There is something wrong with a system where you can get a CPL/ME/IR for about 40k if you are smart, but it is pretty hard to get into an airline that way (the 10% female quota of say Easyjet being one handy exception) and most end up paying around 100k with the inevitable exposure to this which is clearly a dubious practice and anyone doubting that should take a look at the “adjustment” to their final Accounts 
If one is to ask how the hell does this weird system work, the answer has to be that the big jets are pretty easy to fly when you are two-up and have an experienced training guy in the LHS who makes sure you don’t crash. The machine itself has a fantastic performance and capability and that alone sweeps away most of the hazards which we routinely face in GA.
There has been an attempt here to push something through Parliament to stop stuff like the above Flying Time multi-million ripoff of hundreds of student parents’ money, but nobody thinks it will happen because it is so hard to legislate. It would have to be some general law applying to all training establishments which limits the size of the prepayment, as a max % of the anticipated overall cost. So e.g. the FTO would not be allowed to accept more than say 10k in advance. That would restrict their business model quite a bit, since they use the prepayments as cash flow…
good points
While €/£40k for a modular MEP/CPL/IR is in theory possible, especially if you use a Gliding club silver star for credit towards the CPL, in practice I expect it costs closer to £60k. The main value added of the well established integrated schools, in addition to the relationships with the main LCC, is probably a very decent and extensive MCC/APS programme using Type Rating SIMs. These are not really feasible in modular FNPT based budget MCC programs. There are other aspects mainly linked to business resiliency, which form significant barriers to entry.
A modular candidate can apply for the leading LCC, and they use a jet assessment as part of the selection process. The jet assessment can detect the quality of training and aptitude quite quickly. It is probable, like for like, the candidate that has 60 hours in a Type SIM with training captains from the same LCC, may have an advantage.
The leading LCC, as Mooney_Driver helpfully pointed out, has an excellent, possibly the best, safety record in Europe. A newly minted FO is expected to complete the flight safely following Captain incapacitation. I can assure you there is no soft pass into the RHS.
On the financial implication of a scam, the leading schools have staged payments. It also doesn’t take the brains of a bishop to figure out which schools form part of large multi billion civil and defence conglomerates, and which live hand to mouth with minimal business resiliency. Access to companies’ house accounts is free in the UK, and presumably sponsors investing £100k have the nous to do this.
I expect it costs closer to £60k
Sure – as with the PPL – being clever about it saves a lot of money. One can probably still do the PPL at some grass place with no landing fees, especially if your FI does it while nominally attached to some “proper school” elsewhere (the story in the book Propellerhead comes to mind – a 1980s account of exactly that). And approaches can be flown to Le Touquet, etc. The CBIR route, operated cleverly, can be pretty good.
The main value added of the well established integrated schools, in addition to the relationships with the main LCC, is probably a very decent and extensive MCC/APS programme using Type Rating SIMs
Having sat at one FTO at EGHH (probably long gone; this was 2011) for 3 days, I would expect my brain to be pretty well dead at the end of it, through banging my head against the brick wall outside their front door 
It also doesn’t take the brains of a bishop to figure out which schools form part of large multi billion civil and defence conglomerates, and which live hand to mouth with minimal business resiliency. Access to companies’ house accounts is free in the UK, and presumably sponsors investing £100k have the nous to do this.
You and I know this because we are or have been in business, but it looks like practically none of the punters do. Especially as probably the majority are foreign, from a very different culture, and the demand is driven by pressure on parents to fund it. Some FTA students lost £80k so they must have prepaid something close to 100%. Obviously they were offered a big discount for that because nobody would do it otherwise. But also below 4.8M turnover you get only the balance sheet which prob99 shows prepayments as just assets
I recently had a 20 year old apply for a job at work. He had just passed the ATPL exams on an integrated course, but not progressed to the flying training due to ‘a minor health issue’. He cancelled his interview so I never got the full story, but I would have thought schools would insist on a class 1 medical before providing any services.
I would be surprised if the average integrated ATPL course applicant even knew what Companies House was.
Peter wrote:
Sure – as with the PPL – being clever about it saves a lot of money. One can probably still do the PPL at some grass place with no landing fees, especially if your FI does it while nominally attached to some “proper school” elsewhere (the story in the book Propellerhead comes to mind – a 1980s account of exactly that).
Where you do your PPL does not matter one bit to the airlines. If you really want to safe money on that, you can do so particularly by flying your required hours to the CPL/IR minimas on as cheap an airplane you can find and then only start doing the MEP/IR/CPL. Going via BIR and then adding MEP/CPL/ATPL probably won’t do much difference either. IFR in a multi pilot cockpit is a very different thing than it is in a single GA plane.
What airlines want are people who are ready for that multi crew cockpit, who know CRM, who know how to operate in a team and with constantly changing crew mates and they also want people they can see are capable of command. They don’t hire first officers, they hire future commanders. The way people upgrade in some of those airlines gets you in the RH seat at 30 instead of 40 as it used to be.
Aeroclub PPL’s and IR’s have usually no clue how to operate a 2 man cockpit nor are they required to. That is why that part sets apart outfits who work from the outset to establish that kind of line oriented work environment. And that can be done from PPL level upwards if the training organisation has the right people as FI’s.
This would be addressed with a conversion stage.
The ex FTO output cannot fly anything anywhere really. It is the TR course which teaches them the RHS basics.
I am also not at all sure about
They don’t hire first officers, they hire future commanders
because they have plenty of time to wash out those who don’t make the grade.
Peter wrote:
I am also not at all sure aboutThey don’t hire first officers, they hire future commanders
because they have plenty of time to wash out those who don’t make the grade.
While I still was hopeful to make it one day, this is what was repeated to me in every single outfit I approached. To most airlines, the time a pilot spends as FO is considered akin an “apprenticeship” for the “real” job of Captain. Hence, even early on in the selections, they want to see how an applicant is doing with regards of decision making, whether he is capable of standing his ground, whether he is able to lead. That is the most important characteristic for an airline pilot, even during his time as FO. If they determine you are a lousy leader, you can ace all aviation related exams and still be washed out before they even think of allowing you into a type rating.
Once you are in, washout rates are low. And they don’t like to hire people who have a risk of being washed out. Type ratings cost a lot of money. Every pilot who fail one cost them serious amounts which they don’t want to risk. IMHO rightly so.
These things are next to irrelevant at PPL level, even though they are important by principle there as well. Integrity, personal ability to lead and stand their ground have a lot to do with accidents where people went flying because the airplane “had to be back” the passengers “had to reach their destination” or else…. if the or else manages to get pilots to cave in to taking potentially fatal risks, they cave in to pressures airline pilots should be very resistant against. If you want to talk about scams, then it is that on the entry level pilots who do not match these criterias are allowed to progress and finally get their licences, despite the fact that from their character point of view, they probably should not be flying at all.
OK but this is shifting the goalposts.
There is the is FTO training (the subject header) and there is airline recruitment.
I can tell you with 100% certainty that the FTO sausage machine will take in anybody even if they look pretty weird.
Airline recruitment is a different thing. Obviously I’ve never done it but have spoken to countless people from the system. To get in:
Then you will move straight past the other 90% in the queue.
So what happens to the other 90%? They are the ones the FTO should have “washed out” but they never will because they want the 100k And to be fair most of them will eventually get some job, possibly with a European twin TP operator (I had a really totally weird instructor who got that far; he had a CPL/IR when he was an FI) and often with some 3rd World operator.
There are also many would be airline pilots who have a dream and even if an FTO were to say that they had no chance of ever making the grade, will think “it’s my money, my choice and I’m prepared to pay for ypu to teach me to fly an airliner.”
They will keep going until they find an FTO who will take them.
For the FTOs/ATOs there is a line between getting a high proportion of students accepted into jobs and those that are just taking all the money they can get.
Anyone spending the sort of sums being talked about would do well to look first at schools who have the highest percentage of students getting jobs.
Airlines expect applicants to have been well trained (no matter what schooling) they put emphasis as Mooney says on the MCC training and instructors assessment.
The first interview with an applicant will be an assessment will be made as to whether or not they were a good fit for the company.
But they wont be the only one being interviewed and it will also depend on how many vacancies there are.
There are usually several interviews before a prospective FO ever makes it to a simulator.
The cost of flight training must have a weeding out effect, because in an article I read.ot was saying that there were some 90 applicants for each airline job.
I had to laugh because in my business there were usually hundreds of applicants for each job.
