I’d like to share my own experience with their recruitment process—hopefully it’ll help others.
Step 1: Online interview A short chat to check your English level. They’ll ask random questions just to see if you can express yourself clearly and understandably in English.
Step 2: Full-day assessment (three parts)
- Part 1: Eagle/Capacity Test
A timed, stress-induced exercise where you must monitor multiple parameters without losing situational awareness. Practicing the online version beforehand will definitely help—you don’t have to be perfect, but you must stay on top of things even when stress spikes.
- Part 2: Group exercise
In my session we tackled the LIN–LHR sector 3 flight of the day, with an injured cabin-crew scenario. You’re given various pieces of information and have 20 minutes to agree on a safe, efficient solution as a team. At the end, you present a brief debrief.
- Part 3: Pilot + HR interview
The pilot interviewer was very relaxed—he wanted to gauge my motivation for joining, my ability to handle the workload, and my suitability for several hours of crew interaction. Key areas: motivation, non-technical knowledge, and interpersonal skills. The HR interview was competency-based (focusing on how you’ve cared for customers and colleagues), and the interviewer probed my answers quite hard—at one point I genuinely thought I’d blown it!
Step 3: Simulator session If you pass the day-long assessment, you’re invited back for a sim—usually on an A320, but more often on an A380. You get a briefing pack in advance. They’ll evaluate:
- Crew coordination & decision-making, e.g. handling a non-screened bag that forces a diversion to the nearest suitable airport.
- Navigation accuracy, including VOR-to-VOR tracking and procedural SID/STAR compliance.
- Manual flying skills, with no autopilot and no autothrust—pitch and power settings must be precise. (If you come from Boeing, power management will feel familiar, but the handling is different.)
The sim isn’t scored in isolation; it’s combined with your interview and group-exercise performance to produce an overall result. Excelling in the sim can boost a borderline performance earlier in the day, but not necessarily vice versa.
That’s my two cents—good luck!