How true is the “a license is a license” motto?

[CarrerSwitchAt30]

Hi fellow aviation affictionados and aviators.

I’m 32, fortunate enough to have collected enough wealth from my career to be able to self fund an integrated ATPL, and have 0 desire in doing what I’m currently doing for the rest of my career. I’ve decided to switch careers (and to allow myself some years of pure studying), and so I’m currently looking for an ATO.

I’m European and flexible enough to go anywhere, so there’s basically two extremes to the market:

1) attend one of the big ones (FTEJerez, CAE, L3, etc), pay 120k€+ for the ATPL; or
2) attend a local ATO, pay about half, and spend the rest in APS-MCC and in a TR.

Question is: is it really that relevant for future employers which was my flight school? I know LH group prefers EFA, but in general do carriers really care, do recruiters even ask?

thanks in advance.

[redsnail]

I am sure there's folks will be along with better advice. You are in as we say, a very strong position.
There's full time courses and there's full time courses as you know. Find out which one is actually delivering the products on time. (or as close to time that is feasible given weather etc). Many aren't delivering on time.
Which ones have genuine leads to airlines?
Who do TAP prefer? Not that they are the only employer in PT
If you're not on a tagged scheme, you may as well save the wedge of cash and spend it keeping the IR current and other expensive stuff.
Note - I am happy to be corrected by folks who have better intel.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I would say, whichever route you take - do a PPL first. Find out if you really have the motivation and aptitude to be a pilot, before you spend a penny on further training beyond that.

G

[TowerDog]

Question is: is it really that relevant for future employers which was my flight school?

No…
I worked as a pilot for 37 years and had 15 + flying jobs, none of my employers gave a hoot about my initial flight school.
Work history, licenses, flying hours and attitude counted much more.
​​​​​​​

[605carsten]

Unless you have a particular airline in mind, whom also happen to work with a flightschool to spit out cadets/cannon-fodder for the right seat, then I would honestly go modular and progress thru at your own pace and not be beholden to a school which may or may not go bankrupt taking all your money with them. So I would take the advice above and start with the initial medical, then PPL and pass those two first prior to spending money.

Flightschools will try to sell you whatever to get you thru the door, but at end of day, your license is based on the CAA you do it with and all of us have the same piece of paper in our pockets. If anything, as a 30 year veteran of this industry, I see an arrogance issue amongst the younger pilots who have been spit out of the “name brand” places after being brainwashed to poo poo on lowly modular graduates.

[CarrerSwitchAt30]

Thank you all - very enlightening.

I don’t have any particular airline in mind, TAP or otherwise - I’m preparing for a “beggars can’t be choosers” attitude whenever I get my license, so wouldn’t prioritise anyone based on vague promises of employability by the end, unless there was an excellent reason (e.g. Iberia’s tagged programme at FTEJerez, where they co-pay a significant sum).

I had already ruled out the MPL route for risk aversion, but wasn’t really considering the modular route for timing (and a preference for taking a couple years off, full time, to complete training fully dedicated to it). Don’t really consider the local ATOs I’m considering as a financial risk, as I’m able to conduct effective due diligence on them (data is public) and would always pay in installments and would likely negotiate arrears, but there’s always a risk, I agree. I’ll give it second thought.

Thank you all for your time!

[VariablePitchP]

Originally Posted by TowerDog

No…
I worked as a pilot for 37 years and had 15 + flying jobs, none of my employers gave a hoot about my initial flight school.
Work history, licenses, flying hours and attitude counted much more.

Only caveat here is that for 14 of those airlines you were already a pilot so where you trained would indeed be utterly irrelevant.

OP, were it me I’d follow the advice of other posters here and go for the modular type school to leave a nice fat war chest for getting that type rating, moving around etc.

The pricey schools can be quite literally 40-50k extra. And you don’t see a cent of that. In fact, the integrated sugar factories have been beset by issues as you’ll read about on here. They have your money if you choose that route, very hard to back out so it’s in their interest to ensure they minimise the cost of your training to them, regardless of the impact on you.

They tend to be filled with a large amount of 19 year olds fuelled by the bank of mum and dad without real care or ownership of the money funding their training. Fancy instagram posts and silly Napoleon style epaulettes are all you really have to show for your extra 50K

[605carsten]

The other cool thing with modular is you can do whatever portions of timebuilding and courses in different ATOs and countries within EASA.. so you can expose yourself to different types of terrain and traffic levels and gives you more experience than flying around the same area for the entire period. I also will say you would need to be honest with yourself and how disciplined you are to chose the best option ref ATPL theory.. spoon fed in a school or home study.. (BTW, ATPL theory covers all intermediate levels.. so do them first and you dont have to worry about PPL and CPL theory) Another factor is your age.. you may want to steer away from the intergrated schools as they are more militant and structured in style, and young people need/accept being told what to do.. you may not appreciate being yelled at

[paco]

You also don't get any paperwork at all until you finish with integrated.

[605carsten]

Originally Posted by paco

You also don't get any paperwork at all until you finish with integrated.

yep, and you can do Modular quicker than intergrated too!! You also wont get dragged behind waiting in line to access aircraft as the preceeding classes have to complete their stuff first prior to you flying at your set stages in the program. You will also get true PIC time when timebuilding instead of that weird under-supervision stuff during the Integrated. Shows to me more discipline and hunger for the business than some 20 yearold kid having their hands held all the way thru.

[Genghis the Engineer]

It has no impact upon me, but I have heard a number of aspiring professional pilots recently comment, with considerable conviction, that the larger airlines will only consider applicants who have trained at a small number of schools - and therefore the aspiring pilot should not ruin their career by, say, going and doing a tailwheel or IRR rating at a different school. I'm pretty sure this is a myth, but they get rather upset with me when I call it that. Does anybody have any certain knowledge about that?

G

[Alex Whittingham]

Probably came from BA, Ghengis. When they started their last recruitment, they said something like 'should have trained at no more than two ATOs". I asked their chief recruiter how that was going to work for modular students who did their PPL at A, night rating at B, modular theory at C, CPL/IR at D, UPRT at E and MCC/APS at ATO E. All specialist ATOs in their field. She said 'oh no, that's not what we meant, we want to recruit modular pilots, we want to discourage integrated students swapping between ATOs' but the large ATOs have of course used the initial statement as a thing to try and get more business.

[rudestuff]

If I did modular training and hour building at 10 different schools, I would only mention the the most recent licence and rating. So If I did IRR, CBIR, MEIR I would only mention the MEIR.

My CV would read:
CPL - school A
MEIR - school B
MCC - school C