What it's like to spend £65,000 and not get a job
 

Flightglobal.com has just put up an article about five student pilots who graduated with frozen ATPLs and can't find jobs. Worth a read at Training to fly a desk

This looks like a case of a Ryanair SSTR for this lot.

I read this in Flight International yesterday over France. I thought CTC got off very lightly. They are still selling the dream to new customers whilst in the background they have dozen and dozens and dozens and yet more dozens of ex-customers living a nightmare.

A nightmare where your crappy wages are swallowed by your loan repayments so you have to live with your parents and pretend you're 16 again.


Sure, Caveat Emptor. But still.


WWW

Great read and very realistic.I was amzed although not surprised when the guy mentioned his flight traning buddies are working in a vast range of jobs-from working in the city to selling ice-creams!

WWW is right. But did you seriously expect him to say anything negative about CTC?

Why ever not? Is there a gagging clause in that contract where they handed over £65,000???

I do understand and empathise with their position though, any bad word against the silver tongued sales crowd down at Dibden could put pay to the already slim chances of CTC holding up their part of the "bargain" (obligatory duty in my opinion).

Very interesting read having personally trained through the same time period/scale as them, albeit not with CTC and (needless to say) for far less £.

It didn't seem to me that any of them were doing all that badly? I know of far less desirable positions from a number of my own course mates.

Lord Farquhar certainly seems to have landed on his feet and the fella acting f/o on Citations - not a bad little foot in the door.

seeing yet more experienced drivers are being made redundant at BMI Baby, great time to blow 65K:ugh:

BALPA's The Log page 16 is also a great read

Why not join BALPA and have them send it through the post to you each month?


BMI Baby now planning to lay off nearly 60 highly experienced B737 pilots in the UK. BMI mainline and regional announcements soon. :(

WWW

You are right about CTC, yet the people I know have loans at 100k and don't even seemed phased by the fact that they will need to be on £30k just to pay off the minimum each month.

Maybe part of the CTC course (free for anyone paying more that £50k) is learning how to be so oblivious to the sheer amount of debt that they are getting themselves into.

I had a thought the other day. I wonder if when airlines do start recruiting, they are going to favour those with a more stable lifestyle?

Stable, home-owner, no debts, 2 cars and a dog.

vs

Struggling, bankrupt, zero credit rating, 1 bus pass and a starvin dog.

Does that come into it?

Being totally desperate for each months pay cheque would suit most airlines would be my guess..

WWW

Good calls Weasly boyo.

An interesting thread, but not one post giving first hand account of the struggle to make payments without flying employment.

I wonder if anyone has filed insolvency?

We must therefore assume that, no matter how much money has been 'spunked', all flight training debt's are being serviced.

"Never in the field of human endeavours, has so much money been spent, by so many, for so little."

As I've been roundly condemned for saying in the past - there are loads of Wannabes going bankrupt and shed loads more planning or going to be forced to. There are even two threads running on the private CTC forum about it (your defences are weak Dibden).

Its the only sensible thing to do. Owe £75k+ and scratching a living whilst living with parents and owning nothing = go bankrupt. You'd be certifiable not to.

Really. Certifiable.


WWW

I would be fascinated to know how much debt has been potentially accrued.

I flew with a young chap earlier in the week that had spent 100k+!

Luckily, he's working; but just imagine had things been different.

Still no posts from anyone facing 'flying debt' problems. Not One!

This thread might serve to highlight difficulties in an under resourced aviation industry but, so far, we are compelled to assume all's well.

WWW,

This being the case, why will no one speak out?

If you are correct, and I think you are, where are all the posts?

"What it's like to spend £65,000 and not get a job"

Its like getting a shave in an expensive parlour without knowing the fact that its going to grow again:}.

I suspect they fear being blackballed.

I finished modular training in 2004, still working as a flying instructor 5 years later. Spent about £50000 in total, escaped with only £26000 debt due to spreading it out over a few years and selling my house for a small profit.

Now in 2009 I am still £22000 in debt. The reason I have paid off so little is that when I first started instructing I was bringing in less than £10k a year. Loan repayments plus rent added up to about £750 per month (more than my monthly take-home) so was actually having to borrow more money each month to make the repayments on other loans. Basically was just moving money from loan to loan.

Am now on a half-decent salary as an instructor and am just breaking even each month. As a result the debt has started going down at a faster rate. However, my flying school is looking like it's going to close soon. I haven't even been paid for last month so am working for free already. I have no idea how I am going to continue to make my repayments and pay my rent. It's only during the last few months I've even managed to break even, and it's going tits up already.

I have no idea why people would take on £60000 debt in one go. When I trained and borrowed money, I assumed that I wouldn't find a job and would have to make the repayments on a low wage. I think that's the safest way.

Hi Flinty,

I have been up since 04.15. My tiny brain is working flexi time; presently enjoying 'un petit vin rouge'. How can anyone be black-balled on pprune?

Our friend the 'Token Bird' has courageously, given an insight into her situation. Thank you.

I just wonder/hope, if the industry was laid bare, might we be able to change? Frankly, IMHO, this lady above others deserves a break. (Unlike those soley focused on paying their 'dowry' and destroying our collective future).

I have just noticed www.debt24.com advertised at the bottom of this page:{.

No expert, but the ppl (:}cpl/atpl?!) in debt won't really come here to ask advice, probably because they have read and read here (if they have been commited to getting said licences) for advice.

Obviously things aren't great at the minute, as told by WWW, who is a moderator I think, and a number of others.

But you know how it is, there is no patience anymore, so people just go integrated/SSTR.

They then find out they are stuck after qualification without a job+debt.

So they are not going to come back on here, telling all about how they ***** up are they?!

NB: I am not 'dissing' anyones choices: integrated/modular per se! Let's all just try and help each other on these forums instead of backstabbing!!

Rob1975

Big Number.

I read somewhere recently that some of them had said they didn't trust the training organisation not to spike their job chances if they were seen complaining about them. I know they should be anonymous on here but if they're desperate perhaps they felt it wasn't worth the risk.

Rob1975's theory makes sense too. If you'd just blown the equivalent of a small house somewhere and were still living off mummy and daddy you'd not be shouting it from the rooftops.





TokenBird. Tried to send you a PM but you've elected not to receive messages in your profile settings.

Well of course some poor sod dangling on the end of a CTC lifeline isn't going to call them a bunch of exploitative ****s.

These people are scum. They are persuading Wannabes to part with huge sums, often loaned, in pursuit of a career plan they know to be fatally flawed.

You looked just then and thought - hang on, scum is a bit strong - but that's precisely the term you would use to describe a drug pusher or a pimp or a loan shark.

Apt.


WWW

http://www.pprune.org/terms-endearme...-new-post.html

and for a bit of light relief.:ugh:..this is the future of air travel!

A good estimate would be to take the turnover of the training schools, take off say 10% to cover those getting aviation jobs (an optimistic assessment) and that gives you the total amount of un-productive training, or 'spunked cash' to quote from an earlier posting.

You just then need an idea of the percentage of trainees having to borrow money to cover training, versus those who have been more sensible and saved, or those emptying the bank of mum and dad.

Whatever the answer, it's a lot of money (and debt), and it's good to see the problem getting exposure. Whether it will stop the wannabee army is another matter.

Would anyone from CTC like to say how much the full course costs, not just the advertised price?

Speaking to someone that trained there, I understand that this £65000 figure is not entirely true. Whether different batches had different arrangements I don't know but this guy was telling me that he has effectively a £96000 loan + the 1 year worth of deferred charges and then starts paying it back at 7% over 7 years.

I don't mind telling people about my flying debt. £5000, however no interest if I pay the full amount off after 12 months. Ok, so I thats just the PPL, but I don't intend on borrowing anything to fund the rest of the training. Why not just stay in a good job and put the money away?

I might start up a loan scheme for CTC or Oxford etc. Easy money :ok:

Maybe they don't feel like they're poor sods. Maybe they don't feel like they're dangling from CTC's lifeline and perhaps they're content with what they have at the moment knowing full well from their own analysis of the situation, and CTC's fairly blunt analysis of the current situation, what is likely to happen over the next couple of months.

It seems from the outside that your view of a CTC cadet is a lemming unable to fend for themselves, desperately hanging off the word of CTC management. Surely that article shows they're not? Most I have spoken to acknowledge times are crap, jobs aren't available, they won't be for a long time, but it's what they want to do and they can make ends meet. "CTC management" usually doesn't enter those conversations.

I think if you met Chris Clarke and aired your concerns, you probably wouldn't call him "scum" and an "exploitive ****". But I suppose that's the way of the internet.

Dr Eckener

10% optimistic? That really depends on your terms of reference. In the good times I would suggest that the vast majority would be flying for pay eventually, most of those on good pay and on track for very good salaries. In the bad times, the vast majority will have a few years to wait, it is true. Those that persist will still get jobs (everyone I am still in touch with is being paid to fly, despite the fact that many of them finished courses in difficult times, as indeed did I). I agree that CTC is not good for pilots, and I hope that such schemes and self-sponsored integrated courses gradually die a natural death, however to make hysterical claims simply weakens the case.

Ok, so I'm one of those often criticised low-hour types who has paid my way through an integrated course with associated £50k loan (and a realistic plan for paying it back if I didn't get an airline job!). I was unlucky, things were rosy on the aviation world when I started, but started going downhill a couple of months before I finished. Since then, I've spent several months fruitlessly looking for jobs. I quickly came to the realisation that aviation is going to be a non-starter for some years to come.
As such, I'm looking to other areas for employment and am confident I'll find something soon and have another back up if I don't!
I've also started an FI rating - not as a means to find a job, but more to improve my skill set and my flying ability. I know I'll be able to get some part time work out of it, which will be a 'nice-to-have'. What I'll definitely be getting is a life skill which I'll have with me throughout my flying career (whatever that may be!).
My thinking is that I'll keep my flying skills up and keep renewing my ME-IR, whilst doing a 'normal' job. Then, when the market picks up, I'll re-assess.
There's only so long you can sit around hoping for that call for a flying job...

wg100 - good call; FI is what I do now (dnt think I've updated my profile yet tho :O) It's the 'old route in' , not paid well, but it's all aout keeping your 'hand in', gaining experience, hours, and keeping current.

There may be a return to the old "self improvers" route when people realise they are shafting themselves and others by paying to fly.

wg100

Do you really think you will make a good PPL instructor when you have presumably never held a PPL and have simply been trained to be an airline FO? It is nothing personal, I don't know you, but the only instructor I knew who had been an integrated student was very poor and made errors precisely because he had no idea of a PPL. Have you done any club flying, to know that it suits you? Your attitude is promising for the future, that an instructor rating is a good thing to have done for your general flying, but why not simply take a non-flying job and wait for the inevitable upturn?

To me this really illustrates one of the big reasons not to take an integrated course. I know it's too late for you to change your choice, but do your reasons for doing so in preference to a modular course make any sense now? Do you think a modular course would have prepared you better for being in this position? I think others should learn from this, and I have always disliked the integrated course for just such reasons.

I don't think these CTC wannabe pups really care about their loans etc as most of them will have got the cash from the bank of mum and dad or at least the olds will be paying the loan repayments anyway. I am just surprised that they have not decided to get mum and dad to fund their Ryanair SSTR.

I find Lord Farquhars upbeat approach quite amusing in that he can use his skills gained at CTC to benefit any other career options such as CRM will help him get along with colleagues, ha ha ha I nearly fell off my seat laughing.

If I were him I would switch to rotary and ask his present employers for a job.

Is this CTC bashing not getting a little out of hand now? We all know there are people out there who have massive debts and no chance of a job and I feel for them, I really do.

I'm sure that when they started out the aviation world looked rosey, and no one predicted what would happen at the end of 2008, to the banks and the subsequent recession.

However, no one asked them to become pilots, to take out huge loans and learn to fly. Anyone who does a minimal amount of research will know that aviation is cyclical, in 2007/8 we were at the top of the cycle, now we are at the bottom. People have to take the rough with the smooth.

I find it quite interesting that those who are most vocal about CTC are those who have not been trained by them, or used any of their services. I include you in that WWW. Those that have will no doubt understand that their current predicament is not the direct fault of CTC. But they will also understand that CTC has a proven track record of getting more people in to the front seats of shiny jets than any other training organisation that I know of, bar direct sponsorship.

I consider my self quite fortunate. I left OAS in 1999 with a frozen ATPL, but no contacts in the aviation world. OAS did the square route of squat to help me find that first job. I did however, make it through the selection for the CTC ATP scheme. With in 12 months I was sitting in the RHS of a shiny 757 on full FOs pay. I know many others who did the same.

I know things are not like that now, and that the likes of Easy Jet and others (my own airline included) are taking advantage of these CTC cadets. But I would lay the blame squarely at the feet of the airline industry. It is the airlines who are the "exploitative ****s". It is the airlines who have no interest in keeping cadets on, and take them on knowing full well that there will not be a job at the end of their six month contracts. What's happened to the CTC cadet scheme is the airlines fault not CTCs. I suppose you could argue that CTC should not let it happen, but CTC is a business and at then end of the day these guys are comming out of the scheme with a type rating and about 200 hours on type. Now you tell me who is the best placed when the up turn eventually comes, 200 hours total and a frozen ATPL, or 400 hours frozen ATPL and a 320 type rating?

Yeah the article in the log did make an interesting read EGCC4284, so much so that I felt the need to dispatch it straight into the bin. As long as this type of outfit is here pimping these muppets out to airlines the worse it gets. As for you integrated lot nicking all the FI jobs (where are they?) Watch out! There is an army of us out there ready and waiting to dust off the old knee board and get the whiteboard markers out when the axe finally swings. That article in flight global was skin crawling, I loved the bit about the A320 flightdeck, quote lord farquar.. o dear :(

I may not have gone down the PPL route, however, I've been tought to fly SEP (to PPL standards) and MEP (to CPL/IR standards). Yes, the overall theme was to develop us as FOs, but I'm a pilot first and foremost. The FI course teaches you how to teach at PPL level. I've also got plenty of training/teaching experience from a previous job, so I'm sure I'll be able to instruct with the minimum of 'errors'. A colleague who did his FI course earlier this year is instructing successfully and competently, so it may well be that your experience with a poor instructor was a one off. Who knows?
As to doing the FI rating vs getting a job. I'm fully intending to get a 'normal' job, but it is proving rather hard to find at the moment. The FI course is occuring alongside my job hunting. I'm multi-tasking!

Club flying? Yes I have. I regularly fly from my local club and enjoy doing so. I figured it was ridiculous to spend so much money on gaining a license and then not put it to good use. Some of my colleagues haven't touched an aircraft since their IR over a year ago.

It may have been the wrong decision to do an integrated course, but it made sense at the time as i didn't have any other committments and I wanted to throw myself into the training. I whole heartedly agree that people entering these courses at the moment need to take a long hard look at themselves. I certainly wouldn't have considered starting in the current climate and the modular route may now be the way to go. I wouldn't change anything though, as I made some good friends on the course and have gained a skill for life along with plenty of life experience... You can't change the past, so I've just got to look to the future and make the best of a bad situation.

It's interesting that Mark Farquhar, the guy who was the main subject of the article, attributes his desk job with Bristow to his business studies degree.

It looks like his investment in the degree was money better spent then his investment in his license. :)

It's also a good piece of advice to those contemplating a degree - DON'T do an aviation degree - do something independently useful!

The article is completely unrepresentitive of the the average CPL/IR graduate, in fact, even the average 95% - A girl who is very rich given her father is an 'airline executive' (lucky her and fair enough but not representitive), an 'acting' fo on a single pilot aircraft (though interesting and probably enjoyable - it isn't going to earn you money and as for the fancy name calling:yuk:. I bet he wears gold or silver bars)

Someone who happens to live in the furthest corner of the country and thus doesn't need to relocate and someone who has been pretty sensible.

Anyone for some cherry picking?

How about the people working in petrol stations, supermarkets, call centres, warehouses and collecting the dole because they don't have connections?

Whatever you do, don't believe the hype.

Hi guys, I've spent arround 40k for a frozen ATPL. I had first series passes all the way and really good scores on the ATPL exams and living on unemployment money at the moment (Just lost my Job), trust me it feels really bad...
Even though I'm not in debt as I inherited most of the money and saved up the rest, it still is a very bad feeling, having spent so much money and knowing you haven't earned it yourself.... And the worst part is, most shemes at the moment require to put in even more money (CTC, Ryan or an FI Course) and all are with very little chance of succeeding... But I've gone to far to give up now....

The Beak, for a second then I thought you said whorehouses!!! Well the loan does need to be paid by whatever means! Check out the gold bars on this one...............!

It must be because I am now so used to hearing CTC, pimps, exploitation, etc etc all in the same sentence!

Now get back to "servicing" that loan.

Sorry, sorry.