Pilot Apprenticeships
 

You may have read of the UK government support for apprenticeships has been extended to companies supporting similar schemes for people wishing to become commercial pilots.
However when contacted, the Scottish Government under its devolved powers has decided not to support the idea. Evidently the provision of pilots for North Sea oil support is not considered important, or I suppose it thinks there aren't many votes in it or is this being cynical?

I agree with the Scottish government that as a tax payer I do not want people being trained for jobs that do not exist or have an over supply of candidates for. Apprenticeships should be for professions we actually need more skilled people in and not imported workers.

There are plenty of Scottish fixed wing and Rotary pilots waiting for jobs, i can't see the benefit in paying for more.

The whole thing is a waste of money. Although I'm no fan of Scotland, well done for not going trough with this farcical scheme. The only people who benefit would be the FTOs. Not the student. They'll get a subsidised course and qualification, no job and will end up flipping burgers. There has never been and never will be a shortage of fresh CPLs lining up for jobs. Kudos to Scotland!

Odd thing to say really. Scotland, I can say with absolute authority is entirely indifferent about you :).

It's a nice place, you should visit it some time (Go North of Perth) - you might be surprised.

Iwas born there my friend pretty much as far north as you can go. Nice up there, however the rest of the place......Happily settled south of the border thanks. Sorry I just re-read my post. I of course mean Scottish government an not the place as a whole! But that's beyond the scope of this post ;-)

Extraordinary attitudes on display here.

An apprenticeship is an apprenticeship because the apprentice is apprenticed to an airline, geddit? It is highly unlikely that an airline will go to the trouble and expense of offering an apprenticeship scheme if they're only training them for multi-crew burger flipping ops. Therefore it will become one of the most secure ways of gaining an airline job.

Second, the biggest barrier to entry to the industry isn't one of ability, it's one of ability to pay. Any scheme that will make student loans available to student pilots, and also likely include the removal the VAT from the training fee, is to be congratulated, not scoffed at, in my opinion.

The VAT is the biggest issue here for me. If they were to remove that from the training costs then all of a sudden it becomes far more obtainable for the average Joe like me who doesnt have access to the funds via rich mummy & daddy.