Originally Posted by
ThunderstormFactory
Will Qantas ever hire directly onto their 737s? Or do they always have enough supply from their SO ranks?
Last time around new hire SOs were told 737 slots in some bases would be available immediately upon joining the company during the application process. When they started employment they were told to bid for the 737, and then were awarded slots straight away, so they never did any training for their assigned SO aircraft.
There’s a legal/industrial thing with the award preventing direct hire FO at the moment, but that process works in practice to basically make it so.
Feedback from trainers was pretty much all of these quasi direct entry FOs had substantial jet or heavy turboprop experience immediately prior to joining, so training them to RHS on a 737 was much easier than a 10-20 year SO.