RAFCARS & Managed Path

[stunter&bunter]

Hi there fellow military chaps!

How's RAFCARS / Managed Path working for you? Anyone been successful with BA selection recently and had any news about how their start date will dovetail into their exit from the RAF/Navy/AAC? Things seem to be slowing a bit due to BA retirement age going up in Oct last year, but with the Managed Path advert only just closed again (2nd Jan?) I guess they're still interviewing - just wondering if they're still hiring and if so, who's had any luck recently?

Toodle Pip!

[demobcurious]

Went recently (this last summer). RAFCARS/Managed Path didn't appear to do anything from the RAF side, on the BA front it let me go to interview with up to 2 years to go, even if I hadn't had a medical and ATPL. No 'benefit' after getting a shot at interview of course, but you tell them when you're available to start and they'll give you a formal job offer with a couple of months to go that date if you've been successful/lucky.

Virgin seem to be hiring mainly type-rated guys at the moment with a few others being kept swimming in the hold pool.

BA are hiring only for short haul (or the 757/767 fleet if you're lucky), long haul seems to have dried up for new arrivals as the 777 gets more popular with people on internal postings bids. That may change again though as it looks as though they may have finally sorted out their pension deficit problem which allows them to buy more aircraft if they want too - and apparently they want to! Good news for people applying to start in 6-12 months time.

I haven't heard of RAFCARS helping with any of the other airlines, it's the applications you send out that do the most work ;)

I kept annual leave, applied successfully to carry over some of the unused stuff from the previous year, used resettlement time and terminal leave and was left with a pretty big window to work out a start date overlap/world travelling experience (about 4 and a half months).

Hope that's of some use. Good luck!

[stunter&bunter]

Thanks for that ! So have you started with BA and if so when did you start & how long were you in the pool?

[demobcurious]

Yep, now with BA. I applied almost fully 2 years in advance and got an interview quite quickly (which kinda caught me by surprise, far too used to the RAF way of man managment I suppose :O ). I had to wait over a year after that to get a sim check as I was told that it had to be within 12 months of 'start date' (ie exit date from RAF). I did the sim check with around 9months to go to my exit date.

The job offer only came when I was given a course (that's pretty standard - they won't commit in case there's a sudden drop in the market in which case you're also dropped. Welcome to the civvie world early on!), and they were pretty flexible about when I could start. In the end, as I wanted long haul and the 777 slots were drying up I got in as soon as I could and got approval to start work whilst on terminal and annual leave, well before my exit date from the RAF. In other words, I wasn't so much in a hold pool waiting for them to call me, more in contact to find a good start date. I'm not the only person to find the recruiters pretty helpful like that - once the selection's been completed!

[Projecting GAP]

Joined RAFCARS end of 05 and received the May 05 newsletter. No information since! I leave this year and from what I can see it's up to you to find a job as nothing linked to RAFCARS has materialised. However, I did get my application into BA before 2 Jan which was for RAFCARS members only so being a member helped in that respect - no interview date yet though!

Good luck and I'd be interested if anyone in RAFCARS has actually been contacted by any airline within a year to their exit date?

[wobble2plank]

I also got my interview with BA through RAFCARS.

Just a bit of info, if applying through the 'normal' BA web page you cannot go through the process without a valid CPL/ATPL licence number. That particular step has been removed for the RAFCARS process allowing us to apply without them.

Interview was fine, quite a laugh actually and from my 12 possible interviewees all three military boys (2 helo, 1 Herc) got job offers.

System works and BA does seem to like the ex-mil boys.

Good Luck
W2P

P.S. The electric jet is quite nice and quite good fun to fly! At least the coffee is always reasonably warm :-)

[stunter&bunter]

Thanks for that guys and congrats to those have started with BA and kept BA's opinion of ex-mil pilots high... I'm mainly wondering who was the last person to have actually be given a start date / contract off BA of late (and when)? Previously over the last couple of years I understand that people were hardly in the pool for more than a month before getting an offer, but I believe currently that doesn't seem to be the case as there seems to be a freeze on courses at the start of 2007....(And yet they're still interviewing / giving people sim rides at the moment...!?).
So if any ex-mil types who are currently with BA on the Airbus can find out any info from the Trg Captains re. courses in 2007 that would be really helpful...

Cheers all!

[120class]

I spoke to BA HR today and they have little visibility on courses beyond the end of the FY which are at the moment almost exclusively Short Haul.

They expect to know more about the rest of 2007 by Mid Feb.

Cheers

[Dan Winterland]

Good to hear RAFCARS is finally working. I joined about 6 years ago and for the 18 months I was in, not a suasage from anyone. In fact, until I read this thread I hadn't heard of anyone who got a job through it - apart from the chap who set it up that is!