At least the French aknowledge the fact that Airline pilots with an ATPL should be given equivalent official degrees, in this case a degree between Bachelor and Master, or the equivalent of the former "'Licenciate" or 4 academic degree.

ATPL also is equivalent to Master in Spain by the way.
At the moment,min Belgium, a frozen ATPL is equivalent to Bachelor ('3 year degree), plans are to allow Full ATPL and Captain on Commercial aircraft a Master equivalent.

This is a fair comparison due to the constant studying, testing and improving required in the Profession.

And those "colleagues" that are against this...get a life and learn to support your profession:ugh::mad:

I have done 4 years of Maritime Academy ( Master in Nautical Sciences) but I can honestly say that I Have never had to study as much as for the 14 ATPL subjects and thereafter the ( paid by airline) Typerating...

No, it is not.

I did both, granted in a time where one did not just has to learn the questions and correct answers by heart:ugh:.

A typical degree in the UK (Geography at a London Uni)now only offers around four hours per week of tuition. This only amounts to around 120 hours per academic year.
My last type rating groundschool involved a similar amount of tuition over a three week period!

I had 1200 hours of ground school for the theory part only, plus around 500h. Total for briefings/debriefings and flying.

Plus Jet Conversion/MCC 40 hours sim plus 30 hours brief/debrief plus 50 hours classroom.

Typerating: 150 theory, 60 h. Sim, 45 h. Brief/debrief.

And this is without constant studying, upgrade courses etc etc...

At least 2000h. Of FORMAL TRAINING, MUCH MORE INTENSIVE THAN AT UNIVERSITY before your first job.

At university, you get MAXIMUM 800h. Of formal training per academic year, at a much slower intensity.

Those ridiculizing an ATPL have no idea and most probably are those who just studied the questions and answers without proper study of the content:=

BULL.

We are trained to execute a flight in a safe and economical way, and to counter any situation with the correct solution to ensure a safe result.

The "driving" part ( and will you British please stop comparing flying with driving:ugh:) is only a small part of the operation.
If you were a Captain on a Commercial Jet working for an Airline, you would know that by the way.

I live to fly, it is my passion!!!. We are drivers nothing more nothing less.

Withmthat attitude, you have no place in Commercial aviation, let alone as a Pilot in Command.:rolleyes: live to fly or not, first mature and start realizing that being flightcrew involves more than handling a machine. Ever heard of Airmanship, Operation Management and Company Representative ?!
Bet not. You have never flown in your life.:rolleyes:

Yes, the truth is a hard pill to swallow. But today's pilots are just glorified bus drivers. Long hours, low pay. You have the pay 2 work guys who are so desperate with mummy and daddy's money, pulling the industry down, to the levels of monkey intelligence. :D

despegue ( Spanish for take off ) I am sorry but face facts with increased automation and a willing stream of pay to fly morons the supply and demand curve is not in our favour.


Too many drivers equals lower terms for those pilots on new contracts. Veuling and new easyjet,Ryanair,flybe contractors and employees etc can vouch for that. Anyone for the new reduced Porto contracts at easyjet....why only new entrants.


Change your moniker to Desperate ( English for extremely bad or intolerable )

Despegue has a point. Very interesting to see how easy it is to disparage flying as a profession and then come up with the time honoured 'bus driver' cliches. Yet somehow thousands are apparently beating down ctc's door to become pilots. The industry is undoubtedly in a dreadful state but it is too easy to denigrate the application and yes, study required for a successful career. It would be unfair to compare an EASA ATPL course with a Cambridge University engineering degree but the ATPL is not negligible. The skills required of an airline pilot are not exclusively academic.

I did both a bsc and now hold a full ATPL. Yes you work hard for an ATPL but you are pretty much spoon fed everything from day 1. A degree maybe hold less direct contact, but you are expected (at least at my university) to go out after class and find out everything else. I'm sorry but an ATPL is nothing like the difficulty (and required self discipline) of a proper university degree.

despegue, where did you hear an ATPL course in worth a bachelor in Belgium ? As far as I know it's worth nothing :confused: Id love to change mine for a bachelor :}

Although having done both degree and ATPL courses, my experience of both is unfortunately from long ago.

I personally found the degree course much more difficult from a perspective of the level of mathematics (it was engineering based) but the ATPL although easier technically, and over more skillsets, plus the constant noise of reaching a particular standard to avoid the dreaded chop constantly humming in the background made the ATPL tougher mentally.

That said the degree just about edged ahead on overall difficulty

That was years ago.

In recent history, both have changed. Both have now moved away from a genuine educational and learning process into something with financial gain at the core.

Germany has recently started crowing from the rooftops about how they have every university without student fees. This is a country, im sure even the most homeland loving German will admit, isnt perfect, however there is no doubt it is a nation that puts its trust in its achievers, and rewards its talent . The UK is in desperate need to follow this direction, not only in the educational sector, but also in Aviation.

The current model in aviation has been, on the whole, sub contracted out to third part "service providers" Its clear for most people to see, that with the current set up, the negatives to the industry as a whole far outweigh the positives

The practice of using finance as an additional filter to any process, be it a university degree course or a path to a virtually ringfenced area of work in aviation isnt fair and doesnt reward talent.

Subsequently big gains and advancements can be made to ensure those with the right talents end up in the most suitable careers. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Aviation in the UK

Manipulation of a course breakdown summary can tell one story, however there is no doubt that over paying for training then commencing work on an under salary is in essence "PTF under the counter" and is very prevalent in the UK industry. This is definately helping to drive everything downwards

Yeah , I'm pretty much willing to bet that I studied much harder for my bachelor's in mechanical engineering than you did for your 14 ATPL ground exams. But then again, I only went to Stanford University; so I'm sure the academic standards at Stanford weren't up to par with those of the fine flight training organization you attended....:ok:

Tripe,

Having both an Aero MEng and ATPL, I would be inclined to suggest flying theory is akin to GCSE/AS level. Most certainly not in the same league as degree.

It's an absolute joke thinking that you could get awarded a degree for holding an ATPL. If you want a degree go and find out what real studying is!

Agreed. The general dumbing down of education in the UK means everybody sees a degree as a bare minimum educational requirement.The ATPL theory has also been dumbed down over the last two decades.


Having no degree has not been something I regret, but if these youngsters need a piece of paper to boost their self esteem let them have it. It will mean nothing anyway.

John Smith

If the airlines are providing "training" then surely all the Captains with whom the "trainees" fly should be training captains. I do not believe this to be the case, therefore they cannot really be providing training. The newspaper the photographer was providing free photographs to was not required by legislation to have a qualified photographer providing it's photos, whereas all commercial aircraft are certified as minimum 2 crew. This seems to me to indicate that this requires someone doing a job, hence the need to be paid at least minimum wage.
Has there ever been a challenge along these lines on the legality of P2F?

It it easy to dumb down the description of any career if you really feel bitter enough or just cruel, for example.

Accountants are calculator operators
Barristers are just good at arguements
Some company CEOs liars?, to both employees and even sometimes shareholders as I seem to remember one very large company in hot water over profit predictions recently

Maybe pilots were more "skygod" years ago with rubbish auto pilot systems, less reliable aircraft and non precision approaches, but equally, they were much better rested, considerably less concentration of traffic, much better paid so less financial stress and had the respect of their company and colleges. All leading to a work environment with less external stressors which can only enhance safety.

Now days, you have tiredness(you can't call it fatigue as the duty is legal so you must have not managed your rest :E) financial pressures ie they have just closed your base and your living in a B and B while trying to move your family till they close your new base etc, close to maximum hours per year all in some of the busiest airspace in the world!

So really we are "new skygod", one that can be treated like poop, doesn't seem to need sleep, can operate to a high standard day in day out while under huge external stress ie redundancy or financial ie pay to fly and still smile and bring the pax home safe day in day out.

If the definition of this is driver, then I guess I'm a driver.

Ps I don't always smile.....

When pilots do line indoctrination at an airline, meaning the flights they do before obtaining their final line check, they have to fly with a pilot who is designated and qualified to provide line checks and who is normally is paid extra to do this.
Once the SIC is qualified on the aircraft and begins to fly with all line Captains, how can they still be considered "Second Officers" or "Junior First Officers" and get paid less then regular First Officers while they are performing the same tasks as First Officers ?