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CPL/IR ("frozen ATPL") and Integrated versus Modular (DIY)

Following this and this and [insert the next FTO which will go bust with 7 digits of students’ money] I’ve been asking around how this business works.

Integrated is the “100k FTO route”.
Modular is the DIY route where you fly as a private pilot and get a PPL, IR, CPL, and sit the 13 “ATPL” exams.

It appears that

  • Easyjet will take only integrated. Modular ended at covid-time. I am told this applies to women too, who previously could get in Modular via the ~10% quota.
  • Ryanair will take only integrated unless you do well on the simcheck.
  • Modular applicants not favoured unless been working as FI or similar.
  • Wizzair may take Modular but are a sh*t airline to work for.
  • All (in the UK, at least) Integrated FTOs demand a defty deposit, and advance payments thereafter, so no way to protect from bankrupcy even if you are willing to forego the prepayment discount.

It doesn’t look good. You have to pay ~100k to get your CPL/IR (nicely labelled “frozen ATPL” but it isn’t an ATPL at all; in Europe you get an ATPL after 500hrs RHS bum on airliner seat time) but if you went DIY you could do it for far less.

It’s been suggested that airlines are concerned about logbook forgery, which is impossible in Integrated, but it takes only minutes to spot check a private pilot’s logbook with FR24, FA, or google. Not to mention airport logs if you really feel you need to dig around.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The big airlines like it because they get a very standardised, procedure driven product that they can stick in the right seat of an A320 with little training risk – the latter stages of sim and base training are really expensive. Basically all the training and financial risk is preloaded into the pipeline at the students (parents often!) risk. Eventually I think some more subsidisation will have it come but market forces mean there are many still willing to pay themselves.

Posts are personal views only.
Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

With the pilot shortage intensifying, the “rules” will probably be relaxed. On top of that, the now (more or less mandatory) APS MCC training and exam gets both training routes to similar level.

EHRD, Netherlands

Peter wrote:

It’s been suggested that airlines are concerned about logbook forgery, which is impossible in Integrated, but it takes only minutes to spot check a private pilot’s logbook with FR24, FA, or google. Not to mention airport logs if you really feel you need to dig around.

Well, and it’s been suggested by the others that when an airline demands an integrated cadet (often from a few specific schools), then there is a reason to suspect payments either to some people in the airline or the company itself (“consultancy” or “assessment of the FTO if it adheres to the airline’s high standards”).

EGTR

While am not aware of European schools with the scale of ATP and Embry Riddle in the USA, there is a certain scale factor which establishes a link with airlines. Some cadet programs might be for a thousand cadets. In addition the MCC/JOC/APS phase tends to use better simulators at the large schools, in certain cases, even full motion type rating simulators. The MPL courses might have 100 hours of multi crew CAT Jet simulator time in the course, and the airline pays for the type rating.

Given the operating model of the typical ATO I might suggest any consultancy fees would flow to the ATO :) if they indeed exist.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

This begs the question: how does one justify the HUGE difference between ~40k and ~100k when both get you the same papers: a CPL/IR and 13 exam passes.

The counter argument to the “uniformity” argument is that the students will be staying together in some local hotel and will do their assignments together. I’ve seen it, at Bournemouth. 20 of them all sit together and obviously they all get top marks. It is true that they still learn (in the same way that swatting up a question bank does still have learning value; actually quite a high value if the candidate is intelligent and understands the topic a bit) but since they are practicing thinly disguised EASA exam question banks, no wonder they get 95%, unless they are stupid

Whereas a DIY student will not be getting help from anybody, except during the week or so sitting in some hotel at Luton, and if he/she is a bit older (very likely) the hotel isn’t likely to be the same one in which the “youngsters” are staying in for months. And the DIY student will have considerable experience in, ahem, flying, whereas FTO students will have near-zero experience of actually going somewhere.

And flight training will be the same.

Back to my question above, the answer is probably that classroom teaching is hugely lucrative. The students pay a lot of money to sit in a room (costs almost nothing) to listen to some guy (costs very slightly more than almost nothing).

I doubt there are backhanders involved but the guys in charge all know each other quite well

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

@Peter if the modular student has a Silver in gliding they also save around £5k on the CPL hour building, I think the Silver in gliding credits you with 30 hours PIC for the CPL. Typically the cost at gliding clubs is around £20 an hour. Gliding clubs and gliding experience is valued on CVs, partly because of the team building, community nature of gliding in addition to the flying skills.

Training captains tend to say that after two hundred hours on the line the modular, integrated and MPL FO fly to a similar standard, but it does imply there are differences in the first two hundred hours. Arguably MPL and Integrated training produces pilots who know how to learn, adapt to, understand and apply SOPs. On the MPL expectation is that they are word perfect on SOPs/Flows/Checks when they start LOFT.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

I thought only TMG hours gave you 30 hours towards the CPL and gliding hours counted for nothing (I could be wrong with the later so it would be nice to know)

Interestingly TMG hours can count in full towards the FI rating. Which if they also have 30 hours on SEP allows them to teach on SEP.

I know people have done this ‘cheaper’ route to build hours for the CPL.

Last Edited by Bathman at 28 May 10:44

IMHO You could always tell the ones with modular/ previous experience/ glider pilots because they could hand fly the aircraft during line training, rather than just press buttons and say the right words.

Last Edited by PeteD at 28 May 13:21
EGNS, Other

From here

The basic problem is that the natural business career progression for a certain type of personality is

stealing garden equipment → gambling → stolen car disposal → double glazing → cavity wall insulation → loft insulation → estate agent → running a flying school → running an FTO and collecting millions

and you can’t legislate against that.

I think the intention is to make a law which applies to all education (nobody will be interested in protecting wannabe airline pilots) and which limits the maximum % deposit.

That will reduce FTO operating funds and will drive many to bankrupcy, because they are basically running a ponzi scheme, but in the long run will be better for all.

Of course this scam is nicely supported by airlines preferring Integrated to Modular, especially as Modular can be done for well under half the money

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
63 Posts
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