It's a simple case of dislike for those who have had a relatively easy 'path' to airline industry than you and I did.
I wouldn't exactly call an extra $20k an "easy path," especially when you could get a job somewhere else and get the training for free.
As for as 'pay for training', anyone EVER, who didn't come through the military, PAID FOR TRAINING. When you've paid so much to get the CAX ME, CFI, etc., why not pay little more, if you could afford, and 'get in' quicker?
The problem is that if you are buying your training, you are a customer of the flight school. They profit from selling you flight training, and you profit from receiving it. In a PFT outfit, on the other hand, the company is profiting from you paying for flight training
and the revenue you help to generate by flying people or property for hire, and that just isn't right--You may profit from receiving flight training and experience, but you don't profit from the work that you do producing revenue by flying persons and property. It may look like a shortcut in the short run, but... well, I've come to looking at it like this: Flight time that you didn't pay for is like money in the bank. Well, not
like money in the bank, it
is money in the bank! You are "saving up" the ability to get a higher paying job in the future, whereas if you PFT, you are inhibiting your ability to earn money in the future because you have this now larger sum of money to pay back, and forgoing money that you could have earned by getting a non-PFT job.
How many of you on this board bought ME time?
I paid for exactly 6.7 hours of multi-engine time, just enough to get my commercial multi-engine. And you know, it hasn't really slowed me down that much. I was able to go to the airline that I wanted to go to because I had over 1000 hours and 100 multi engine. I paid my dues, at least for that level.
Would you buy 100 ME if it guarantees you A320 flying?
No. You can keep your A320s.
-Goose