CTC Sold
 

So that everyone is in the loop, it's worth noting that CTC has been sold to a private equity business.

Won't necessarily change things, but PE houses can be very good at driving further cost savings!

PE houses are very good at reducing overheads, maximising value from a business, cleaning up balance sheets and reducing debt and then selling it on 2-3 years later for a massive profit.

"Polishing a turd" if you will...

It would probably be a wise student who waited for a few months before committing to this course now.

Such changes in ownership are often detrimental to staff and customers, although any press releases will always talk about this allowing significant new investment from Inflexion and HSBC worth tens of £millions!

Does anyone have a link for this?

Why would this have happened and realistically what effect will this have?

Sound like a good time for the Cash Taking Captains to cash in one last time. Without them though and there dubious links to the airlines I'd be surprised if this private equity outfit can make it work.

Yes - a final payday for the Captains, leaving behind a business with even greater debt payments to service.

This deal will be nicely dressed up as ensuring that CTC has the investment required for the booming growth in pilot training in asia....

Oxford was bought by GCAT with U.S investment, built up a bit with Asia business etc and then sold to CAE. Perhaps GCAT could see student / cadet loans would be harder to obtain and less people in the pipeline and decided to build it up a bit and then sell out whilst ontop.

What source has this information come from, how do we know it has been sold to PE Houses?

As far as I can see, the current directors are staying on in directing roles. Perhaps this is nothing more than wishing a 'Dragons Den' style cash injection to take advantage of the expanding far east market, with the promise of high rewards for the investors, rather than a 'jump ship' before it sinks?

If you read the article i think jar187 is closer to the actual reasoning behind the sale. The big expansion for CTC is planned in the far east, particularly China, so I don't think any of the current CTC board will be fleeing for the hills just yet. I can't see how it will affect current or future cadets either, there will be jobs, just not very many in the UK....anyway, I'd hate to see Dibden Manor go, that pesky 737 groundschool was far more civilised with tea, cake and a spot of golf after lunch :p

I would wait and see, Private Equity....they have no experience in Aviation.:confused:
Good luck to all out in New Zealand

Well, 3i did pretty well buying Go from BA and selling on to easyJet!:ok:

I hope CTC doesn't close up shop in the UK, but the ATP scheme has stopped, easy jet only offering summer contracts... not looking good.

Dam I wanted to join their cadet scheme next year :(.

Hi joe86,

Sorry you feel that way. Just out of interest, what is it that attracts you to the easy cadet scheme, compared to others schemes? Not passing any judgement, just curious.

Happy to answer... Basically after chatting to flight schools and doing my research I narrowed it down to CTC for integrated training and the Bournemouth jet line course for modular.

For me start-finish training without gaps would be best and CTC have their holding pool and links to airlines which most schools don't have, CTC also have links with easyjet. Plan B would be do the jet line course at Bournemouth and then try Ryainair etc...

Why easy jet? I'm an Airbus repair design engineer and know the A320 family well which would make excellent background knowledge for training/flying with easy jet as I think they have phased out all the 737s now. For some strange reason I also like easy jet as an airline, as a passenger always been good and I’ve heard good things from staff, also they operate from my local airport 'Bristol' :).

P.S. Also very keen on the Flybe cadet scheme, which I will be applying for next time it comes around. Looks good on paper and Flybe is a 'local airline' with modern aircraft types in service e.g. Q400 and EJR 170/190.

Thanks for responding. To narrow it down further if I may, should you be in a position with CTC to fly for Flybe on a dash on 28 grand per year ( incremental pay scale) permanent contract salary, or easy on the a320 and contracting at 1200 a month, until a permanent position became available somewhere, which would you choose?

The reason I ask is, when I trained such a predicament didn't exist, but I'm not sure nowadays what young people want as a first job/ career, given the various options.

Correct me if Im wrong, but the understanding I seem to have with everyone saying "Oh no there no jobs, oh its so hard to get your grips onto the industry" is that for your first job you just have to take what you can get. Though, if I had the choice I would probably go for the Flybe job. Though it is still a somewhat difficult question, 28k a year for the turboprop or a 6 months contract on a jet a at £1200 a month which would get you those vital 500 hours hmmmm

Yeah it is a really hard decision, to be honest the pay is to me is not as important as a stable job... So with that in mind I would Try flybe first (as they will knock £20k off your training costs) and its a stable job. If that fails try easy jet... if that fails I have loads of plan C's, D's, E's etc... :).