Do airlines recruit any significant % of pilots from the private pilot population?

I think (although far from being an expert!), that in the US this is still the main route into an airliner cockpit. Don’t forget also, that now you need 1500 hours and an ATPL to act as co-pilot. Instruction and night freight seem still to be the route chosen by most, although as checks (cheques for the Brits) become less and less common, these night runs are also diminishing.

Not sure how you define the private pilot polpulation but I can share my experience from Swiss: they have an open position for “ab initio” (= no private pilot) but they do not accept any applications from pilots with licenses (which includes private pilots). At the same time Switzerland is going to pay 65k tax money per person willing to train as a pilot because “the pilot profession has lost a lot of people as the financial side is not appealing”. I have no idea what these people will do with their frozen ATPL and a loan of 60-70k more (that they have to pay themselves) in an environment where such pilots are not even considered for positions.

Excluding career instructors I would suggest a fairly high proportion of self improver fATPLs who enter the instructor ranks eventually secure a First Officer role. It may take a couple of years, sometimes more.

Not sure what the proportion of non integrated fATPL get a job straight from their MCC, perhaps around a third? I would treat the 95% hiring rate for integrated schools as requiring some verification, and understanding how their holding pools work.

There does seem to be more hiring across the industry with instructor turnover quite high at the moment.

In the US there are now even sign on bonuses for Part 121 ATP and unlike Europe the airline pays for the type rating.

I think the ATPL sausage-factories, in the UK at least, have done a very good job in convincing impressionable youngsters that an integrated course is the only way to go. They spend a lot on advertising and awareness campaigns – something that the non-integrated schools simply cannot match. It’s worth remembering that the integrated school also charge their students approximately double what it would cost at a non-integrated school.

I know quite a few airline pilots and the majority of them (that are not ex-military) have come up through the self-improver route. By taking this route, one is not going to walk into a job with British Airways or Virgin – which seems to be the holy grail for most – but almost every other UK or Ireland-based airline is possible. I don’t know the recruiting practices of other European airlines.

I think it is fair to say that for many whose goal is the right-hand seat of an airliner, general aviation is simply a stepping stone; they have no long-term ambitions in GA – which might be financially out of reach, old-fashioned and unattractive (perhaps not surprising given the state of the typical training fleet) or simply not attention grabbing enough for younger people – most 20-year-old’s won’t remember life before the iPhone.

In my opinion, the most vocal group seem to be the sausage-factory graduates that have not found the job of their choice. As with any other occupation, qualification does not entitle one to a job. Although this might seem harsh, some people will be inherently unsuited to a cockpit career, no matter which route they choose.

So the ATO ~ €100k package …

Our FTO still quotes in the order of 65k Euros for that package. One can further reduce the cost by doing the PPL either at a local flying club or at our EASA approved partner in Florida.

The ATO package doesn’t even include hour building…

There is no significant “hours building” necessary for an integrated ATPL course.

…it sounds like not many Europeans start as a PPL and end up in an airline.

That’s mainly a matter of age. The more decent airlines (the “pay-to-fly” ones care less because they are mainly interested in the money of their trainee pilots) have rather strict age limitations for direct entry pilots that are hard to meet by candidates who went the self-improver way, often after many years working in another profession.

But why are they so apparently so ignorant?

They are not! Spending 70k Euros for a 1 1/2 year professional training that will result in an income of 60k Euros in the first year of employment (which is about twice as much what a medical doctor gets paid in his first year in a hospital after 5 to 8 years of unpaid university study!) is a very smart move. If my son wanted to become a pilot (fortunately not!) this is exactly what I would suggest to him. Why should he work in trash jobs for years and years instead to finance his training and “hours building”, instructing for 8.50 Euros an hour (which is now the minimum wage in Germany, before that, flying instructors would not get that much) and then join the airline queue at the end behind all those 21-year old integrated ATPL trainees? That would be ignorant!

A subject that really gets my goat up.

A well known provider of atpl groundschool tells me that about 50% of all CPL issued come via the modular route.

I also do a little bit of fill in work and at modular col/IR school and I can tell u that our airline employment statistics over the last 10 years are cica 98%. With about a 25% dropping straight Into airline employment.

And looking at the ones that didn’t go to airlines 2 decided to remain instructors. Two had health problems and one wouldn’t be capable of holding a job down at MacDonald’s and a well known UK charter airline let him go because he couldn’t even turn up on time for his type rating.

Pretty well those that didn’t drop straight into a job had to do a stint in GA largley instructing but I can’t think of any body that had to do so for more than three years.

We also had a guy of 53 who secured a job with a UK regional turbo prop operator

All this “modular route is finished” is clap trap coming from the somwhat substantiall marketing departments of the integrated schools.

One kid I know well went to Ryanair last autumn. He spent 41500 in total and that included an instructor rating. He worked last summer as an instructor and went airline with 700 hours.

…and most airlines give seniority credit, some even 100%, to instructing hours. In addition to the hours helping unfreeze the ATPL the hours credit is helpful on the salary front.

It is cyclical, some airlines prefer integrated and there is schadenfreude (such an ugly feeling) to read of a 200 hour FO tail striking a 320.

I agree with w_n that if you have the cash for integrated and are likely to ace the course, then the NPV is attractive. It would be interesting to get statistics of how many integrated students make command, how many are career FOs. Recall a true MPL integrated you don’t even have a PPL.