Hi, I hate to bring you bad news, but I am on the first course who were sent out to Malaga mid-May this year. It is now August 10th and I have only just been scheduled my first two flights this coming week. We were told by both CAE and the easy liaison team that the first class would be prioritised, as it’s been so long since we finished groundschool (our last exam was 14th December 2023!). CAE have now turned around and told us that we will be sharing instructors equally with the other three classes out here, and have no sort of enhanced training plan in place to get us back on course for our sim phase in Milan, which was scheduled to start w/c 11th November. We have a class who finished groundschool 2 months ago scheduled to be only 4-6 weeks behind us, starting this coming Monday. With the current instructor number (4 including the CFI, so basically 3) and the projected progress of certification, there will be 7 instructors ready, to share between 74 cadets, come September, which is simply not feasible. These numbers currently allow for an absolute maximum of barely 2 flights each, per week. We fear that with no adjusted contingency training plan, we will be out in Malaga for the best part of a year, with the summer easyJet induction looking, more likely by the week, to be out of our grasp. Pretty much every cadet out here is filled with complete uncertainty and a lot of frustration and I myself and quite a few cadets are now seriously considering leaving and picking up ATPL training elsewhere. I will update you as things progress, but as it currently stands I see the setup of the Malaga base as a complete and utter failure and the treatment of the cadets from CAEs side has been absolutely horrendous. I will of course update on any progression, but from cancelled meetings with no communication, to blatant lies about what to expect, I have run out of words for how I can explain this situation.

hey,
Is there anyone in the training with whom I can exchange?

Sure happy to help

Not too dissimilar to another integrated cadet I spoke to at a recent airline assessment day. Was sent to USA for 3 months, no flying due to oversubscription and mass exodus of FIs to the airlines. Brought back to the UK, and then had their flight training subcontracted out to a smaller third party school in the south. Not great when you're spending all that money. With the flood of people looking to join the industry its becoming ever evident the schools aren't equipped to meet the demand. I keep my fingers crossed that it will improve, as at the end of the day, you are customers before anything else.

Is there a trust worthy FTO out there?
 

As I sat at a Crawley watering hole ( no alcohol available ) at lunch time earlier today and short distance from the CAE FTO facility and the L3 HARRIS centre not far away, a group of young people sporting shirts with CAE markings, other industry related lanyards and single bar epaulettes came and sat down at the table next to me.

With an historic interest in the likely process that they were engaged in, I was truly saddened to overhear of their experiences as they progress (or not!) at the hands of their FTO. This was an erupting volcano of frustration, venom, financial concerns, mental health implications, lack of respect/consideration - customer service? No prospect of a seamless progression through the programme they signed up to and paid for. It was clear that the credibility, capability and integrity of the employees and directors of relevant FTO's and its partner airline(s) is a disgrace and bordering on fraudulent - at least the highwaymen of old had the common decency to wear a mask!

The situation is more than graphically demonstrated with the apparent vague progression in their training at some unknown time and place in the future involving Phoenix/Malaga/Milan or FKW, FKW or FKH. Delays of months!! To make matters worse with the knowledge and participation of the involvement of their intended future employers that are equally slippery that carry the contract safety valve of 'nothing is guaranteed or set in stone” "Not my aisle” at its best.


Of course it invites the question as to how this situation impacts the operational needs, planning, budgeting and credibility of the partner airlines. Is this anyway to run a business? of course it is, no financial exposure!

For the students/cadets there is no viable opportunity to mitigate the resulting financial loss resulting from the uncertain future time line - should such a credible plan exist!! i.

Those present questioning the merits of walking or needing to walk away.

Who am I? I was that banker for one with similar aspirations (realised!!!) prior to Covid - who just avoided such a lottery!!! and that was not without serious pain.

easyJet MPL
 

Hi all. I have a friend that has been through a UK based MPL programme but didn’t obtain their MPL license due to not completing base training. I was wondering if there is anyone else here in a similar situation to them or if anyone could shed some light on their situation?

They have an A320 type-rating but just no license. Is there any way for them to get their license, go to another airline or salvage the type-rating?

Any help is greatly appreciated :)

Hi Easy MPL cadets,

How long did you wait before passing stage 3 and getting a call from CAE to arrange a start date? Is the situation improving with the aircraft training in Pheonix yet?

Thanks in advance

Hi
Really interesting - My son has his stage 3 interview this month, and intends to start (if successful) after June 2025 onwards. Can I ask from your bad experience how long you anticipate finishing the course or perhaps when did you start the course? We are close to Gatwick and these comments fill me with real anxiety. I did phone them and they told me (as sales would accordingly) that the last section of cadets will go over by 3 months, but anticipate no delays starting mid 2025. Would really love your feedback if you have any left after your comments above. Many thanks

For me I didn't get a phone call, I got an email a few days before my Stage 3 with a list of dates and asked to shortlist, then if you pass they'll follow up with an email with all the documents a week or so later and once they are all in place (signed and class 1 sent over) you get a confirmed space on that specific course date. Hope that helps

Could you explain a little the circumstances around this? Assuming your friend completed every part of the course apart from the EZY base training, do you know why this was?

easyJet is now hiring fresh modular students. The last bastion of refusing to hire modular students in the UK has fallen - if that doesn't tell you something about what's going on at CAE, who was surprised to provide easyJet's cadets, then I don't know what will. easyJet exhausted CAE's supply, seems to have exhausted the integrated / tag supply too... Details (and I don't know what the refresher training rubbish is):In order to standardise your previous experience, you’ll need to complete a short refresher training programme which includes; 8 hours of ground school, 4 hours in a cockpit mock-up and 3 full-flight simulator sessions. You must pass this in order to proceed onto your A320 Type Rating.

Both the Refresher Training and A320 Type Rating will be self-funded - further details will be provided during Assessment Centre.
Requirements of the Role
For your application to be progressed, you must have:

• The right to live and work in the UK with unrestricted access across the easyJet network
• Valid UK CAA CPL
• Valid UK CAA IR
• UK CAA Class 1 Medical
• No more than 5 ATPL exam resits
• Completed A-UPRT training
• Normal standard APS MCC qualification
• No more than 20 hours of remedial flight training
• Minimum ICAO Level 4 English
• Must not have attended an easyJet Assessment Centre for a pilot role within the last 6 months

In addition to the above requirements, you must also meet the following dependant on your previous experience:

If you have completed training, but have no operating experience: You must have completed pilot training no earlier than 31st December 2021.

Unless this was very recently then I imagine it’s due to the same reasons as previously that the airline dumped the students on their program during the pandemic. The ATOs were even less helpful in transferring licenses or completing courses. Plenty of information online about that.

Hi, so to be blunt… the CAE sales/ Customer Service teams are nothing other than utter liars, frauds if you will. As you said, they will say everything to get you to sign up to paying them… even when their company has no ability to provide the services offered.

Like NepoBaby001, I am also a CAE student in one of the 4 classes forced to Malaga. CAEs management are simply not fit for purpose. They seem to have willingly sacrificed our 4 classes in the hope of making it ‘look’, on paper, that there are no delays… they can claim that all classes that should be in the core phase are, even though the 4 classes in Malaga are basically doing F*** all, except wasting money on accommodation and missing potential income.

Optimistically, the delays felt by the courses now would hopefully mean that by time your Son would get to this phase, the delays are gone and CAE have managed to sort themselves out. My personal opinion, unless they sack and replace their entire management team and every decision maker involved in the Malaga shambles, things will never improve.

The easyJet MPL is a massive selling point I know, and I hope your Son does well. However with the UK airlines willing to hire Integrated cadets straight from Flight school now, I’d honestly say look elsewhere.

Some questions about your experience
 

Hi, I am very interested in easyJet MPL with CAE too but I have many concerns and I am a bit worried...
How was your experience in the end? Did you get the job with easyJet directly or did you have to pass any selection?
Would you recommend this course to someone else?
How long did it last?

I found some opinions of people who got their job offer cancelled or who had some unplanned stop during the training and other bad experiences.
I am considering this option because I need a secure job after the training but someone says it's just marketing, and the job is not guaranteed.

Do you also know if there is any funding possibility and how does it work for the payment?
Thank you in advance for your help, I appreciate any recommendation!

Hi Tia, did you apply in the end? how it was?
I am very interested in easyJet MPL with CAE too but I have many concerns and I am a bit worried as I read horror stories
In case you applied and passed, How was your experience in the end? Did you get the job with easyJet directly or did you have to pass any selection?
Would you recommend this course to someone else?
How long did it last?

I found some opinions of people who got their job offer cancelled or who had some unplanned stop during the training and other bad experiences.
I am considering this option because I need a secure job after the training but someone says it's just marketing, and the job is not guaranteed.

Do you also know if there is any funding possibility and how does it work for the payment?
Thank you in advance for your help, I appreciate any recommendation!

Hi all, I've got my easyJet MPL assessment coming up next week with CAA. I'm trying to decide with this course, or going modular - cheaper, faster & I could keep working alongside.

Any updates on the CAA MPL delays from anyone currently on the course?? Have things improved this year?

As someone currenly in completing the core phase, unfortunately the experience in PHX hasn't been amazing, even despite it supposedly having been 'fixed'. There's been inconsistent communication, inconsistent training (I've sometimes had 3 weeks of sitting around between missions, and have currently only completed 1 flight and 0 sims since the 14th April) and it seems they rely very heavily on ramping up at the end of the training phase, instead of maintaining consistency throughout the course. Despite this, we are looking at leaving on time in the not too distant future, or at least within a week of that date. The good thing about the course is that even if you feel you're behind, a week of a decent amount of missions really changes the outlook due to the limited number of mission required to complete. But be warned, you WILL be sitting around a lot in the fair weather location, so make sure you find something fun to do otherwise it will become mind-numbing quickly, and there is very little you as a cadet can do to change how quickly you get through the training, apart from just putting the work in at home. One thing I must say as well is that a lot of cadets are coming out at the moment, and it seems like they're struggling to maintain good ratios between students/instructors - they had to use F2 instructors to teach F1 students so they can maintain their 1 mission a week requirement for the course, at the expense of some F2 missions (think I lost 3/4 missions because of this policy). It seems to have improved in recent weeks (maybe caused by licencing issues, but again wouldn't really know due to communication issues), so that may not be a problem when you're out here.

The groundschool phase is run very well, can't really fault it, and I have heard that the sims are run well as well, but I shall report back when I get to that stage.

Thanks very much for the info Gilly. I guess as long as you're leaving on time, it doesn't really matter about the delays.
Yes please keep us updated. I have my assessment soon. The easyJet MPL taking 2years vs 3 years makes a huge financial difference for me.

Isn't the whole point of these MPL (and integrated) courses that they're supposed to be more streamlined? You pay a higher price for a better product? All I seem to read is how people on these courses are flying once a month etc..

I flew twice a day at flight school. How badly managed must these places be to screw up the process of what is essentially printing money. All you need is planes, instructors and decent weather, or am I missing something?

100% agree rudestuff.

When I started my training nearly 50 years ago I was flying twice a day, flying training requires CONSISTENCY. Maybe 3 or 4 times per week but 1 or 2 per month what a farce and some of these post are out in sunny PHX where you don't have to worry about the vagaries of the British weather. Ground school is easy to control as everybody knows where they are for 6-8 months but it's the flying phase that usually causes the problems (aircraft & instructor availability etc.).

When I was an ATPL ground instructor at the good old OATS back in 1999 a full-time UK based integrated course was approximately 55 to 60 weeks. I know there have been changes & various add-ons with JAA/EASA but really anything over 15-18 months needs serious questions asked. I believe that these schools are over extending themselves, too many students (bums on seats = cash) & not enough correctly licensed instructors.