Originally Posted by
KayPam
For example, the Air France cadet programme put people with less than 300 hours in the right seat of a medium jet.
However, 70% of them are educated up to master's degree and 70% of these master's degrees are specialized in aerospace engineering.
Lufthansa also does it. Easyjet also does it. British Airways also does it...
They get paid a decent salary. I can't speak for every airline but at ours, cadets will get 4000-4500 whereas experienced pilots with 1500 hours on heavy aircraft would get 15% more, that is 4600-5200. Actually, out of the 130-260k (depending on if you count direct or direct + indirect costs) that they cost to the airline, they will just pay back about 40k, in 5 years.
Success rates for the assessments are about 2-3%.
Even though there are requirements in the selection process specifically designed at reducing the number of "dreamers" who will apply randomly, there are still thousands of candidates.
I have been lucky to teach recently some AF cadets their basic phase single engine, and they have been some of the best students I have had the pleasure of teaching.
Which to me shows the importance of pilot selection at an early stage is vital to overall safety. (that being said, they still had the accident that dark night over the pacific)
Unfortunately across the world it is now a case of if you can pay for pilot training, you will be a pilot for someone, somewhere. I have seen all to often too many pilots that do it for the so called "prestige" off the back of the bank of mum and dad. What is equally as disappointing, is that many of this crop also fall out of love of flying early on, when the reality hits home of just how brutal this job can be on one's personal life, often they never realised just how unsuitable they were for the career.
Can you imagine if NATS in the UK took this approach towards ATC selection? I would say widely regarded as the best ATC in the world, partly due to its early stage selection and training process.