Originally Posted by
Fujiroll76
6 vacant commands in Brisbane with no suitable candidates to fill these positions. No other choice but to go overseas and employ qualified pilots.
From what I’ve heard the company only have themselves to blame. There are Dash 200/300 FOs who have the seniority and total hours for commands, but lack the company aircraft hours (probably because they are only rostered for 10-20 hours flying per month!). They have successfully bid for the Q400, where they’d fly more hours per month (and achieve the require Dash hours), but the company won’t train them.
Also a bunch that are holding off applying for commands while they are going through the Qantas recruitment process. Seems to be a belief that more valuable pilots (potential Captains and C&T staff) have recently been knocked back to preserve required numbers.
Not saying it’s true, just what I’ve heard.
On a a side note, maybe Qlink need to chat to the people involved in the mass overseas DEC recruitment/training for Skywest/VARA ops a few years ago. There’s a good reason why Virgin aren’t turning to this solution again despite having a worse ATR Pilot shortage than Qlink.