extreme desperation in the early stages.

Good point and part of the reason underlying the whole sorry, sordid state of affairs. The problem is that a lot of the guys forking out these ludicrous amounts of money have very little experience of working in the industry, and are still so in love the romantic idea of being a pilot that they will pay anything to get into that RHS. How many times have you seen people on these forums saying 'to hell with it, fork out and live your dreams; do you want to spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been etc. etc.' Almost like being in the intial stages of a romance - all reason goes completely out the window.

Unfortunately those pilots with a bit more time and experience, and a more realistic understanding what it is like to work as a pilot, and that it is a job, not utopia - have to pay the stakes set by those on the lower rungs of the food chain to stay in the game. By the time the bottom suckers have realised that it is a job after all, it's too late - they've already fded it up for everyone else.

As far as employees in other industries paying for post grad training - sure it happens, but not for job specific training. If I had been told as an engineer that my company had decided to buy a new bit of kit, and that I would have to pay to get trained on it I would died laughing. Paying for a type rating is JOB SPECIFIC training - you didn't decide what aircraft your company chose to operate. In many cases type ratings are not readily transferrable, in fact some companies want you to redo the rating, and type ratings have a sell by date. Getting an MBA by comparison is personal enrichment, and usually such a qualification is motivated by the promise of higher remuneration. It is also a readily transferrable skill.

But at the end of the day, the only reason that aviaition employers can get away with steadily reducing T and C s, is because we let them.

It would be an interesting exercise if somene where to calculate the total amount of money spent on training, lost income, type ratings etc. (for all pilots, including those that dont secure employment) versus total income over an average flying career (and not everyone makes it to the LHS of a Cathay 747), and work out the return on investment. I'm not sure it would be in the black!