In full:“Pay-to-fly” (P2F) or “self-sponsored line training” are aviation industry practice whereby a professional pilot flies an aircraft on a regular revenue-earning flight – as any other qualified crewmember – but instead of receiving a salary he/she pays the airline for the flight hours. Usually, these flight hours are part of the ‘type rating’ – a standard in-house training course on a specific type of aircraft – which is part of every pilot’s professional career...

With Europe’s aviation employment market being largely saturated and only few jobs on offer, an increasing number of training schools and airlines sell these flight hours through P2F contracts. The ‘cost’ of these hours is deducted from the pilot’s (usually very low) salary and in most cases equals or even exceeds the salary. Ironically, this means that this young pilot is the one on board who pays most for his/her seat...