Hi Guys,
Some
even more up to date information for you!
I'm currently on a course at EMA. My course is this years course number four, which has seven initials on it. When we get our wings five of us are for LTN, two for STN.
We're training at the moment with course number six, which has seven people for LGW.
There is also a MAN course running, which started on the same day (Jan 28th), which I would estimate has around 10 people on it! Not sure which course number that is though!
Our trainers said that the first course of the year started a week before ours, January 21st, and I believe that was a LGW course!
If it helps you to compare your situation with mine, my assessment day and interview was held in late November.
So, with all that out of the way, here's what’s happening this year!
Day one is 'hello', and paperwork day. For an airline that is apparently striving to be paperless, there is an incredible amount of form filling to be done!
Getting to know the others on the course is great fun. It’s clear that we have a really diverse group, which is nice because there is a load to talk about. On my course (LGW, STN and LTN combined) the ages range from 18 - 45, there are 10 girls and 4 boys, 2 previous flyers, several nationalities, and loads of different backgrounds!
For us, the 1st three days have been customer service and Health and Safety orientated. We spent a lot of time on Friday in the 757 cabin mock-up practising services and customer service.
We have the weekend off, and Monday is an assessment day of all we learnt last week. This will be a practical exam, and is the first exam we will have had.
Other people's posts have covered a lot, so I'm just going to highlight any differences to this years running order etc...
Firstly, initials no longer fly to the USA, regardless of what base they are at and what type of aircraft they are checked on. Therefore, visas are not required, and the day that would have previously been used for that purpose is now a home study day.
This year there have been no workbooks sent through the post, instead just a letter with your username and password for the Britannia training web site. Please don't underestimate the time needed to study this web site and understand it!
The accommodation is great, the only sad thing is that they have split us up according to base, which is a shame, as its clear already from the training that there is a great deal of competition and bad attitude between bases. We're all staying at Ramada Jarvis hotels, just different ones around the area. I can only speak for ours, which is fantastic! Lovely food, great rooms (shared with one other person), and great service.
Our hotel is just less than 10 miles from the training centre, and you do have responsibility for making your own way to and from the hotel. Having said that, there are more of us who drive than those who don't, and no one is left without a lift. We were all car sharing by the evening of day one!
The trainers really are fantastic, and clearly want you to succeed, but were explaining to us that due to cut backs etc, much of the course has been shrunk down to the minimum possible time. For that reason its vital that everyone revises prior to the course starting and again in your own time during the course, as they just don’t have the time to cover everything anymore.
If you've got any questions, feel free to ask! Let us know when you hear anything! Where have you asked to be based?
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Ian, I'll tell you about my assessment day, which was in late November...
It started, I believe, at 9am. Get there early if possible. I noticed that although there were 39 candidates, only 8 of us got through to interview in the afternoon. Of those that got through, the highest sequence number was 14! I don't know how many of the 8 of us were given jobs though.
The day started with us being split into small groups of 13 people, and taken to a training room with two cabin managers.
We were given a sheet of paper with 10 random questions on, i.e. "What is your favourite food?” and "What is the most embarrassing thing you have ever done?” We then had to take it in turn to ask a random person in the room any question we wanted, and write their answer on a sheet of paper with their name on it stuck onto the wall.
After a while of doing that we were each handed another sheet of paper which had 10 things passengers look for in a holiday, i.e. "Comfortable aircraft seats", "Cheap prices", "Presentable cabin crew", "Good on-board food" etc. We had to personally prioritise them. Number ‘1’ being the most important, ‘10’ – the least. We were then given 10 minutes to come up with a group order, which had to be unanimous.
A tip for that is to remember that the cabin managers really do not care in the slightest what order you or the group come up with, they are looking at how you listen to other people's views, present your own views, persuade or reason with people, and your ability to face up to the fact that people may disagree with you, and you may have to change your mind!
The final activity was to pick a retail item from the SkyStore magazine, and write a PA to sell it to customers. Britannia place an incredible amount of importance on their on-board sales, and they are currently ranked 6th in the world as an airline for their on board retail revenue, so this is important!
After listening to every PA, you have to take turns in convincing the group that your PA was the best, and the group again have to nominate a winner.
Once again, the trainers do not care who wins, they look to see how you reason, persuade and listen to others!
After this everyone is given a short break whilst the trainers chat to each other about the group performance, and set up the maths test.
Then everybody sits the maths test, which is hard! I can't stress to you enough how important it is to download and print the sample maths test from the internet, and learn it. The test they give you is virtually identical to the one you will sit on the assessment day! Remember, you have 20 questions, and 20 minutes. 10 questions are non-calculator questions.
Then everyone goes for a break, which is quite welcome at that point!
After around half an hour the trainers come back and deliver the news of who is staying for the afternoon interviews, and who is going home. You are split into two groups and given the news in separate rooms. It struck me that the people who got through were not the loud ‘look at me’ type, on my assessment day they were all young, I was the oldest at 20! (though as I said, on my training course there are a few considerably older people), I think they were the people that listened to others, gave feedback to others, used eye contact, and admitted when they were wrong. Also, not all the girls were gorgeous, a couple were larger, and had really fantastic personalities.
Those who are staying are given half an hour for lunch, and then the interviews begin. A different cabin manager, and a senior cabin crewmember interviewed me. It was a very standard interview, which covered the usual questions about customer service and home life, and lasted around half an hour.
Everyone was very nice, relaxed, and did their best to put you at ease!
Any questions, just ask!
FJW.
