Taking it WAY too literally! Of course they’ll open up recruitment again before they’ve completely exhausted the hold file. However. Suspect next time they’ll open it up when their are less on hold than they did this time. Of course they also got snookered because the intake courses basically halved in size due to training capacity. So it seems they could have held off a few extra months before starting again in 2018 but didn’t know that at the time.
I was being a smartarse ...... mostly. Your post below reflects a competent and forward looking recruiting process. I don’t think Qantas will ever have difficulty recruiting pilots.
I see the challenge being the constant feeding of the entry level positions within the group (Dash 8 etc.). Regarding Alans cadet schemes - The fruit of his loins will take years to flower, and produce mini-Alans in pilot uniforms. He’ll be gone when the real shortage appears in Oz. His successor will find themselves saddled with a pilot problem, along with a massive requirement for CapEx on new aircraft.
Cheers
Personally I’d do it differently by leaving it open and then every two months or so re-ordering the priority of who I want to look at based upon new or updated applicants but being up front with each individual that we aren’t going to be looking at you for (perhaps) 6 months. But I don’t run pilot recruitment.