Growing Evidence That The Upturn Is Upon Us
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Incorrect and I couldn't care a less if that's what you suspect. I am crap with computers for one. I am all qualified with a lovely CPL/IR and all of my useful ATPL passes, beyond that you don't need to know. Take my advice or leave it.
Here's where you show your naivety:
You and every other sucker mate.
Here's where you show your naivety:
I'd be quite happy flying full stop whether it be taxi, ambulance, cargo or otherwise
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Flying Shortly,
Quote - Just because I'm positive and optimistic does not mean I throw my money around irresponsibly. And I certainly am not expecting my parents to foot the bill of my ambitions.
I dont think anyone has suggested you are, the point raised is simply that it would be somewhat misleading to say the least to suggest to people on this forum that forking out thousands of pounds for training is a reasonable investment opportunity for themselves.
Quote - TheBeak, maybe you might outline your position. It's all well giving advice if you've been through the mill but I suspect you've probably got an IT desk job wishing you'd done otherwise....
Even if he is; so what? This is paid employment, job and financial security. How could anyone possibly be criticised for that in the current climate?? (or any climate for that matter!)
Personal debt has spiralled out of control in this country over the last decade, and it is in no small part down to the fact that it has been far too easy and 'socially accepted' to get loans/credit cards etc for sizeable sums of money.
I see no problem at all with a balanced opinion from posters to prospective training candidates, pointing out the pitfalls of committing £70k+. Surely you or anyone else cant disagree with that?
Rather than relying on 'luck' and other such self reassuring sanctimonious rubbish perhaps people should be encouraged to consider a 3, 5 or 10 year plan for their future.
Quote - Just because I'm positive and optimistic does not mean I throw my money around irresponsibly. And I certainly am not expecting my parents to foot the bill of my ambitions.
I dont think anyone has suggested you are, the point raised is simply that it would be somewhat misleading to say the least to suggest to people on this forum that forking out thousands of pounds for training is a reasonable investment opportunity for themselves.
Quote - TheBeak, maybe you might outline your position. It's all well giving advice if you've been through the mill but I suspect you've probably got an IT desk job wishing you'd done otherwise....
Even if he is; so what? This is paid employment, job and financial security. How could anyone possibly be criticised for that in the current climate?? (or any climate for that matter!)
Personal debt has spiralled out of control in this country over the last decade, and it is in no small part down to the fact that it has been far too easy and 'socially accepted' to get loans/credit cards etc for sizeable sums of money.
I see no problem at all with a balanced opinion from posters to prospective training candidates, pointing out the pitfalls of committing £70k+. Surely you or anyone else cant disagree with that?
Rather than relying on 'luck' and other such self reassuring sanctimonious rubbish perhaps people should be encouraged to consider a 3, 5 or 10 year plan for their future.
Hmm, couple of abusive posts and private messages now about how I must be a miserable old git.
Sorry, not true. I've been wonderfully lucky in life and if *I* was miserable then 99% of other people would have to be suicidal with their lot. Put it this way, I've just been digging out the hole for my swimming pool with my digger, I've no mortgage, I'm 34 and I've a strapping son about to enter the world.
None of which changes the fact that this is a terrible time for Wannabes and that there are hundreds of REALLY good guys and girls out there now who are £80k down and are working shifts despatching aircraft for £15k. I deal with them every working day. You think you're better, you're different or your license and CV will not look identical to them then you're deluded, ignorant or foolish.
I'm sorry that I do lay it on with a trowel. I have to because this opinion is drowned out by the hurricane of flying school marketing and Wannabes naturally enthusiasm and ambition.
£2k per annum maintenance is a minimum figure at best. Plus getting rusty. Plus more and more unlikely to pass a sim assessment. Plus servicing your debt. All very powerful reasons to sit on the sidelines until the worst of the storm has passed safely by.
WWW
Sorry, not true. I've been wonderfully lucky in life and if *I* was miserable then 99% of other people would have to be suicidal with their lot. Put it this way, I've just been digging out the hole for my swimming pool with my digger, I've no mortgage, I'm 34 and I've a strapping son about to enter the world.
None of which changes the fact that this is a terrible time for Wannabes and that there are hundreds of REALLY good guys and girls out there now who are £80k down and are working shifts despatching aircraft for £15k. I deal with them every working day. You think you're better, you're different or your license and CV will not look identical to them then you're deluded, ignorant or foolish.
I'm sorry that I do lay it on with a trowel. I have to because this opinion is drowned out by the hurricane of flying school marketing and Wannabes naturally enthusiasm and ambition.
£2k per annum maintenance is a minimum figure at best. Plus getting rusty. Plus more and more unlikely to pass a sim assessment. Plus servicing your debt. All very powerful reasons to sit on the sidelines until the worst of the storm has passed safely by.
WWW
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Abusive posts and messages? If that is the case then how rediculous, hardly the behaviour of future professionals but then the internet is all too anonymous! Its easy to be abusive from behind your screen.
No need to rub it in about the swimming pool though . . . !
No need to rub it in about the swimming pool though . . . !
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To all the 'optimists' on this thread then, I must ask what do YOU hope to achieve by your posts? The fact that someone is even considering spending such a huge amount of money on their training shows they have an enthusiam for the job and the industry. That coupled with, as WWW points out, the very biased marketing offered by FTOs REQUIRES a balance applied to it. It isn't all rosy, it IS difficult to get a job and the risk involved in terms of money and time need to be considered. This thread has become a medium by which relevant news, advice and opinions can be offered to help challenge ones ultimate desire to become a PAID commercial pilot. I remember the turmoil I went through deciding whether I should spend my VERY hard earned cash on pilot training, especially when it seemed I wasn't terribly natural at it. And it was the advice that came from this thread and others that offered the wake up call and sharpener I required to make a concious, rational decision to pursue things.
Humans DO suffer from confirmation bias and when deciding all one (at least I could) can think of is going fast, going high, seeing places, the status, the responsibility, being paid alot (relatively) and basically not having to work for the money - it is a pleasure after all!
And thinking that you would do the 'less sexy' jobs makes you any different to the thousands of other jobless pilots out there is the definition of delusion. 99.99999999999999% of qualified pilots without a job would move anywhere to fly anything be it 152s in Yorkshire, King Airs in Kenya, L410s in Ukraine or Shorts 360s in Afghanistan containing anything be it sick people, cargo, passengers, animals, students.
People do of course get jobs but it is getting tougher and tougher without bags of cash, no dependents and a willingness to be unemployed for half of the year - and that is if you are lucky.
Humans DO suffer from confirmation bias and when deciding all one (at least I could) can think of is going fast, going high, seeing places, the status, the responsibility, being paid alot (relatively) and basically not having to work for the money - it is a pleasure after all!
And thinking that you would do the 'less sexy' jobs makes you any different to the thousands of other jobless pilots out there is the definition of delusion. 99.99999999999999% of qualified pilots without a job would move anywhere to fly anything be it 152s in Yorkshire, King Airs in Kenya, L410s in Ukraine or Shorts 360s in Afghanistan containing anything be it sick people, cargo, passengers, animals, students.
People do of course get jobs but it is getting tougher and tougher without bags of cash, no dependents and a willingness to be unemployed for half of the year - and that is if you are lucky.
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Been in my swimming pool this afternoon.... keep digging WWW 
)
And there aren't any jobs for wanabees in the middle east where I live either.... but the world is full of 18-21 year olds who don't have a scooby about how they will get screwed in the real world! Fying schools live on dreams during recessions.
)And there aren't any jobs for wanabees in the middle east where I live either.... but the world is full of 18-21 year olds who don't have a scooby about how they will get screwed in the real world! Fying schools live on dreams during recessions.
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I think the very saddest part of the story is the precession of proud parents signing guarantee on the flight training loans.
Sadly, the wise words from TheBeak (and others) will never pour caution on a parental desire to support the flawed business plan. Pprune is not in their sphere of research.
And yet they come.. More and more FATPL's are issued, SSTR are followed, Line Training is bought..............
Sadly, the wise words from TheBeak (and others) will never pour caution on a parental desire to support the flawed business plan. Pprune is not in their sphere of research.
And yet they come.. More and more FATPL's are issued, SSTR are followed, Line Training is bought..............
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I think the very saddest part of the story is the precession of proud parents signing guarantee on the flight training loans.
The truth is, it is a lot of money to borrow and the equity ratios required are somewhere in the order of 60% max LTV after the loan has been approved in the most common scheme. I doubt too many people will qualify in any event.
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Anybody know if the integrated schools are struggling yet? I would have thought they would be getting dangerously short on business until I re-joined this forum recently and read some of the postings.
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Let's face it. The enthusiasm deep inside the majority of wannabes won't be put out by the aviation industry gurus in here! Just remember your old days when you all were similarly young and energetic wannabes, although circumstances were significanlty different, nothing seemed to stop anyone of you I suppose. Say what you say about FTO,s abusing the dreams of today's young people, but it begins with those who go after their dreams as soon as they catch a glimpse of hope at the end of the bumpy dark tunnel. It's the ignition that can hardly be stopped, gentlemen!
Keep posting your opinions and conclusions, but for God's sake don't make a win/lose argument of either opinion. Otherwise, let it be a never-ending battle between a judicious mind and a supercharged passion!!!
Keep posting your opinions and conclusions, but for God's sake don't make a win/lose argument of either opinion. Otherwise, let it be a never-ending battle between a judicious mind and a supercharged passion!!!
I know what you mean Welco. I was starting out in 1997 which is when the industry really recovered from the early 1990's recession and jobs were being created. From then until the eleventh of September things were peachy, then dipped, then super peachy. Times today are similar (or worse) to those not seen for nearly 17 years.
Yet now things a much much worse. Now you can pay £70k for your basic training, then £20k for your type rating, then be asked to work for allowances and then after 500hrs put back into the job market - ta very much for all the hard work over the summer..
That's a right load of old bollocks that it. When you get to the job you'll find you're a shift worker, highly monitored, a number in a computer, a very small cog, hated by some of your co-workers and hauling ungrateful ignorant drunken people from point A to point B hoping they don't kick-off or kick the bucket in transit.
You will, like every other commercial pilot under the age of 50, simply be in it for the money.
I note from todays Sunday Times:
BA in pension reserves crisis - Times Online
Need to know: Aer Lingus cuts flights ... Eurozone output falls ... Waitrose sales rise - Times Online
Flight from first class puts airlines into a nosedive - Times Online
This isn't like anything you think you've seen unless you saw the 1991-92 recession from the viewpoint of wanting an airline pilots job. You don't comprehend how tough it will get.
WWW
Yet now things a much much worse. Now you can pay £70k for your basic training, then £20k for your type rating, then be asked to work for allowances and then after 500hrs put back into the job market - ta very much for all the hard work over the summer..
That's a right load of old bollocks that it. When you get to the job you'll find you're a shift worker, highly monitored, a number in a computer, a very small cog, hated by some of your co-workers and hauling ungrateful ignorant drunken people from point A to point B hoping they don't kick-off or kick the bucket in transit.
You will, like every other commercial pilot under the age of 50, simply be in it for the money.
I note from todays Sunday Times:
BA in pension reserves crisis - Times Online
BA in pension reserves crisis
Dominic O’Connell
BRITISH AIRWAYS has begun a tough set of negotiations with its pension trustees after dropping below the level of cash reserves agreed three years ago.
The threshold was set in 2006 in talks between the company and trustees at New Airways Pension Scheme, the larger of BA’s two final-salary plans. It agreed to pay a big one-off contribution help address the deficit, and to pay an extra £50m a year as long as it had £1.8 billion of net cash.
BA’s recent results revealed that its net cash had dropped to £1.3 billion. This is expected to fall further this year with the recession. Willie Walsh, the chief executive, says BA faces a fight for survival.
Dominic O’Connell
BRITISH AIRWAYS has begun a tough set of negotiations with its pension trustees after dropping below the level of cash reserves agreed three years ago.
The threshold was set in 2006 in talks between the company and trustees at New Airways Pension Scheme, the larger of BA’s two final-salary plans. It agreed to pay a big one-off contribution help address the deficit, and to pay an extra £50m a year as long as it had £1.8 billion of net cash.
BA’s recent results revealed that its net cash had dropped to £1.3 billion. This is expected to fall further this year with the recession. Willie Walsh, the chief executive, says BA faces a fight for survival.
Need to know: Aer Lingus cuts flights ... Eurozone output falls ... Waitrose sales rise - Times Online
Aer Lingus: The Irish airline said that it would cut seat capacity on its winter long-haul services by a quarter compared with 2008 in response to low demand and significant losses in the first quarter. The company will cut direct services from Dublin to Washington and San Francisco as well as flights between Shannon and Chicago for the winter period.
Flight from first class puts airlines into a nosedive - Times Online
Flight from first class puts airlines into a nosedive
Irwin Stelzer: American Account
The airline industry has never generated sustained profits — by some estimates if you add up all the profits and losses since the Wright brothers flew from Kitty Hawk in 1903, the net amount would be written in red ink. This year will be no different. The global industry will lose an estimated $9 billion, after losses of $10.4 billion last year.
The question now is, which carriers will survive the downturn, and with what sort of schedules and service? It’s not an easy question to answer because two forces are at work: the current, temporary cyclical downturn, and a permanent change in travel habits.
Press reports are not much help. One day we learn that the industry has suffered huge losses in every year since 2001, with the exception of 2007, the next that United Airlines is ready to place a $10 billion order for 150 new jetliners. One day British Airways announces that it won’t configure any new planes to offer first-class service, and Qantas scraps first-class service on three of its long-haul routes; the next day Lufthansa and Air France-KLM announce plans to use their new A380 super-jumbos to expand their premium service offerings, even though premium travel (first and business class) is down about 20%.
There is no question that the recession is hitting the airline industry where it hurts – in the premium service category. This is especially true on the transatlantic routes on which BA is so heavily dependent for its profits, and in the Asia-Pacific region.
The airline industry has never generated sustained profits — by some estimates if you add up all the profits and losses since the Wright brothers flew from Kitty Hawk in 1903, the net amount would be written in red ink. This year will be no different. The global industry will lose an estimated $9 billion, after losses of $10.4 billion last year.
The question now is, which carriers will survive the downturn, and with what sort of schedules and service? It’s not an easy question to answer because two forces are at work: the current, temporary cyclical downturn, and a permanent change in travel habits.
Press reports are not much help. One day we learn that the industry has suffered huge losses in every year since 2001, with the exception of 2007, the next that United Airlines is ready to place a $10 billion order for 150 new jetliners. One day British Airways announces that it won’t configure any new planes to offer first-class service, and Qantas scraps first-class service on three of its long-haul routes; the next day Lufthansa and Air France-KLM announce plans to use their new A380 super-jumbos to expand their premium service offerings, even though premium travel (first and business class) is down about 20%.
There is no question that the recession is hitting the airline industry where it hurts – in the premium service category. This is especially true on the transatlantic routes on which BA is so heavily dependent for its profits, and in the Asia-Pacific region.
This isn't like anything you think you've seen unless you saw the 1991-92 recession from the viewpoint of wanting an airline pilots job. You don't comprehend how tough it will get.
WWW
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UK 'to recover slowly from 2010'
The UK economy is stabilising but it will not be until early next year that a "slow and gradual" recovery will begin, business leaders have said.
The economy will contract by 3.9% over 2009 before seeing a return to growth of 0.7% next year, the CBI predicted.
"The harshest period of the recession looks to be behind us," said CBI director general Richard Lambert.
But he warned people against getting carried away by talk of "green shoots" in the economy.
In the Budget, the chancellor forecast the economy would shrink by 3.5% this year before expanding by 1.25% in 2010.
The economy will contract by 3.9% over 2009 before seeing a return to growth of 0.7% next year, the CBI predicted.
"The harshest period of the recession looks to be behind us," said CBI director general Richard Lambert.
But he warned people against getting carried away by talk of "green shoots" in the economy.
In the Budget, the chancellor forecast the economy would shrink by 3.5% this year before expanding by 1.25% in 2010.
it is about risk management
How can you possibly, in all seriousness bank on luck as a factor in getting a job and being able to pay back a mortgage sized loan?
now is NOT the time to get recruited by an airline
there are jobs out there for those with the luck, talent or perseverence to get them
Perserverence is essential when times are tough. By going modular and being prepared to earn peanuts as an FI, baggage handler, dispatcher, or crop-picker etc will eventually get you on the first rung of the ladder. If you don't believe that, don't start training. BUT you've got to plan for the worst case scenario.
As for talent, we have all met people during flying training who simply aren't suited to a career in professional aviation. I know of at least one guy on an MCC course whom I wouldn't lend a bicycle, let alone any form of aerial transport. And he had a CPL/IR?!
But unfortunately FTOs are eager for your money and will try to get you a licence even if they think you're useless, provided you hand over the cash. The integrated providers seem to be better than the modular at regulating their intake. In good times they're better at getting their students jobs. In bad times everyone's scr
ed.
You will, like every other commercial pilot under the age of 50, simply be in it for the money
Now is probably a very good time for advising younger wannabes to get a good education and some working life under their belts before entering the industry.
Cheer up people!
MH152
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American economy to recover by next year
The US will see a "solid" recovery from the downturn next year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) declared today in the latest indication that the recession has bottomed out.
The group, which had previously delivered some of the gloomiest forecasts about the global economy, today revised its view, saying the US was set to grow more strongly than previously thought.
In its annual report on the world's biggest economy it forecast that a heavy dose of stimulus would see the US contract by 2.5 per cent this year, with a modest expansion in 2010 of 0.75 per cent.
Previously, it had forecast that the economy would shrink by 2.8 per cent in 2009 and improve slightly but show no growth next year.
The group, which had previously delivered some of the gloomiest forecasts about the global economy, today revised its view, saying the US was set to grow more strongly than previously thought.
In its annual report on the world's biggest economy it forecast that a heavy dose of stimulus would see the US contract by 2.5 per cent this year, with a modest expansion in 2010 of 0.75 per cent.
Previously, it had forecast that the economy would shrink by 2.8 per cent in 2009 and improve slightly but show no growth next year.
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With the recovery will come back the high price fuel. There is nothing we can do about that, but using something else than fuel to feed our cars, I know it won' t happen anytime soon.
Optimism won' t change anything. Last century saw the birth and development of space and aviation. This century is a transition one, aviation has turbulence ahead.
Optimism won' t change anything. Last century saw the birth and development of space and aviation. This century is a transition one, aviation has turbulence ahead.
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With the recovery will come back the high price fuel. There is nothing we can do about that, but using something else than fuel to feed our cars, I know it won' t happen anytime soon.
This is the reason that i am getting all of my training done during the downturn as when the fuel price goes up i won't be able to afford it 
atleast when it is all said and done all i have to worry about is keeping current www will probably be horrified at what i just wrote
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BA asks staff to work for nothing
British Airways is asking thousands of staff to work for nothing, for up to one month, to help the airline survive.
The appeal, sent by e-mail to more than 30,000 workers in the UK, asks them to volunteer for between one week and one month's unpaid leave, or unpaid work.
The appeal, sent by e-mail to more than 30,000 workers in the UK, asks them to volunteer for between one week and one month's unpaid leave, or unpaid work.
